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HEAD’S UP Feed your brain via local tweets and ’casts.

There’s no easier way to connect to Chicago’s culture than by downloading it onto your iPod or following it on Twitter. Get your local new-media fix with our favorite tweets and ’casts.

While everyone else is whining that Twitter is a novelty, you can be scoring instant updates about everything from the Sox game to hush-hush ticket deals. If you subscribe to unadulterated Cub action updates at twitter.com/cubsbaseball, not even Gramps’s funeral will have to interrupt your fandom. Baseball’s not for everyone, but let’s face it, encased meats are. Check out twitter.com/hotdougs, where a Hot Doug’s superfan provides the “Game of the week” selection and other Doug’s deets. That way, you’ll know when to skip class and head to Doug’s for boar sausage or a gator dog.

Less delicious, but more practical, is twitter.com/chicagoalerts, which relays general city alerts about everything from traffic snafus to public-library closings. Metra riders can check twitter.com/metradelays, where some genius dude figured out how to direct Metra’s service announcements into a Twitter stream. If you ride one train regularly, you can subscribe to just that line’s feed.

Twitter doesn’t just save time; it can save you gobs of money. Chicago-based website Freesnatcher tweets about how to get gratis everything, from Chapstick to song downloads, at twitter.com/freesnatcher. A Chicago public-relations firm runs twitter.com/getoutchicago, which will tip you off to free and discounted tickets to museums and shows around town. Its offerings are pretty broad; we’ve recently seen deals on the National Philharmonic of Russia, Blue Man Group and the Museum of Science and Industry. If theater’s your bag, sign up for twitter.com/HotTix, where the League of Chicago Theatres offers half-price tickets on some of the city’s biggest shows. Shameless plug warning: Check out TOC’s Twitter stream at twitter.com/timeoutchicago for updates on deals and doings in town.

If you’d rather get your wisdom via podcast, Chicago has plenty to fill your iPod. You’ll get more education from your earbuds while you walk to class than you’ll get all day at art school from staff-favorite Bad at Sports. BaS hosts Amanda Browder, Richard Holland and Duncan MacKenzie cover Chicago’s art scene from a clever, informed perspective that’s never too insidery or too grumpy. Expect to hear about major art festivals, installations and scandals, plus get interviews, news and reviews. BaS spin-off the Parlor is a literature-oriented affair that features readings by local and emerging authors. Locally based, but national in scope, is Filmspotting, with movie reviews from amiable hosts Adam Kempenaar and Matty Robinson.

But man and woman cannot live on art alone—they’d get hungry. Chicago Bites offers fun, casual reviews, and Hungry Mag dishes (har har) on local chefs. Michael Gebert’s Chicago-based Sky Full of Bacon is a video podcast about all things food, with some emphasis on pork products.

For the word on the street, enter Outside the Loop Radio, a newsmagazine series that covers offbeat, provocative and otherwise-ignored stories from the area. Hosts Andy Hermann and Mike Stephen deliver a smart, informative weekly show. The local Third Coast Audio Festival produces great, sometimes-experimental weekly podcasts that gather audio documentaries from around the globe.

When we’re really craving long-form, thoughtful global coverage, Jerome McDonnell’s Worldview, from WBEZ, is our one-stop shop. It can get a bit dry, which is why we prefer the podcast (where we can fast-forward) over the broadcast (where we languish).

Just as well made is Windy City Queercast, hosted by Amy Matheny. New episodes are broadcast a few times a week, and most clock in at close to an hour. Consider your queer-news needs met.

The quickest way to make Chicago feel like home—and to trick anyone you meet into thinking you’re a local—is to dedicate yourself to local sports. The Chicago Sportscast Network, a family of fan-friendly podcasts, has you covered with Soxcast, Cubscast, Hawkscast, Bearscast and Bullscast (all accessible at chicagosportscasts.com). New episodes are posted pretty much constantly during the season and surprisingly regularly during the off-season, so you’ll never be without small-talk topics. If you want to spice up your knowledge with some sass, the Heckler’s supershort sports briefs—about 20 seconds each—are sharp and funny, just like you.