Host Ira Glass talks with a guy who hit the road after his mother's death, hoping for some experience that would change him and shed light on what just happened. This never happens to him, or to most of us.

Ira with "The Hens," a group of nine middle-aged women who've known each other since girlhood. They play recordings of their recent three-day road trip from Chicago to a casino in a cotton field in Mississippi.

Brett Leveridge was standing on the subway. A guy comes walking down the platform, stopping in front of each passenger and delivering a quiet verdict: "You're in.

More than England, or Japan or Israel.... When we think of South Africa, it's a more interesting mirror of the United States than nearly any country, because we glimpse a distant echo of the most frightening parts of American society — and the most inspiring.

Julie throws up.

This American Life gets a return visit from Evan Harris, the woman who used to believe that quitting was the one thing at the heart of all human existence.

Host Ira Glass goes to the Federal Express hub at Memphis to watch 1.2 million pieces of overnight mail get sorted in one night and to talk to the adrenaline junkies in the FedEx Command Center.

Kevin Kelly is interviewed.

Host Ira Glass uses Italian author Umberto Eco's essay Travels in Hyperreality as a guidebook to American simulated worlds. Eco says that the urge to create these miniature simulated worlds is a very American impulse — a significant American aesthetic — and one that's not often discussed.

Host Ira Glass shares photos (on the radio) of his family vacation in Hawaii.

After he goes to Jerusalem and sleeps on what is supposedly the very spot where Jesus was crucified, Kevin Kelly has a revelation: that he should live the next six months as if he would die at the end of them. So he gives away nearly everything he owns, and tries to live each day as if his death is imminent — which turns out to be a great challenge.