I’m a bit late to updating the list this year. There aren’t too many new entries, but there are a few changes.

Politics

5-4 Pod – Official Description:5-4 is a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks. It’s a progressive and occasionally profane take on the ideological battles at the heart of the Court’s most important landmark cases; an irreverent tour of all the ways in which the law is shaped by politics. Presented by Slow Burn co-creator Leon Neyfakh, 5-4 is a production of Prologue Projects. Eric’s Commentary: If you really want to see how crazy it is that 9 men and women who server for life have such control over American life, you can be silly like me and listen to this show. I often find the topics and conclusions depressing (whether it’s the current Supreme Court or one from the past) The hosts are entertaining, though. They’re all practicing or former lawyers.

I had two reasons for starting this project:

1. my wife and I like to collect Disney movies from our youth.  These movies are most likely to be watched by kids and kids are likely to damage DVDs.  I’ve heard lots of anecdotes on the net from parents who are on their fourth purchase of the same movie.  That’s just silly!  Also, Disney’s always putting their movies “back in the vault” so if your kid messes up one of THOSE movies, you could be SOL for up to a decade
2. Let me tell you a story of how ridiculous things have gotten in my house thanks to Netflix Instant.  My wife owns all seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD.  However, she does not watch these DVDs.  She watches it on Netflix Instant.  Why?  Because it’s easier for her to go on Netflix and find the episode she wants than to try and remember what season has what episode and go get that, take it out of its case, and put it in the DVD player.

If I can go off on a quick tangent - the movie studios might read #2 wrongfully conclude (as I’ve seen WB do before) that this means they should keep their stuff off of Netflix instant.  No, what it means is that people want the convenience of Netflix Instant with the movies they buy.  We would NEVER go look for a CD to play music anymore.  It’s all on our computers in Amarok or iTunes or Rhythmbox and we can easily search for an artist or a song and not have to worry about what CD it’s on.  This is what people want in their homes!  Yet the movie studios have killed every company that’s tried to do it.  Well, no wonder people are using Netflix vs buying movies nowadays!  Sheesh!  OK, rant over.