GregHowley.com

It's been a while since I listed my favorite podcasts - 15 months in fact - and it seems about time again. I've got that 2 hours in my car while I'm commuting every day, so I listen to about 9 hours a week of podcasts. (I spend probably about an hour a week on the phone)

So here's what I listen to weekly.

1. GameSpot presents the Hotspot: Currently my favorite podcast. Yes, it's about videogames. But the bottom line here is that the guys on this show are hilarious. To me, Jeff Gurstmann and Rich Gallup are Gamespot. But now I hear Rich is leaving, and it makes me want to cry. Whether it's the ongoing debate on whether cake or pie is better, or the dude who called in asking whether he should buy an XBox 360 or a really nice set of knives and swords, the hilarity is without end. And cake is better than pie.
2. Children of the Gods: The only reason this one isn't in first place is because CMack hasn't released a new episode in forever and a half. I'm in with the group of voice actors who put this thing together, although I've only ever had one line. But it's a terrific sci-fi story in a wonderful setting. I've written about it before.
3. GeeksOn: Another of my perennial favorites. Usually they only release one episode or so per month, but they talk about wonderfully geeky stuff: Video games, science fiction, board games, role playing games, books, and plenty of other geeky goodness. And the guys are pretty damn funny.
4. The Totally Rad Show: A Revision3 podcast, from the same guys who do Diggnation. Actually Alex Albrecht is one of the three guys on TRS. They discuss movies, games, and occasionally comics. The best part: they open most shows with the three of them reenacting a scene from a movie. Easier to enjoy on the video version, and I get the mp3, but still fun.
5. Slice of SciFi: Farpoint Media is becoming one of the bigboys in podcasting, and this seems to be its flagship podcast, along with Dragon Page: Cover to Cover. They discuss the latest news in television and movie SciFi news. I've caught some gems from this podcast. The interviews over the past 6 months or so have been disappointing, but hopefully they pick back up. They used to interview cast members from The 4400 and even got Jonathan Coulton on the show once. The show plays so many promos that it just about drives me crazy, but there's enough good content that I'll keep listening.
6. PC Gamer Podcast: Yes, another show about videogames. What can I say? Not quite as good as The Hotspot, but I still enjoy the guys from PC Gamer Magazine discussing what's new.
7. 7th Son, Book Three: Destruction: I've been listening to J.C. Hutchins's book since the beginning, and he's now in the endgame. It's not the best story ever, but it's amongst the best podcast stories I've ever heard. I'd say only Scott Sigler's EarthCore topped it. If you've got a lot of time to catch up on the story, I'd recommend this one.
8. Scott Sigler's Bloodcast: I'm not a huge fan of his gore, but after hearing EarthCore, I was hooked on Sigler. Ancestor was good, and Infested was okay. The Rookie was excellent. His latest Snipe Hunt was an intriguing short story.
9. The Onion Radio News: This podcast releases 2-minute snippets about thrice weekly. It's generally what you'd expect from The Onion: parody news.
10. Wired News Podcast: Although there have been others, this is almost entirely Lore Sjoberg. The casts are about 5 minutes long, and usually pretty entertaining. Lore certainly keeps up on his geeky web culture, as he's always dropping references to the most current web fads and trends. But the Verizon ads at the beginning wear thin pretty quickly.
11. Press Start: This is a NPR podcast about video games. Yes, another one. It's released pretty infrequently, and it's not bad.
12. 10th Wonder: This is off-season, so 10th Wonder isn't releasing new episodes, but when Heroes is airing, I've found this to be the best show with commentary and theories about it.

I'd also like to drop an honorable mention to Missing Pages, not because it's inferior to any of the above, but because it's not truly a podcast. It's a short SciFi movie with amazing production quality, in podcast format. The entire thing was recorded not with a video camera, but with a digital still camera, giving it a very different look. It's a good story, and well worth the 30-40 minutes it'll take you to watch it.

I still listen to Diggnation and BostonGeek, but I'm considering dropping them from my lineup. I no longer do the GameGeek Challenge spot for BostonGeek, partly because of Lia's birth, but also because I got annoyed at how they were handling the spot. They'd air the episodes out of order, or cut off minute-long segments, and not even notice. I wasn't feeling very appreciated.

I've also stopped listening to the Joystiq podcast and Penny Arcade's Downloadable Content. Neither one was really grabbing me anymore. I'm always keeping my ears open for new stuff, but only if it's better than what I've got will I listen - I've got a fixed amount of time in which to listen.