Podcasts

Since moving 45 minutes north of Austin in 2020, I drive at least 90 minutes every work-day. Some days (especially if it’s raining), that can total 2 hours. This year mark’s Amazon’s return to 5 Days per week in-office so that will be 10 hours a week on the road, 50 or so weeks a year.

To maintain sanity, I did two things:

1. I traded-in my 2018 Honda Civic 6MT for a fancy toyota (A used Lexus ES300h). Let’s be honest: It’s a couch on wheels and a quiet place to be for those 90 minutes. Look for details on that coming later.
2. I’ve gotten very acquainted with podcasts and audiobooks.

I’ve loved podcasts for a long time. Here’s my list from 2012 They’re the soundtrack to me doing things: Yardwork, ranchwork, driving, travel. In general they ease the loneliness that is modern life–Someone’s voice in your ear, helping you learn or laugh.

So, Buzz Out Loud ended this past week, which sucks considering I only discovered it last month when I started using Doggcatcher as my go-to podcast reader (I’m aware of the term ‘podcatcher’ and its symmetry with ‘podcaster,’  I just think it’s a terrible word.)

So, I had to go in and remove BoL from my subscription list.  While I was in there, I the following subscriptions for the following reasons:

• Mintcast – This is actually a really good Linux podcast; they do news around new Linux distros, the latest in the Gnome/Cinnamon schism from the Linux Mint team, and general sys-admin-y stuff.  Nothing wrong with the cast itself, other than it’s middle age sys-admin guys talking about linux
• Linux Outlaws – This one hurt.  I’ve listened to Linux Outlaws for almost a year now–started right after I got my Atrix.  The issue I have is the main creative force behind the show–Fabian Scherchel–has moved on.  He’s acting like he hasn’t, but he’s really been phoning-in the podcasts lately.  His co-host, Dan Lynch, is the ever-present straight-man and I still subscribe to his RatholeRadio podcast, but LO is don’t for me.
• NPR Culturtopia – Once I discovered that Pop Culture Happy Hour had its own podcast link, random stories from Netta Ulabe (sp?) became superfluous.  PCHH is my favorite podcast–bar none–and it’s a welcome change from my normal diet of tech, tech, programming, nerd, tech stuff.

Current subscriptions remaining: