Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #56 - Drive to Work

Episode Date: September 27, 2013

Mark talks about his podcast.

Okay, I'm pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so a little over a year ago, I started doing this very podcast. And so to celebrate the anniversary of the podcast, I thought I'd have a podcast on the podcast. Sort of a meta-podcast, if you will. Because as we all know, I've never met a podcast I didn't like. Okay, so today I'm going to talk about Drive to Work. Hopefully, in the Venn diagram of my listeners, the ones that like Drive to Work and the ones that listen to Drive to Work overlap. So I'm going to talk a little bit about how this podcast came to be and a few stories about the making of this podcast, because

there are some fun stories. Okay, so I will start with the origin story. How did Drive to Work come to be? And the answer is, it was interesting. So, in the back of my head, there's a bunch of things. Like, when I did my podcast on Tales from the Pit, I admitted that, you know, I always kind of wanted to do on Tales from the Pit, I admitted that, you know, I always kind of wanted to do a comic strip, but I didn't have, you know, the ability to do things like draw. And I think a podcast was something similar in the sense that I loved the idea of doing a podcast, but I just didn't have time for a podcast. And so, you know, I always thought of a podcast like I'd have to carve out a certain amount of time every week.

And my schedule is kind of crazy as is. I'm usually on many teams at once. And just scheduling me in general is hard. The idea that I would be able to book a time every week to go in a studio and record, I just didn't think was possible or feasible. But the way my brain works is I sort of figure out the non-negotiables and then I stick it in my brain and it kind of percolates there and then at some point my brain goes bing

and it has an idea so I knew in my head that a couple things I wanted to do a podcast and my heart of hearts is I believe that the right amount of time for a podcast is about half an hour I know there's people who do three, four hour podcasts. Not for me. I mean, I think different

podcast for different people is awesome. And I don't want to dissuade people who want to do giant long podcasts. But I feel like most listeners do not have three hours to listen to a podcast. And that something like half an hour, you know, that's something they could listen to. And that I was trying to make a podcast that people could have time to listen to. It's funny, by the way, the number of people who listen to my podcast while they drive to work appears to be very large. So anyway, a lot of people seem to have my, about my time it takes to get to work. So anyway, so I had in my head, I wanted about 30 minutes.

I needed to find time to do it, and I wanted to do it. My assumption was that my podcast would be about things I know. It'd be about magic design and magic stories and stuff. Another thing about podcasting in general is, one of the things they teach you in communication school is, what they mean is, mind the medium, which is, understand what your medium's weaknesses and strengths are. For example, if you look at film,

film's strength is its visuals. It's very good at pictures. I mean, people are sitting in a dark room with a giant screen in front of them. So movies is all about telling your stories through pictures. Now, on the flip side, TV, it's a small thing. It's also in your home where you're constantly occupied. So TV is more about audio than it is visuals.

So, for example, if you want to take a movie, if you turn the sound off a movie, if it's a good movie, the visuals alone will explain the story. You can watch the movie without having the sound. For example, have you ever been on a plane and you didn't purchase the movie, but you're kind of just watching out of the corner of your eye, you'll notice you kind of can follow what's going on. Now, likewise, if you take a TV show and you, you know, put it in front of the screen so you can't see the screen, but you listen to it, you get most of what's going on in TV through the sound. And what that means is you have to understand your medium.

Like, because movies are visual, you have to pick a story that can be told visually. Because TV's audio, you know, dialogue and stuff is very, very important. A lot of it, rather than shown, is said on TV. So anyway, podcasts are obviously an audio medium, since there are no pictures. And so the thing is, you are telling a story. Well, you are using audio to do it. What does audio do well? Oh, well, it's people talking, right? And what works well with people talking is usually stories.

