Podcasts

The Scamp and the Writing Challenge: Week 16

Posted on by erranteditor

 

I’m really not good with the challenge this year. I have not come close to 16 posts, and while I would like to blame it on the fact that I am busting ass on my PhD, it is really because I am just lazy by the end of the day. I feel really bad neglecting this part of my world, especially since I started the writing challenge to help get me through my dark and twisty moments.

I’m also slowly creeping my way to 500 posts….not that I ever thought I would get that far.

The writing challenge for this week is a fun one for me. I’ve been tasked with writing about the podcasts that I like to listen to. I spend a lot of time on public transportation and die a little bit inside whenever I forget to charge my iPod. A few months ago I might have apologised for this crazy list of my favourite podcasts, but today, I am not.

I like to be entertained, I like to laugh, and I like true crime. There is a very very very very very strong language warning with all of these. If you don’t like explicit sex, then steer clear of one (you’ll know which one), and if you are not a fan of poop talk, stay away from You Mom’s House.

Here are the podcasts you can find on my iPod:

Your Mom’s House

http://www.yourmomshousepodcast.com/

This is a comedy podcast hosted by Tom Segura and Christina Pazsitzky. They are the power couple of comedy. Each of them is funny on their own, but together, they kill me. They are crude, lewd, and socially unacceptable, and I love them both. I want to be friends with them. The topics range from comedy to current events, and more often than not, they delve into the seedier parts of the interwebs to bring the bizarre to the forefront.

Here is an episode featuring the star of the next podcast on the list. Be warned. It’s graphic and might be offensive to some.

 

The Joe Rogan Experience

http://podcasts.joerogan.net/

Powerful Joe Rogan: comedian, UFC commentator, and believer of educating the world hosts a podcast that ranges from getting high and hanging out with his friends, to commentating UFC fights, to discussing current events with experts in the field. I can remember the first time I heard this podcast. My brother and I were driving to the wombmate’s rehearsal dinner. I was not looking forward to seeing most of the paternal side of the family, and my brother put it on for the drive. It happened to be an episode when they had all eaten way too many mushrooms, so I hated it. My brother insisted that I keep with it, and it was through this podcast that I was introduced to Joey Diaz, Bert Kreischer, Ari Shaffir (who I got to see perform in Edinburgh). There are times when the podcast is nothing but silly, and times when it is very serious. One of the best episodes lately was one with the ultra-conservative Ben  Shapiro. I don’t agree with a lot of what he says, but this podcast was so good and made me respect him a lot more.

 

Here is a bonus of Joey Diaz. Explicit content. He’s wildly inappropriate. He’s a Cuban comedian who has lived quite the life that has included everything from kidnapping, jail, drugs, and running numbers.

 

My Dad Wrote a Porno

This one kills me. It is exactly as the title suggests. A guy is reading the porn that his dad is self-publishing. It is horribly written, and hilarious. I started listening to this with the heterolifemate, and we spent many a long bus ride through the Baltics laughing and dying over the crazy things (and people) Belinda does. I saw a live show this summer during the festival. I went by myself and in a moment of stupidity, I volunteered to go on stage and act like Belinda….of course it was to act out one of the sex scenes in the book to demonstrate that what was written was not humanly possible. I ended up getting felt up by a tiny Asain lady named Joy and regretting my life choices.

Here is the first episode. It is graphic, x rated, and horrible. On my worst days though it makes me laugh until I cry.

 

My Favourite Murder

https://www.myfavoritemurder.com/

My Favorite Murder is the hit true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. I’m a major muderino. These two women are neurotic, riddled with anxiety and dependency issues, and like to play fast and loose with facts sometimes, but they are absolutely fantastic. Each week they present a murder, or survivor story. They are very pro victim, and often do a really amazing job highlighting the strength of the survivors by telling their stories in a very authentic way. They acknowledge that not all the victims are perfect, that they are not perfect, and that the podcast is not perfect, and because they seem so real and genuine, it makes you feel like you are in the room with them while they are sometimes stumbling their way through a story. They are very open about their struggles with mental health, and often remind listeners that it is okay to seek help and that things will get better. They also have the best catchphrases

Stay sexy and don’t get murdered

Call your dad you’re in a cult

Fuck politeness

Stay out of the forest

They tend to get really sidetracked at the start, so if you get tired of the nonsense and just want the murder, skip ahead about 15 min.

 

The Last Podcast on the Left

https://www.lastpodcastontheleft.com/

According to their site:

Last Podcast on the Left barrels headlong into all things horror — as hosts Ben Kissel, Marcus Parks and Henry Zebrowski cover dark subjects spanning Jeffrey Dahmer, werewolves, Jonestown, iconic hauntings, the history of war crimes, and more. Whether it’s cults, killers, or cryptid encounters, Last Podcast on the Left laughs into the abyss that is the dark side of humanity.

They do a lot of research for each podcast and cover all kinds of strange and fascinating things. I like listening to LPOTL because I really feel like I am getting a history lesson.

