• Bullseye with Jesse Thorn
  • Hit or miss in terms of the guest, Jesse’s fun and kind.
• Childish
  • Allison Rosen & Greg Fitzsimmons talk about parenthood, but it’s a podcast for adults in terms of content.
• Consider This (NPR)
  • Mostly for the subcategory of Ukraine War updates
• Endless Thread
  • This podcast picks a thread on reddit and dives deep. Fun Stuff.
• Filmweek
  • KPCC’s weekly movie reviews, an old radio standard.
• Fitzdog Radio
  • Comedian Greg Fitzsimmons has been doing this for a decade, always fun.
• Freakonomics Radio
  • I love this podcast, it’s consistently interesting in breadth and depth.
• Fresh Air
  • One of out 3 is going to be a really good or better guest, but this podcast went downhill after Trump got elected, mostly in its never-ending whinging about Trump and the Right. Also, its political correctness just plain takes up a lot of the airtime.
• Hidden Brain
  • Shankar Vedantam does a stellar job of finding and diving in on topics that are really educational.
• How I Built This
  • One out of 4 is really interesting. A lot of retail stories that I’m less interesting in and it’s always just the founder’s tale, often about how they built something and flipped it.
• Huberman Lab
  • This is the newest to the list and one of the most informative. Dr. Huberman has literally already helped me sleep, not by putting me to sleep, but by explaining how sleep works and what affects it. Fascinating and well done.
• Judge John Hodgman
  • John Hodgman and Jesse Thorn have a great time and share the fun settling trivial disputes.
• Bill Burr’s Monday Morning Podcast
  • Best when it’s just comedian Bill Burr, holding forth about what’s in his brain. I skip the sports talk if it goes on too long, while enjoying almost endless musings and rants.
• Naked Lunch
  • Fun conversations between Phil Rosenthal, David Wild, and guests, over very mesophonia-triggering lunches.
• No Stupid Questions
  • Freakonomic’s Stephen Dubner generally asks co-host Angela Duckworth questions about various topics. I’d prefer more of a 50/50 split in talking, but it’s still pretty interesting. It has a fun fact check at the end where a producer goes over what they said for veracity.
• Pop Culture Happy Hour
  • Another NPR podcast that goes over what’s happening in pop culture. Its batting average has gone down since it went daily, but going daily did increase the overall amount of fun to my ears. Glen Weldon is one of the funniest people in podcasts, with quick and often bone-dry replies and asides.
• Stuff you Should Know
  • One of the top podcasts forever, I’ve been listening since before it was Josh and Chuck exclusively. It’s gone downhill since I Heart Radio bought it, taking it to a podcast I can’t listen to on a bike ride for all the ads.
• Sunday Papers
  • Yet another Greg Fitzsimmons joint, this time with friend Mike Gibbons, the two go over news stories and rail against Dagwood Bumstead’s treatment of Blondie.
• Ted Talks Daily
  • Not on automatic download, a source for filler material.
  • RIP the Ted Radio Hour, which went to crap when Shankar left.
• The Business
  • Kim Master’s always interesting update on what’s going on Hollywood. Another NPR production.
• The School of Purpose
  • Sociology Professor Bradley R. Wright talks purpose weekly in an interview format.
• The Tim Ferriss Show
  • About half the shows are really interesting and informative, the other half not bad but since it’s such a deep dive, I fast-forward out of stuff that’s not relevant to me.
• The Treatment
  • Elvis Mitchell is the Old Pro from Dover, interviewing entertainers great and small.
• The Way I Heard It
  • Mike Rowe recently took his podcast from 5 minutes or so to an hour or so. I kind of preferred the old format, but he’s always fun to listen to.

Based on a combination of my nostalgia, climate, and current conditions… this is the order I’d live in them, again.

• Carlsbad, CA
  • Climate, Beaches, Hills, Open Space, Bike Trails, Well Governed, Well Educated and Chill Residents
• San Francisco, CA
  • Amazing, Despite the Governance Flaws
• Helena, MT
  • Nostalgia
• Melbourne, Australia
  • Multi-ethnic Women with Amazing Australian Accents, Never Boring
• Newport Beach, CA
  • The Beaches
• San Marcos, CA
  • Baja Carlsbad
• San Bernardino, CA
  • Great Hang Gliding. If you don’t hang glide, probably not best.
• Mendoza, Argentina
  • Steak and Women to make your liver quiver.
• Davis, CA
  • Nice Little Town. So PC.
• St. Andrews, Australia
  • A Little Rural, Pretty
• St. Petersburg, Russia
  • Most Beautifully Designed City
• Huntington Beach, CA
  • Geography A, Governance F, Population D-
• Fresno, CA
  • Would Be Higher 40 Years Ago. Now it’s all meth and madness.
• Pensacola, FL
  • Nice Beaches. A Navy rite of passage. Humid.
• Milton, FL
  • A Getaway. Friends retired there and I get that. Humid.
• Virginia Beach, VA
  • Kind of fun. But humid and no waves.
• Temecula, CA
  • Horrible Commutes, Hot
• Irvine, CA
  • People’s Republic Of Irvine. Corrupt Government & the Irvine Co. makes every other city in OC preferable, unless you love Mello Roos, strip malls, and stop lights.
• Honolulu, HI
  • Most Overrated Place on Earth, IMHO