I mean, stories tend to have a very audio quality to them because when people tell stories, they tell them. In fact, you tell a story. It's an audio medium. And I knew that if I wanted to do a podcast, telling stories would be important. So anyway, in my head, it's like, okay, it's an audio medium, I'll tell stories, but I need to find, I want half an hour. And then one day, just the following clicked in my head, that my drive to work is half an hour. And then that's bing, and it all sort of comes together, and I'm like, oh, I have a half an hour every day. In fact,

I have an hour technically but I have a half hour every day where I'm doing nothing. I'm just sitting. I mean, normally, before I start doing my podcast,

I mean, I might drive to work, I listen to music or if I really have some project to work on, sometimes I'm thinking about a project but I'm mostly just

sitting in my car, usually listening to music or something. I'm just sort of passing time and I said, you know what? I could use that time to do a podcast. At least, that was passing time. I said, you know what? I could use that time

to do a podcast. At least, that was the concept. That was the premise. Like, okay, I need half an hour. I have half an hour. Now, some people might say, you know, but if you're doing it in your car, you've got to do it by yourself. Now, that did not intimidate me. Like I said, I have a background in stand-up. I have a background in improv.

As I've explained before, I winged my vows at my wedding. I'm pretty comfortable being on the cuff. Off the cuff. Off the cuff. And so I was like, okay, I fell up to it. Now, I mean, it's challenging. One of the challenges of doing a podcast by yourself is there's no one to lean on.

I mean, one of the nice things about having, occasionally I'll have a guest, like, you know, you can take a breather. You can throw a question to them, you know. I don't have that luxury most of the time. But like I said, I mean, what I've learned is, if I just have a meaty topic, I can talk about topics for plenty of time, at least half an hour. And so, okay, so it all came together. So I'm like, okay, I need half an hour, that is half an hour. So I said, okay. Now, it wasn't like, I'm like, okay, I'm doing a podcast. I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna try this. I'm gonna attempt it. So'm like, okay, I'm doing a podcast. I'm like, you know what? I'm going to, I'm going to try this. I'm going to attempt it. So I said, okay, I'm going to experiment.

So before I told anybody about it, I just said, okay, my, my telephone, my, my phone has a app that records, you know, a voice memo app that comes with the phone. I'm like, okay, I'm just going to get in the car, put my headsets on, hit play, and I'm just going to talk. And we'll see what happens. But, but I knew, I knew that I needed a topic, you know, so I said, okay, why don't I start with Tempest? Because that was the first set I ever did. It felt thematic, like the first podcast would be the first thing, you know, a set ever led. So anyway, I got in the car, and I put record on, and I'm driving to work. And I start doing my podcast, and, you know, it's flowing, and things are going.

And then maybe ten minutes in, my phone rings know, it's flowing, and things are going, and then maybe ten minutes in, my phone rings, and it's my wife, and Laura's like, hey, Mark, I forgot to tell you, blah, blah, blah, whatever, I don't even remember what the topic was, but what I realized was, because I'm just recording on my phone, for those things that I have, like, some advanced, there's no post-production, there's no editing, I get in my phone, I hit play, I talk, I hit stop. And so my wife called like, oh, okay. How do I keep people from calling me in the middle of it? Because once they call, it stops recording and I can't start again.

And so then I figured out, okay, when my phone has the ability to, you know, I can put on the airplane mode so I can't get calls. So now what I do is I put on airplane mode. And you'll notice my podcast with Matt a few weeks ago, where like my wife desperately needed to call me and had to call Matt because my phone was turned off. That's why.

Because in order for people not to call me. So, okay, I tried a second time. So I got in the car. Okay, I turned off my, you know, turned off my phone so people couldn't call me. And I did a podcast. And I thought it went pretty well. But I wasn't quite sure.

