So, I have a long commute to and from work every day (about 40 mins there and 30 back, give or take 10 mins for traffic conditions) and I almost never listen to music, actually. But instead I listen to podcasts.
Here's a list of the Podcasts I lurve to listen to:
This American Life (from NPR) - weekly hour long shows on completely random but always fascinating topics. It's so good I can't even bring myself to delete the episodes from my iTunes after listening to them.
Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! (also NPR) - "The NPR news quiz game show" with a humorous slant. This show has yet to fail in the make-me-laugh-out-loud category. It's also a weekly hour long show. Informative and hilarious. My favorite game is where the "contestants" (comedians and newspeople like Mo Rocca) make up 3 implausible news stories (one of which is actually true) and a regular person caller has to guess which is the real news story.
RadioLab (also airs on NPR) - This is a really awesome science based show that picks a question or topic, interviews top scientists of the field on that topic, and presents that information in a un-dumbed-down but still wholly understandable way. Basically every episode gives you a deep "hunh" or "no way" or "brain melt" moment where everything you thought you knew about how the world and people work.....isn't exactly right.
Stuff You Should Know (from Howstuffworks.com which is owned by Discovery) - this podcast is kinda the halfway point between "This American Life" and "RadioLab" in that it looks at a seemingly random array of topics that are always totally fascinating and it applies science to break things down and explain it to you. Also, they are pretty funny. This is the podcast that got me addicted to podcasts.
Stuff Mom Never Told You (also Howstuffworks) - deals with issues pertaining primarily to young women and/or feminists and such. The "women's issues" podcast and deals with everything from "are men better at video games than women" to economic issue to sex & dating topics of interest. I'd say this is the first "be in the mood" podcast on the list. Whereas the ones above I will listen to anytime in any mood and get carried away by them, this one and the ones below are more every now and then podcasts, not back to back for hours podcasts.
Stuff You Missed in History Class (also Howstuffworks) - This is just what the title implies, a podcast on various history topics, preferably ones that are under-covered in regular history courses. They do do popular topics as well, and, unless you're already an expert in the subject, they'll give you more and new interesting info. Sometimes the podcast can be a little dry, but generally, it's very interesting and they often have really fun topics. They just did one on Jewish Pirates and another on Women Pirates and they've got lots of series on Monarchs that are really interesting.
A Way With Words (NPR again) - This is definitely not a podcast for all or for continuous listening, but my pedantic self really enjoys it. :) It goes into the etymology of words and phrases, mostly they have callers that say "my grandma used to say such and such and where did that come from" or "my wife and I argue of the correct meaning/pronounciation of X". I love that kind of stuff.
WireTap (with Jonathan Goldstein) (from CBC Radio...aka Canadian NPR) - This is such a funny clever unique show. It's about Jonathan and the quirky conversations he has with his crazy friends, their misadventures, and sometimes really interesting short fiction stories. It's one Danny and I were addicted to listening to on the actual radio, when I was still in WA.
This one is only at the bottom of the list because as far as I can tell all the podcasts are reruns that I've heard before. I haven't gone through them all yet, though.
I also have a bunch of language podcasts, but I've yet to get myself to listen to them. Basically, I downloaded a ton of them a couple years ago and haven't returned to them since. I've been meaning to get around to those, since I think it'd help if I actually want to get a handle on French/Japanese. But there are literally HUNDREDS of episodes of the above podcasts that are so......more fascinating.
I'm almost up to date with all of them, though, from about a year of listening in the car and around the house and working out.
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