Steve Martin said that philosophy is good for comedy because it screws up your thinking just enough, and I agree with that. Being forced to see life's metadata is good training for looking for interesting angles on a topic.

I do podcasts for the same reasons I do stand-up comedy. I love it, and I don't care if anybody else gets it.

What's more unnerving than magnetism, ghosts, and unpurified water? Gadgetmongers who purport to protect us from metaphysical monsters that go bump in the New Age night.

If you have laser-like brain it's not always focused on the most productive things. If you want to play Halo: Reach all day, that's fine, but if you want to accomplish some other things, here are some ways to do that using your innate nerd gifts.

Both my parents recognized early on that I wanted to do something in comedy, and they were really supportive. They're the ones who bought me Steve Martin records and let me watch R-rated comedies long before they probably should have.

No matter what tricks you use or what decisions you make, go easy on yourself as someone who's on a never-ending quest for improvement.

I think the mistake a lot of people make with new media is they just focus on one thing. But any one thing - just doing podcasts or just having a website or just doing television - isn't enough anymore.