So what I said is I took it into work and I took it to Trick,, but I wasn't quite sure. So what I said is I took it in to work and I took it to Trick, who is our editor for the website, and I said to him, I think I want to do podcasts. I did one. It went really well. And I think I might want to do a podcast. Now, understand, originally, my intent was I was just going to put it my social media, because I have my Twitter and my Tumblr and my Google Plus. I'm like, okay, I'll record it and I'll just upload it to my, it'll be my social media thing. And what I found was trickle, like, oh, no, no, no, we're thinking of starting some podcasts. We would love to

do your podcast. And I said, oh, okay. So he said, well, I want to, I need to take some time, I'll listen to it, you know, and I'll get back to you. So I, at this point, well, I need to take some time. I'll listen to it, and I'll get back to you. So at this point, the first one went really well. I had been bit a little bit. I'm like, okay, I want to do some podcasts. So I'm like, well, while I'm waiting, I'll just continue each week to do a podcast. And the plan was I would do one podcast a week. I would show one podcast, and I would be able to keep it up. So what happened is I just kept doing, every week I would do a podcast,

but it just took a while for them, you know, because they were trying to do another podcast, not just my podcast, but a second podcast. So anyway, it was taking time on their end, but I was just doing podcasts. And I think I ended up getting 10 podcasts made before the first podcast aired. And this is one of my running problems with my podcast

is I do one a week and what started happening was when I started doing multi-parts my trick is if I do it Monday and I'm a multi-part then I'll do it the next one Tuesday. So I just remember what I said. That I don't want to wait a whole week because I don't want to repeat what I

as is I've already had a few podcasts where I've repeated stuff because I forget I said something. But I do them back to back. And so what happens is I'm getting ahead because I record more than one podcast a week because I do multiple podcasts in one week. And so I've been getting a little bit ahead. I'm trying to solve that problem. Like right now, I'm like, I don't know, 11, 12 weeks ahead because I recorded this 12 weeks ago. Oh, another thing, by the way, I'll explain this is, so here's how my podcast

works. Monday morning, usually, I'll get in my car, it's podcast day, I tell my wife it's podcast day so she remembers she can't call me, and I get in the car, I pick my topic, and I go. Now, when I get to work, I get a sense of whether or not I was happy with what I did. One of two things happened. Either I think I'm happy or I think I'm unhappy. If I think I'm happy, then on the way home that day, I will listen to the podcast. And sometimes if I'm unsure, I'll listen to the podcast. If I know I didn't like it, sometimes I don't listen to it. And then if it's good, I go, oh, got it, done. If it's not, then Tuesday, I report my podcast. And there's no fixing it.

There's no editing. Like, for example, sometimes I'll say one thing that I'm unhappy with. And like, well, got to do the whole thing again. Like, for example, I tend to talk about things from the past. So this probably doesn't happen. But I was talking and I said something that I wasn't supposed to say about the future. And like, oh, I can't say that. And all it takes is one thing I can't say and I can't use the podcast. So the worst I've ever done is I think I've had

to do three podcasts for one where I did it Monday, I messed up. I did it Tuesday, I messed up. And then I did it Wednesday. Usually, by the way, I make it all the way to the end and then I'm like, eh, I'm not that happy with it. Sometimes I'm in the middle of it. I'm like, ah, screw it. Damn it. Okay, not today, you know. Maybe one day if I ever have the ability to actually edit, I'll edit some of my, I didn't make it stops where I, show where I give up.

But usually it's funny, like if I'm driving, I'll just start, you know, I don't know if I'm swearing, but I'll just be like, ah, I gotta do this again. But usually, usually I get on the first date if I'm swearing, but I was just like, ah, I got to do this again. But usually, usually I get on the first date. I'm getting pretty good. I would say two out of three times I make it on the first one. Maybe every third or fourth week I have to redo one. Yeah, the other thing that I slowly figured out is when I first started, I thought

I was just going to talk about sets I made. And then I did the math, and I'm like, well, I've worked on a lot of sets, but this is 52 weeks a year. I like this going for a while. So what I started doing is I said, okay, I'm going to start spacing out and be talking about the sets I've done. Originally, the plan was every third week

I would talk about that. But then what I started realizing is I had a lot of material for this. That's where I started talking about stuff I've done. And so if you notice, I started getting into three and four parters. So I started spreading those out a little more so that on average, you know, every two to three weeks, I mean, on average, you'll hear about that, but that there's larger chunks in between so that I'm, because sometimes I won't talk for a while, but then I'll spend four weeks talking about it. So I'm trying to mix it up. So let me talk about, so I did a couple of things to try to stretch it out and do different things. So one is

I stretched out that, and I do believe my bread and butter of the podcast is me talking about sets that I've designed, or I'll also talk about some sets I've developed. I mean, one of the things I've realized about doing a podcast or actually doing anything is you got to know your medium and you got to know what makes you different. Like, what is the vantage point of what you're doing? And so one of the things I figured out pretty quickly is, like, my big saving grace, like, why is I doing a podcast different from other people doing a podcast? I'm like, oh, well, I have stories no one else can tell. I have an insight no one else can tell. I have an insight no one else has because, you know, I've been working on Magic for 18 years.

