I'm in for February 3rd, Stuart. Thanks for taking on the hosting duties. I'll brave the 45 minute streetcar glide along Queen St. by listening to some of the great, free podcasts I've subscribed to over the past year. To do this, Brian, you click on the 'Music Store' in Itunes, then the 'Podcast' text link that appears on the left, beneath the 'Choose Genre' drop down menu.

Once you 'subscribe' to the podcasts of your choice, every time a new show is available, it will automatically download whenever you have your itunes software open and then will sync to your ipod each time you sync. Some of the podcasts I enjoy: CBC Radio 3, KCRW's The Treatment, and NPR: All Songs Considered.

Another fun tip for using the ipod is to use the 'shuffle songs' feature that plays songs randomly, which can be fun if you have several thousand songs on your player and get to hear, probably for the first time in history, a Maria Callas aria followed by 'The Sporting Life' by the Decemberists followed by 'Blasphemous Rumours' by the recently much discusssed DM, followed by 'Round Midnight' by the Derek's suggested artist MD in a fifteen minute span.

Happy listening.