When I am doing menial labor, at work or at home, or just during my commute, I like to distract myself from the boredom by listening to funny and interesting podcasts.

Cleaning the bathroom can go from feeling like a drain on your life, to becoming a fun activity where you can laugh and learn.

Here are my three favorite podcasts right now!

 

Hello Internet

Hello Internet is in the “Two Dudes Talking“-category of podcasts.

The YouTubers CGP Grey and Doctor Brady Haran talk about their profession, recent news, their interests, their lives and things that annoy them.

 

The interplay between these two quite different, yet similar people, always makes for an entertaining listen.

Grey is an American expat living in England. He is an introvert, and is sometimes awkward around people he does not know, and he works mostly alone. He uses a very long time to perfect his videos, resulting in a very low amount of output. He is also the co-host of Cortex, a podcast about working efficiently as a self-employed creator. He wants to be left alone, so he tries to hide his face from the public to avoid being recognised on the street. He is sometimes depicted as a robot.

Brady is an Australian expat living in England. He is an extrovert, often making videos with other people. He has a bunch of YouTube-channels, and he uploads new videos very often. He is also the co-host of The Unmade Podcast, which is about different ideas for podcasts that he and the other host (Tim) have had, but will never make. He wants to receive the respect he deserves, and he has been known to invent new words and concepts that are sometimes adopted by the general public. He is sometimes depicted as a caveman.

 

HI is always great fun, particularly when the listeners (nicknamed Tims by Grey and Brady) have gotten into some Timfoolery.

 

There are many stories there waiting for you to check out.

From “The Hello Internet Flag Referendum”, to “CGP Grey, The Penguin”, and beyond!

I am certain that you will not regret binging their entire library of episodes.

 

Watch Out for Fireballs

While I do like fireballs, it is my love for video games that makes me appreciate this podcast.

In each episode, Gary Butterfield and Kole Ross take on a new video-game. They are also the guys behind the wonderful Dark Souls podcast Bonfireside Chat, which is how I found them.

It can be any type of game, as long as it is not from the current generation of consoles, as this is a “retro” video-game podcast.

 

It works like a game book-club, as they announce in good time which game they will be talking about, and encourage feedback from the listeners. I am almost caught up now, and really looking forward to join in.

Gary and Kole always bring a lot of fun and insight to all of their discussion, and I always feel that I have learnt something new when they are discussing a game I am familiar with.

 

I must say, however, that when I saw a picture of how they look, I was a bit surprised, as the way I had pictured the owner of each voice coincided exactly with how the other person actually looked.

Just one of those things, I guess.

 

I would recommend only listening to episodes about games you care about, or games that seem interesting by the title.

They have covered many games, and if you don’t care at all about the subject-matter, no amount of talent can make it interesting.

 

Harmontown

A drunken evening with some of the funniest, most talented, and sometimes most dysfunctional people in Hollywood, both guests and regulars.

It is usually performed in front of an audience of devoted fans, once a week.

 

The mayor and headliner is Dan Harmon, the creator of ‘Rick and Morty’ and ‘Community’, one of my favorite tv-shows ever.

Despite being talented beyond belief, he sometimes gets depressed and self-destructive. That may not sound that fun, but it is definitely not boring either.

But most of the time he is simply very funny and intelligent.

 

His co-host and comptroller is Jeff Davis, mainly known for being a performer on the great improv show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”.

Like with Hello Internet, much of the Entertainment comes from the interplay of different personalities.

Jeff is outgoing and confident to a superhuman level, while Dan has confidence in his own mind, but not confidence in much else.

Dan the writer, Jeff the performer.

 

In addition to normal podcast talk, they also often have a segment in the episode where they play tabletop roleplaying games.

In an early episode they brought up an audience member to act like the Dungeon Master of these games, mainly of ‘Dungeons and Dragons’.

His name was Spencer Crittenden, and he is now a regular on the podcast. He has a very good sense of dry humour, and his geeky sensibilities really speak to me.

These games let the regulars, and the famous guests, really stretch their talents and comedic capabilities.

 

This podcast has spawned both a documentary movie, and an incredibly funny animated tv-show based on the roleplaying segment.

If you don’t want to listen to this podcast, you should at least try to watch ‘HarmonQuest’, as it is great!

I think you can safely listen to most of the backlog of these, as the old episodes serve as a sort of time-capsule of the biggest talking-points from the time the episodes were released.

 

 

Those are my current favorites, but I’m sure I will find more in time.

What are your favorite podcasts?