And I've been lead designer for 10 years. And I've led, you know, I'm starting my 20th set. You know, I've, and I've been on, not only that, now I've led 20 designs. I've been on probably 50 designs. And I have, you know, been on, you know, 20, 30 development teams. I've been on a lot of themes. So most sets in Magic, I have something I can talk about. And even the few sets where I wasn't actually on the set,

I have insight into the set or some historical stuff. So I realized, okay, number one, my vantage point is I have insight people don't have. And number two, what I realized is that one of my roles is that of a historian. And that one of the things that I try to do this in my column to some extent, but I found that the podcast is even better because the podcast is all about telling stories. I really believe that like where podcasts shine is storytelling. And so I feel like, oh, here's my chance to talk about the people that made the game of Magic and tell actual stories. And I've kind of realized that my podcast has come to be kind of the history of Magic.

I mean, that's not all I do, but it's a responsibility I've taken on in that I kind of have a very unique vantage point in that I've been here for most of Magic's development. I've been here for most of Magic's growth. In the early days, I wasn't here, most of Magic's growth. And that, I mean, in the early days I wasn't here, although I know a lot of the early days, and I can tell stories that, you know, of a lot of it. But I just have this inside review, and that, look, I believe Magic's going to outlive us all.

I believe Magic will outlive me. And that, hey, I want to create some history for the game. And part of doing that is this podcast. I want to tell you about who these people are that worked on Magic and the stories behind the scenes and how sets got made. I want Magic to have a rich history.

But part of Magic having a rich history is someone putting it down. I was going to say on paper but I'm talking. On tape. On digital recording. And part of what the show's become is me telling stories. So what I've done is I've kind of carved up my podcast.

I realized that, like my column, I needed to have some sub-podcasts, some sub-brands, if you will. So what I did is I started doing some meta-podcasts. So one, obviously, is me talking about sets I've done. That's a thing that's ongoing. I mean, my plan essentially is I'll talk about all of them. I don't know how long before I catch up. I believe it's years for me to do that because there's, you know, I don't know, 60

some expansions. And assuming I do one, you know, 10 times a year or 15 times a year, I spaced out a little bit. I have a few years to get up. And plus, we're making more, so at some point I'll catch up. I'm like, I've now talked about every magic set there's been, but then I'll find something new to talk about. I'll talk about supplemental products, or I'll talk about, I don't know, I'll revisit and talk about stories I didn't talk about before. Okay, that's not right.

Another meta thing I started was my car type meta discussion, where I talked about the different car types. The funny thing is I didn't start it as a meta thing I started was my car type meta discussion where I talked about the different car types the funny thing is I didn't start it as a meta thing I started it cause well I guess I started it and then realized I had already started it cause with Mechavata I had done Planeswalkers um so

um but then I realized that I could talk about car types and so so far I've got most of them in fact as of this thing, I only have one left, which is enchantments. Which I've saved, by the way, because it's a major part of Theros, and I figured I need to make sure Theros is going before I get into it.

