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Another week of tech podcasts churned through the official Valleywag iPod. The verdict: suffer through a Laporte-less This Week in Tech and you can skip the rest.

Diggnation 3/18 (on iTunes, not on web): Hosts Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht started sober again. What the hell, guys? Gets funny around 16 minutes in, when Kevin says about a digicam, "And it's uh...fuel-cell powered." Alex: "What?" Kevin: "Nope, made that up."

Om and Niall Podsessions 3/14: Ten seconds in, Niall Kennedy and Om Malik actually talk about the weather. Then, Web 2.0 leaves Om "wanting more" — careful what you wish for, Om! The rest of the show is VoIP and IM and mobile. It'd make decent lunch conversation, but does it make a good show? (Hint: Not this week.)

TalkCrunch 3/19: In this social-networking-centered episode, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington goes all Yellow Submarine and runs his voice through the left channel only. Some of the phone-in guests have a great alien echo-voice going on, and it's the usual slow-paced talk show vibe, but points to Michael for doing the best thing a podcast host can: get out of the way and let the experts engage each other. Caveat: by the end of this show, the voices are distorted to distracting levels. Can't Michael get some sponsored VoIP equipment?

This Week in Tech 3/20: Can Patrick Norton and crew hold it together without regular host Leo Laporte? Well, they can be meaty — if you actually want to learn about the last week of tech news, this is worth your hour — but they're just. not. funny.