just had a very strange day. on the way to work i kind of went to cross the road, didn't take time to look properly and was knocked down by a taxi coming around the corner. i'm ok, just battered and grazed but no bones and didn't get hit on the head. in fact i'll probably be back at work tomorrow. spent about 3 hours in a&e to just get everything checked out and walked out with a dressing taped to my arm and cocodamol in my bloodstream before spending most of the afternoon asleep with babylon 5 playing as I've run out of anything decent to watch and definitely couldn't face anything complicated.

on the plus side found out the other week that i am going to be an uncle.

The iPod is not a particularly pretty device but it does just work, doing everything I need with a minimum of fuss. I got some new sennheiser in-ear headphones last week and they are superb. I am now listening to things at half the volume, while sat on a noisy bus or train, and still hearing things more clearly than before. It has led to a bit of a boost in my podcast listening so here's some of the ones I've been enjoying recently:

Astronomy Cast: Interesting look at space and astronomy stuff I find it incredibly relaxing to listen to while I just soak up interesting facts.

Audio Dharma: Talks by Gil Frondsal and other Buddhist teachers. It's a nice complement to Zencast.

Boing Boing TV: Sometimes downright crap and the adverts are annoying but some of the best/most fun animation I've seen can be found here.

Songlines: Podcast for the folk and world music magazine. I first heard Rodrigo y Gabriela here and am still grateful.

Finally, a special shout out to Starship Sofa. Well worth digging through their back catalogue for a weekly, in-depth look at many famous SF writers by a couple of fans from the north of England. It's a lot funnier and a lot more entertaining that that sounds. Tony is doing it by himself at the moment but it's still going strong and is now publishing regular, free to download stories with a small pile from Michael Moorcock and plenty of other big names too. I cannot recommend Michael Moorcock's London Bone highly enough - it's the best audio presentation I've ever heard with the voice perfectly matching the story, the acting is superb and it just blew me away.