So I want to talk a little bit about Theros. So one of the things, by the way, is I tend to in the podcast not talk about the present too much, because my articles are very much about the present, and they're just trying to carve a different space. From time to time I'll hit stuff

that's a little more present but in general I'm trying to cover a lot more of the past. I feel like this podcast does better hitting the past. Plus, once again,

if I say one thing I can't say, scratch it. And so it's dangerous for me to talk about the present because when I'm running a column if I say something

I proof myself and I can take it out. But here I say something that's like, you know, as is by the a column, if I say something, I proof myself and I can take it out. But here, I say something that's like, you know. As is, by the way, I've actually leaked a few things in my articles, in my podcasts. The most famous one is I was talking about code names, and I almost gave away that Friends kind of actually was related to what it was about, by accident. Because when we named it Friends, Romans, and Countrymen, it was about, by accident. Because when we named it Friends, Roams, and Countrymen, it was a completely different theme.

And then we changed it to Greek, which is close to Roman, which is a Roman quote. And by that point, I couldn't change it. But, oh, Friends, Roams, and Countrymen, about Greek and almost Roman mythology, you know, that's pretty close. And if you listen to the podcast, and some people figured it out, I kind of hesitated,

and I realized I had said something. So if you listen closely, every once in a while, if it's not too bad, I leave it in. It's really bad, I figured it out. I kind of hesitated, and I realized I had said something. So listen closely every once in a while. If it's not too bad, I leave it in. If it's really bad, I take it out. Another meta podcast I've done is my color podcast. As of right now, I've done three of the five. I've done white, blue, and black. Obviously, red and green are to come.

I love the color pie, so I love talking about the color pie. I'm sure I will do more podcasts. I'll find some other neat way to do the Color Pie in the future. The other that's kind of a meta, but in a different way, is my, what do I want to call them, my carpool podcast. So what happened was, the way it started was, literally, I was, Mondays I do podcasts, and one day, you know, Matt came out and texted me and goes, can I have a ride to work?

And I said, oh sure, but just be aware, Mondays I do my podcasts. Would you like to be on my podcast? Because one of the things I try to do is, the meta of the podcast is I'm driving to work. And literally, I'm driving to work. You can hear, right now on the freeway, you can hear background noise. When people cut me off or honk at me or whatever, you hear that. And so every once in a while, and not all the time, but I like to, like I got gas once.

I like to play up the fact that it is a carpool, that it is a drive to work. Just a little bit. It gives the podcast a little bit of its own style. So anyway, a carpool sounded fun. Like literally, I'm carpooling, you know. And Matt, I mean, legitimately was carpooling with me. And so what happened was, then Ethan Fleischer found out that I did a carpool with Matt. Now, Ethan lives in the same city I live.

I mean, Matt literally lives blocks from me, and we do carpool. But Ethan said, if I drop myself off at your house, can I carpool with you and be on the podcast? I'm like, of course you can. And so he and I did a podcast. We talked about the good designer search. Whenever I carpool with somebody, I try to pick a topic I thought both of us could talk about. It's funny with Matt, because Matt and I carpool a bunch, I've been planning out stuff with him.

So I think Matt and I have done three times. So the first time, we talked about planeswalkers, which he was the one who suggested we do planeswalkers. The second one was about FutureSight, which is the only design team he's been on. And the third one was about flavor checks, which both he and I have done. So he and I have worked on a bunch of topics because he's going to be my most common carpooler because he actually carpools with me.

And then my third carpool was almost an accident, which was my dad, which was that he just was in town and he wanted my car so he could drive me to work, and I'm like, you know, this is a golden opportunity. I'm like, how often do I have a chance to interview my dad? And so, anyway, I thought that was too cool to pass up. So, I don't know who else I will carpool with. I mean, people ask all the time, by the way, could you carpool with Richard Garfield? Could you carpool with Marshall Sutcliffe? And I'm like, okay, guys, guys, guys. I live in Issaquah. I'm driving to Renton. You know, I mean, I don't know.

One of these days, like I said to Ethan, Ethan was the only person really who like went out of their way to come carpool with me. There's a few other people I've said, hey, if you want to come and carpool with me, you can be on. I have some open invitations to a few people. And by the way, if Richard Garfield ever wants to carpool with me, he can be on my podcast. I don't think it's going to happen since he lives nowhere near me and he doesn't work at Wizards, but maybe one day I'll just surprise you. So the other thing that I've been trying to do is I've done a few podcasts on the Pro Tour. That's something that I plan to sort of do every once in a while, only because I feel like the Pro Tour history, there's so little of recording it down.

