Podcasts

Podcast Listening

I have been a big fan of podcasts since long before everyone in the world had one. I listen to them when walking, riding the exercycle and now that I have Android Auto I can listen on some longer drives too. Being the end of the year, both of the podcast platforms I used for my daily talking(s) to send me my listening history for 2024.

The platform that is my go-to for podcasts is Pocket Casts and they were the first to let me know about the accounting they did on my account. According to them I listened to 153 episodes from 11 different shows. This churned up 117 hours and 7 minutes of my life over the last year. Sounds like a lot, until you consider there are 8,760 hours in those 365 days. My most listened to podcast was Armchair Expert at 25 of those 153 episodes. The rest don’t have a total of episodes listened to, but I’m not sure if they are all that accurate. Everyday Driver came in 4th and they do 2 episodes a week, so that number should have been at least over 50, double the Armchair Expert total.

The host of Armchair is a Hollywood famous comedian, actor, producer and director, but maybe even more recognizably famous being the husband of Kristin Bell. His voice is very distinctive and his takes at the introduction to the commercials and some times in the commercials too made me want to stop listening to it. After 25 episodes I broken down and got a 3-week trial to the Wondery podcast platform where the Armchair Expert is home. The trail period expired on the 23rd and I let it. He does along with his co-host/producer/editor, Monica Padman, 3 shows a week and there are a total of 835 episodes. I started by scrolling though and cherry picking the famous Hollywood actors, but at least one day a week they have an Expert on Expert on the show do discuss everything from AI to any malady of the human brain.

Wondery let me know that I watched 44 episodes which took 79 hours and 7 minutes. My top four shows I listened to were #1, Armchair Expert, second was Killer Psyche, #3 was Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums and last was 10% Happier. Their counting obviously doesn’t take in whether you finished the episode because on those last three shows, I know I didn’t finish any episode of those three. I’m willing to bet that the Killer Psyche was just because I fat fingered selecting an Armchair Expert episode. Lastly, I was labeled “You’re A Early Bird” because the majority of my listening is between 5AM to 12PM.

Adding the two times from both platforms I spent 196 hours and 14 minutes with earbuds in listening, while that sounds like a lot, but my podcast listening was a mere 2.2% of 2024.

Another Minute and a Half of Internet Fame

The Everyday Driver podcast has been a must listen ever since 2018 when I started listening to it while I did my daily walk when Donna was at the gym swimming. Now a days it is my audio companion while riding the exercise bike 2 of the 3 times a week I do so. They actually do 3 episodes a week, but one of them is just the audio of something off their Test Drive channel on YouTube and I’ve already watched the video.

For the two original podcasts they do each week they post a note on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter asking for questions that someone might want answered. They can’t answer every one of them, so they cherry pick the ones they are interested in answering. Back in May of 2019 they actually answered one of mine. Well, it happened again.

The photo above was yesterday’s Bing Wallpaper, it is of Park City, Utah which happens to be where our intrepid Everyday Driver guys reside. So, yesterday when I saw their anybody got questions post on Instagram, with tongue firmly in cheek, I added this to their list, “Park City is the Bing wallpaper of the day and I’m trying to find your houses on there…”

Here is the audio of them answering my “question.”

Everyday Driver Bingo

So for practically every Tuesday and Friday morning walks since sometime in May I have been rocking the Everyday Driver Podcast on my walks. So that is around two dozen hours of listening to these two guys talk cars. They also have a show that runs on Motortrend TV first, before ending up on Amazon Prime, so I have been watching those when they air and the old ones on Amazon, so there have been about 28 episodes of that I’ve seen. They also have a YouTube Channel with a literal crap ton of videos, of which I’ve watched a bunch of.

Needless to say, I am familiar with their work. The other day while walking and listening to a podcast I had a crazy idea. But I then quickly realized my database skills are not as good as I thought, so all I managed to create was my one demo. I emailed it to them at their gmail address and told them to feel free to run with this idea and sell ’em on their Amazon Store.

My 30 Seconds of Internet Fame

My new favorite podcast for morning walks is from the guys at Everyday Driver. Not only is it en-car-taining, but they do 2 a week, so my Tuesday and Friday listening pleasure is taken care of. The format usually consists of 1 or 2, what they call, car debates. Someone writes in and and says I want to buy a car and lists their wants and don’t wants along with what their budget is. Paul and Todd then give suggestions as to what might fit the bill.

They also cover general car news stuff as well. Then the last segment is they answer questions from folks on social media. The day before they record they post on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook what they will be covering to give people a spot to ask questions. Yesterday they posted a photo of the new Toyota Supra they had driven last week at the press launch. They had created a YouTube video of their thoughts, which couldn’t be released until this past Sunday. I watched it yesterday and left a question on Instagram for them.

It made today’s podcast. Here is just my question and their answer.

If you want to hear the whole podcast, or any of their others, go here – Everyday Driver Car Debate