I am realizing lately that I am auditioning to become a certain variety of old person.  I haven’t got the part yet, but let’s just say I have received a call back.  I’m going to be a geek, certainly, but my particular flavour of old geek is one that enjoys music and radio a lot, as much as or more than I always did as a normal person.

The old geek I will become recently discovered he likes podcasts.  If you don’t know what that is, it’s basically free radio episodes you download over the Internet.  Most people use an app that let’s you discover the latest episodes automatically, you can listen to them off-line, and there are other technical details that appeal to the (eventually old) geek in me just fine.

I never really caught on to podcasts before now, I couldn’t really even tell you why.  I knew they existed, but maybe there were just too many to decide which ones to start with.  There are podcasts for every damn thing under the sun out there, seriously there are so many.  It seems to me that most podcasts follow a talk radio kind of format, so you may have to hunt around before you find one you really like.  Personally I haven’t found any of those that interest me, however there is another kind of podcast that definitely has caught my attention.

The Black Tapes podcast and my second recommendation TANIS are fictional serialized dramas.  These podcasts aren’t just inane chatter about whatever the hosts want to talk about.  This is a story, written with care and following an arc that takes you through it in a satisfying way.  The voice acting is generally good and there is care taken in production values, etc.  The whole experience rewards listening with headphones.  Both of these podcasts are actually from the same media company, which explains a few things, and some of the voices and people are the same in both.  They both also share some similarities in that they are just ever so slightly creepy.  If you want to try one, I would start with The Black Tapes since I find it to be slightly more accessible in nature.  It’s a paranormal-flavoured story line, but the overall arc is really good, the characters are great, and I’m hooked.  Season 2 begins soon, you might have time to get through the first season before it starts.

TANIS is quite a bit different, it’s definitely got a bit more of an X-Files theme to it.  It’s weirder, darker, and cooler.  It’s also newer so it has a little further to go before I can say for sure which one I like better.  I’m actually leaning towards TANIS at this point, we will see.

Also, if you do like what you hear you can support them via Patreon  (The Black Tapes link) as well, which I have done because that is also the kind of old geek I am auditioning for.  Why I am compelled to support and pay for things I enjoy that are generally available on the Internet for free is the topic of another, probably lengthy blog post.

There you go people, grab these things for a listen and tell ’em old Court sent ya.

Get off my RSS feed, you kids.