I mean, I wrote one column on it, a two-parter, called On Pro Tour, I think it's called. On Tour. On Tour. And I don't know. I feel bad. I feel like there's a little bit of a loss. The history of the Pro Tour is getting a little bit lost, and there's not enough written about it. And so I'm not doing it every week, and I know not everybody cares about the pro tour. So though, even if you don't care about the pro tours, I'm hoping, like, here's something I find very interesting is I have friends that are not magic players who listen to my podcast, which

I always find fascinating because I'm like, I just talk about magic. And they're like, no, no, I, they're like, we can follow along. We'll see you tell stories, you know? So, um, they go every once in a while you start talking about card names. You have no idea what you're talking about. But, talking about but, and that's another interesting thing, by the way, is producing a podcast is just so, for example, I'm a fan of Kevin Smith, for those

that, he's a director that's done a lot of movies, and every year at Comic-Con on Saturday night, he always has a talk, and in Hall H, with the big hall, and I always go do it and one of the things he always would say is, he's very, very big big hall, and I always go to it. And one of the things he always would say is, he's very, very big on podcasting.

And he always said, you know what, just for fun, just for fun, it's fun, you know. And so now that I try to, look, I'm a year in now, I'm like,

this is very interesting. I do enjoy podcasting. It is fascinating. Like I said, I'm solo podcasting, which I think is a minority. I think most podcasts aren't solo.

But oddly, I can talk to myself without, you know. I've also noticed sometimes I will talk and I'll talk back. So I'm not sure if that's just me. But I mean, one of the things I do enjoy, one of the things that's fun about podcasts and about writing in general is I love the idea of expression where you force yourself to express and see what happens. Meaning when I set out to do a topic, you know, when I sit down and do a podcast, I don't 100% know what I'm going to say. I think about it. I mean, I have some ideas. Usually I have

a story to remind me. It's not like I get in the car with no idea. But I kind of get in the car and go, eh, I know the topic, you know. And what I've started doing is sometimes I'll take notes and I'll put them on a piece of paper, I mean, really big and in marker, because I don't want to make it hard to read because I'm driving, but usually really big notes. And especially when I'm doing sets, for example, I'll write down a few cards to talk about. Just because on the road, one of the things I figured out,

I mean, you guys have learned firsthand, is my memory sucks. I mean, that's unfair. I have a very good memory. I actually remember lots of details and I can tell stories. So in that way, my memory's good. But sometimes when I just need to call, like,

at a particular detail, like a card name or something, holy moly, I'm not that good at that. And that, I feel like, I probably could edit together a whole bunch of podcasts about,

what's that card again? It's red, it's in the lines, you know, I'm just like, although you'll notice, the way my brain works is like, I will, my brain will identify things like, it's a six and alliances, you know, I'm just like, although you'll notice the way my brain works is like, I will, my brain will identify things like, it's a six letter word, you know, that's how my brain works.

In fact, I think if you want to understand how I think, that nothing does that better than this podcast, because this podcast is straight from my head to my microphone, no editing, I'm just talking, I mean, sometimes I'll redo it, but that's as much editing as it happens. And you're getting me pretty unfiltered. Although, one of the things, if you ever met me in public, in person, is I'm pretty unfiltered.

I'm not the best filterer. One of the things, they talk about what colors you are. I often say that I'm red. Because one of my traits is, I think things and then I say them. And there's supposed to be some part of your brain that goes, oh, you're not supposed to say that. And my part of that brain is like sleeping a, you're not supposed to say that. My part of that brain

is sleeping a lot or something. I just have a bad habit of saying what I'm thinking. I mean, I'm pretty honest in that way, but not always to your benefit to say what you're thinking. But anyway, that's my is-it nature. I have good, interesting

thoughts, mental thoughts, and my brain part goes, well, I say them aloud. What else can I say about my podcast? Here's another interesting thing when I think about my podcast is I always am aware where I am when I say certain things so that when I listen to my podcast, I'm like, oh, oh, yeah, I'm at the streetlight. Or, oh, yeah, you know. So it's very bizarre that I associate my podcast with where I am on my drive to work.

