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TAL Link Mania here:

The first episode of the TAL Showtime TV Program broadcast this past Thursday (3/22) night. If like me and most people I know, you don’t have cable, you can check out for free from Showtime (or maybe hit up a torrent).

The first episode, Reality Check was quite good… just the same TAL as ever really. Same moving stories, same great music direction, same Ira Glass… just now with pictures. This all makes sense since the stories for this pilot also appeared on the radio show (to save production costs before the show was picked up). I particularly liked the shots of Ira sitting in the middle of nowhere with a desk and an old mic, it looks like this will be a reoccurring theme.

The official TAL website just got a (much needed) makeover as well with lots of nice new features like RSS feeds and better organization. Be sure to check out this ‘much fuller decription‘ of what they’re trying to do with the TVs show and these previews for the first season.

If you’re still starved for TAL linkage check out this Chris Ware animated clip about using fake video cameras in grade school from Episode 4. Also be sure to listen to the weekly radio show on your local NPR station or via this iTunes podcast.

The first six episode season of TAL broadcasts on Showtime on Thursdays at 10:30 PM ET/PT (see the schedule here).

(Some links via Kottke.)

Diesel Sweeties‘ Indie Rock Pete knows exactly how I feel about Top 40 Radio.

Of course now that Arcade Fire are the “hottest band in music” according to CMJ and #2 on the Billboard (only trailing a dead guy) my whole indie world is experiencing a bit of turbulence…

Macworld gave YouTube an Eddy this week. My reaction: WTF? Why award a prestigious Mac-related award to a website that’s not specifically Mac related and is poorly designed on top of that?

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one puzzled by this so MacWorld has posted a little editor debate arguing each side of the issue. Needless to say, I’m with robg on this one.

Besides the points made in that article, I’d add that there are other services that do the same thing better (for example, YouTube’s cooperate overlords at Google Video; which allows easy downloading of videos for computer, iPod, or PSP). It would seem to me that reasons for YouTube’s popularity was because of the degree to which the service turned a blind eye to copy-writed content.

This American Life now has a totally free weekly podcast (they used to charge for a subscription).

This week’s episode is a rerun of one of my favorite episodes ever: #61 Fiasco! featuring the interview about a state production of Peter Pan. It’s quite possibly the funniest radio bit or interview I’ve ever heard and a great place to start if you’ve never heard the show. But get it fast because “each podcast/downloadable episode is free for exactly one week, beginning Monday.”

Subscribe in iTunes now!

I’ve been meaning to link to a few short films I’ve dug up links to while kicking ’round the web so here goes:

First up is Robin’s Big Date, which stars Sam Rockwell (who, it would seem, can make just about any character awesome) as ‘The Bat-Man’ and Justin ‘Mac’ Long as Robin. It’s about The Bat-Man barging in and ruining Robin’s date. It’s pretty much everything the real Batman movies aren’t. Which is to say: hilarious. Watch it here! (Hat tip to Cinematical.)

Next: Consent written and directed by Jason Reitman. He’s not a household name yet but might be soon enough if he continues to put out great films like Thank You for Smoking. Be a responsible adult and get those consent forms signed (meaning watch it). (Hat tip to Kottke.)