This American Life

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Hi Friends. Let's talk about my favorite radio program shall we? I love NPR but I find I rarely listen to it since I generally only listen to the radio in the car, and I almost never drive. mwap mwap. The good news is I've found a solution! I downloaded the This American Life App for my iphone a while back so Mike and I could listen to some episodes on a roadtrip, and let me tell you this app is. the. best. The app was maybe $3.00 and is basically my favorite thing on my iphone. It has a bunch of their most popular episodes, and every week it also has the most recent episode. With all my down time this past week I've gone a little This American Life crazy, if you will, and have listened to seven or eight episodes including one from three years ago where I heard my dermatologist speaking!!! I'm famous!! kind of.  So I thought I would list below a few of my favorites.

1) More is Less & Someone Else's Money. There are two episodes about the American health care system that were aired in 2009 when the healthcare reform debate was so intense. I know that doesn't sound that appealing (ok not really appealing at all), but I promise you the episodes are silly, and interesting, and enlightening. And! Added bonus. In the second episode you can hear my very own dermatologist talking about prescription prices!! They also talk about pet health insurance (which I have for Zoe) and that piece alone is worth listening to.

2) Notes on Camp. This episode about summer camp is listed as one of their short listed favorite episodes and for good reason. I went to sleep away camp for a few years as a kid and I still think about how I wish my profession was.. camp counselor. If you liked summer camp, you will like this episode.

3) What I Did for Love. Act one of this episode is wild. Seriously. If you only listen to only one clip of This American Life ever. This should be it. 

4)  DIY. I'm going to be honest with you. This one is a bit depressing. Ok, it's really depressing. It's about how an innocent man spent 20 years in jail for a crime he didn't commit. But it's a sweet story about how his best friend spent 20 years finding a way to get him exonerated which he eventually does. If ever there was a story to illustrate why the death penalty shouldn't exist this is it.

5) Back to Penn State. Another short listed favorite episode is #1 Party School which takes place at Penn State in 2009. Back to Penn State revisits that episode and delves into the football scandal which unfolded there last year.

Hard to narrow down a short list of favorites but this is a good place to start. Anyone have any favorite episodes I should check out?