Sometimes when Holly and I sit down to research PopStuff, it’s in front of a screen with a controller, a remote or popcorn in hand.  But almost as often, it’s … still in front of a screen, but with a keyboard on one side of it and a giant database of peer-reviewed papers on the other. Sometimes there are even actual books involved. Nonfiction ones. Written by experts.

So if you’re of a mind to learn something from a podcast on pop culture, these 10 PopStuff episodes are a good place to start. In chronological order:

• Episode 12, Spoiler Alert
• Episode 13, Why are we friends?
• Episode 14, Single-player MMOs
• Episode 15, Blah Blah Twilight
• Episode 16, Should it be hard to be a geek?
• Episode 17, Muppets, yaaaaaaaay!  (researched in part from HowStuffWorks articles How Muppets Work and How Jim  Henson Worked)
• Episode 19, Zombies. Why did it have to be zombies?
• Episode 20, Thinking About Ink
• Episode 22, Are cheat codes cheating?
• Episode 23, Why do we watch what’s hard to watch?

As 2011 runs its course, I’d like to thank our awesome listeners for being smart, excited about the things they like, and willing to share those likes with us. If there’s something new you’d like to hear from us in 2012, please tell us, and we’ll write it up on our giant board of podcast ideas. We’re on Facebook and Twitter, or here is a handily obfuscated link to our e-mail so we don’t get buried in spam: http://scr.im/popstuff.

In 2012, I resolve to make this blog more than just the PopStuff show notes blog. Wish me luck!