 

True Crime Garage

https://www.truecrimegarage.com/

Each week Nic & The Captain get in the garage and talk true crime and drink beer. This is another one that feels like it has been well researched, and they often highlight little-known cases to not only honour the victims but in some cases, help solicit listeners for help new information to help solve the crimes. Like all the true crime podcasts I listen to, they are very respectful of the people in the cases that they present.

 

Loveline

Started in 1983, Loveline was a call-in radio show on 106.7 KROQ in Califoria. Callers would ask the hosts of the show everything from relationship and sex questions to questions about addiction recovery. Dr. Drew Pinsky hosted the show and his co-hosts included Adam Carolla and Mike Catherwood. The show ended in 2016 and is now a weekly podcast with new hosts. I really only like the Adam Carolla and Mike Catherwood eras of the show. The episodes from these eras used to be available for download, but when the show went off the air, so did the podcasts. I’ve almost worked my way through all the episodes that I had downloaded, and I will be really sad when I finish. I used to listen to Loveline on my way home from Cal State Fullerton…if I had it on loud enough, I couldn’t hear myself cry after class.

 

 

So there you have it. These are the voices that are between my ears when I am on the bus, pretending to run on the canal, or walking through the Royal Mile. If you aren’t familiar with any of these, take a listen. Just be warned, harsh language, extreme content and disturbing subjects abound in these.

The Scamp and the Writing Challenge: Week 13

Posted on by erranteditor

…or, The Scamp is a Reluctant Statistician.

I don’t like the writing challenge for this week, so I am just going to make this one up as I go. I’ve been back in Scotland for more than a week, and I finally had to have the conversation that I have been dreading for months. I have spent almost two years collecting survey data and interviewing the staff and students at the uni as part of my thesis research. Most of the surveys were passed out in classes, and then entered into the dreaded SPSS software system. I have just been playing around with the software to see if I remembered how to use it, but I have been putting off doing anything more than finding averages and simple standard deviations within the data.

I hate statistics. Those who know me, and who were with me through the two semesters that we studied it (hey old study group, I’m looking at you and our old Google Docs) know that you often had to drag me kicking and screaming through an explanation of the relationship between the numbers, and I had to sit with a very formulaic fill-in-the-blank sentence structure so I could just plug in the numbers into the template. I only passed that class because I had people way smarter than me sitting next to me helping me understand what I was doing. I’m a qualitative researcher. I’m more concerned with the hows and the whys, with talking to people or observing phenomena. I like interviews and focus groups. I like interacting with others, and spending time going through documents to learn. I do not spend my time with large data sets.

My director of studies loves numbers. He is a scientist. He loves big numbers, he is very uncomfortable with emotions (which I can see every time I cry in his presence), and he does not think that Grounded Theory is really a thing. We’ve clashed a bit on the theory for my thesis, and in the last few months he has been pushing me to sit down with the statistics and really start to create questions and hypotheses (hypothesi? I’m not sure) to explore for the analysis chapter. He has been after me to meet with him, to create charts and spreadsheets, and to get some hypotheses written on paper.

I’ve been avoiding him and making passive aggressive comments about not wanting to work with the numbers. When that didn’t work, I straight out told him that I was worried that I have no idea what I am doing with the stats, and I am really afraid that I am going to have to do complicated bivariate correlations and ANOVA tests and then have no idea how to explain the results and the numbers that are produced from it. He kept saying that things would be fine, that he would sit down with me and we could do it together and everything would be fine.

Meanwhile, I’m stressing out over stats and the never-ending edits to the paper. I had my 6 month review this week and cried in front of my external supervisor who has met me exactly one time 6 months ago. It is my physiological response to frustration and stress (or anger or embarrassment, or sadness). My external was really nice about it, and did her took her job wonderfully and tried to mediate the situation. She helped me get a really good compromise, and I think my supervisor finally understand where I am coming from.

I also think I will be able to handle the stats I have to do for my thesis.

I know that this is all part of the process. I know that I am not going to always agree with my supervisors, and that I am going to have some bumps in the road, and that there would be some learning that I would have to do. I haven’t been able to meet with all of my supervisors at once in a long time, and sometimes I feel like I am a one woman show. I’m currently the only person working on an Education based PhD, and it is not always fun being a lonely island. It doesn’t help that my depression is up and down and I have killer anxiety. I enjoyed my time in my in California, but I have a stop start relationship with my work, and see it as a waste of time when I take a break, rather than a chance to clear my head and center myself before I continue. Thank the sweet baby Jesus I have a therapist that helps keep me on track.

I hate that cry when I am in situations like that, but I do feel better that things are out in the open. I’m hoping now that my plans to spend the summer with my data will not be as stressful.   In the meantime I will binge listen to My Favourite Murderer and try not to think it is weird that I enjoy listening to tales of murder and two super neuritic women telling me to Fuck Politeness! and Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered.