You can try using Newsbeuter which has an option to run an external command (see notify-program in the documentation).

Canto also has some customizable hooks, though the whole configuration system looks a bit more complicated at first glance.

With rsstail + shell you can also invoke external commands. Start off with what you already figured out:

rsstail -i 3 -u example.com/rss.xml -n 0


and pipe the output to a while read loop:

rsstail -i 3 -u example.com/rss.xml -n 0 | while read line
  do
    aplay /some/sound/file.wav
    echo "$line"
  done


How to watch rss feed for new entries from bash script?
Below is a passage taken from this article


  I don rubber gloves, bravely grab my pickup stick and swallow the remainder of my coffee. It’s not even midnight yet. I remember the advice of my former roommate who — once and again — occupied the same stool I stood up from.


Does the last sentence I italicized means his former roommate used to work at the shop before, and has again came back to work there for the second time?