Oh, here's another thing that I told the podcast that's been interesting is when I first started doing the podcast, I said, okay, it takes about half an hour to get to work. And one of the things I never really took into account was, well, on average, it takes 30 minutes to get to work. You know, on a really fast day, I can get to work maybe 27, 28 minutes. And a lot of days, it takes longer than 30 minutes. And there's been some classic examples. I had the breadtuck overturn, right, of 52-minute podcast, 51, 52 minutes. I've had a bunch of days

where I had to go the back way, where I had a longer podcast. You know, I mean, whatever happens, like, one of the things that's very interesting to me is, like, normally my drive to work, I don't think about how long it takes me to get to work,

except on podcast day, where I'm kind of always watching, and I go, oh, yeah, I see. I, uh, oh, interesting. I, uh, I'm going to be later today. Or I'm on a topic that I didn't expect to talk 40 minutes on. I'm like, oh, you know, okay. I mean, the good news is I can talk a lot about any topic.

Although there's some topics where I know it's a stretch, and so I have to be careful. Like, I hope today, like, Codenames was the one where I'm like, I probably can talk 30 minutes on Codenames, and like, if I got in traffic, I'm like, uh, okay, let me talk about Codenames I've never talked about yet, which I probably haven't made public yet, so, um, but it is interesting, I mean, it is, in some ways, this is my improv muscle being used, where like, I have a topic, and I'm going to talk about it, um, and sometimes I have to, you know, you know, uh, it's very funny because when you do TV, like, when I, when I was in college, I did a topic and I'm going to talk about it, and sometimes I have to, you know, you know. It's very funny because when you do TV, like when I was in college, I did a lot of TV production.

There's a motion which means stretch, which means, like, one of the things we would do in TV is you have some amount of time to fill. And in real TV, look, you have so much time to fill and you've got to fill the time. And so what we would do when we would do video production is our teacher would give us an amount of time that was actual in amount of time, and then we would have to we would do video production is our teacher would give us an amount of time that was actual in amount of time. And then we would have to fill it up.

And so there's a motion that the stage manager gives, which means stretch. And so sometimes when I'm driving, I just imagine, like, stretch. Like, you're not at work yet. Stretch it out. Somehow I always picture that. I'm getting very close to work today. Any last thing to talk about podcasts?

Oh, let me talk about the reception of the podcast. So one other thing I find very interesting is, and this is going to sound crazy, but Wizards Technology, I joke that our technology is like we're a step above the Amish because we at least have light bulbs. We're not always on the cutting edge of technology some of the times. And so I don't actually know how many people listen to this podcast.

And all I know is I can look at things like where it ranks on the chart on iTunes or I have people talking to me about, you know, who listens to it. And I did not know who would be listening to this podcast. I really didn't. But what I found lovely is, I mean, this is all anecdotal, but the number of people that like tell me to listen to my podcast is amazingly high. Like it used to be, for example, at is all anecdotal, but the number of people that, like, tell me to listen to my podcast is amazingly high. Like, it used to be, for example, at Comic-Con before the panel, I always walk the line, say hi to people, and I had a lot of people in line for a long time, so I'd come and chat with

them, and it used to be people were like, oh, I read your column every week, and, like, this last year, it was like, oh, I listen to your podcast every week. That was, like, the defining quality of, I'm a fan, because I listen to your podcast. So, it's very touching. Even though I don't know exactly how many people listen to me each week, the fact that I know a lot of people listen to me each week means a lot.

And I've been having a blast doing the podcast. Obviously, some of you have been enjoying it. And I get a lot of positive feedback. So I really do enjoy this, and it's fun. And so I'm going to continue. But anyway, that was possibly more than you ever wanted to know about me doing my podcast. Oh, and I see that I got to work in 28 minutes. It was a fast day.

So anyway, thank you very much for listening to my rambling as always. And I guess it's time to go make the magic.