Preseason Brain Training

Since it's still early in the year, and the road trips haven't started yet (38 days to go), I'm spending a lot of time in the "home office". What that really means is spending a lot of time watching podcasts, reading blogs, and generally wasting time. When I'm not downstairs working on my Wii fitness that is...
So in an effort to at least make these distractions productive I've switched gears on the old internets. Instead watching/listening to people thrash over same old cycling stuff (doping, tubular vs clincher, should the cross season extend into January) I'm trying to branch out and indulge my other interests and trying to learn about stuff that I don't understand.
Right now that's tech stuff- anything from network security to general gadgets and hacking. Good old geek stuff. I'm thoroughly enjoying all the cool things that Leo Laporte does- TWiT, Security Now, etc.
From Leo's page I've been following links to all kind of other cool blogs, podcasts and yet more links and links. It's kind of like back in the day when you would find a cool album and you would read the liner notes to find out what bands that band was into etc. Like I said, geeky.
The other thing I've managed to get myself hooked on are TED talks. Man is there a whole ton of cool podcast/videos in there. So much of it I've either never heard of, or don't understand, but watching the talks I've yet to find one where I didn't get at least something out of it. Who knew that I could spend 20 minutes watching a video about a telescope?
So if your bored with the same old list serve flame wars and need something new, just pick something that you want to know more about and type it into Google. After all- a little variety is good for you!