Do You Listen to Many Podcasts?

Hoo, boy. If you don't, I can save you a lot of time looking.

I can tell you from experience that most of them are excruciating! They are either pseudo-intellectual claptrap, or they appear to be actively inciting people to either blindly give over their money (to "change their lives!") or encouraging them to do stupid, reckless, irresponsible, or extremely selfish things.

They instruct people on how to game search engine results (which I know many people do, but not quite as disingenuously as this). They talk about how to "get yours" and how to "not let other people get in your way". They ramble on about art in that way that makes my teeth grind, because they don't even have a clue what they mean and are much more interested in how to scoot through life doing very little work than they are in actually creating anything interesting.

Ugh. It's every stupid conversation you've ever overheard, only broadcast as though it's really, really, good advice.

And if you're wondering how I suddenly know this, I've found a way to make a little tiny bit of extra money while the B is sleeping by transcribing sections of podcasts. It really only works out if you can retain bits of text in your head while typing the bit you just heard a second ago, and if you type rather quickly and with few mistakes.

And no, I'm not telling you where. Most of you have "real jobs" for one, and don't need these micropayments, and for those of you for whom that's not true, I don't fancy the extra competition! The postings disappear quickly enough as it is.

However, it is nice to earn a little bit of money again, even if the amount is really small. Transcriptions are a bit like playing a game, sort of, but getting paid to do it. It's a game to see how quickly I can do it, how many times I can avoid having to rewind, how many of the names I can research quickly on Google to spell correctly.

So, in case any of you were wondering how I fill my time when the B naps, that's how I've been doing it for the last few weeks. But honestly, save yourself the time and avoid 90% of the podcasts out there. Some of them make me feel like my brain is trying to liquefy and seep out of my ears, if only to escape the nattering on.