I took a spin through the iTunes podcast directory tonight looking for something for my dad to put on his iPod Shuffle to listen to on his commute. I was amazed at how many new shows there are. You can learn half a dozen languages, get news from the New York Times, CNN, NPR, ABC and PBS, and hear a satirical weekly presidential radio address. You can also now get video casts of the latest Strongbad email, Best Week Ever clips and Digital Life TV. You may notice that there are a lot more professionals publishing podcasts now. It didn't start out that way, but I don't think it's a bad thing. More good, free content is great for everyone. The little guy with a great show can still make it big much easier than in conventional radio.

If you haven't recently, take a look in the podcast directory and see what you can find. Here are some of my recent favorites.

The Ricky Gervais Show - The creators of The Office, Ricky Gervaise and Steve Merchant, team up with the infamous Karl Pilkington chat for half an hour. The show has caused genuine laughter-induced pain for me and Sara.

The Official They Might Be Giants Podcast - My favorite band. Bar none. They've been giving away free music since the early 80s with their dial-a-song service. Podcasting is a perfect fit for them. I'm listening to the first episode now. There are some very fun, strange songs on it. They're songs that could not and should not make it onto an albumn, but I'm loving it.

KCRW's Le Show - Harry Shearer, of The Simpsons and various Christopher Guest movies, podcasts his very funny and infomative weekly radio show.

The Onion Radio News - Satirical news, like The Onion, but in one minitute radio segments.

Escape Pod & Spaceship Radio - These are both shows for stories. They're mostly sci-fi.

That's what I've been listening to recently. Once I've heard some of the shows I just subscribed to, I'll try to post some thoughts about them.