9/27/13 Episode 56: Drive to Work

All podcast content by Mark Rosewater

Okay, I’m pulling out of 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 we all know I’ve never meta-podcast I didn’t like.

Okay. So today, I’m going to talk about Drive to Work. Hopefully the Venn diagram of this—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 is 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—I had 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 is 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’s kind of crazy as-is. I’m usually on many teams at once, and just scheduling in general is hard. The idea that I would—I’d 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 just—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 in my—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, you know, three, four hour podcasts. Not for me. I mean, I—I think different podcaster 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 to take to get to work.

So anyway, I had in my head I wanted about thirty minutes. I needed to find time to do it and I wanted to do it. And my assumption was that my podcast would be about things I know. So it’d be about Magic design and, you know, Magic stories and stuff.

Oh, another thing about podcasting in general is, one of the things they teach you in communications 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 is 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, (???) a movie, if you turn the sounds off a movie, if it’s a good movie, the visuals alone will explain the story. Meaning you can watch the movie without having the sound. For example, if you’ve 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 notice you kind of can follow what’s going on. Now likewise, if you take a TV show and you turn—you know, put something 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 with TV from 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, and a lot of it is—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—and it’s people talking, right? And what works well with people talking is, usually stories—I mean, stories tend to have a very audial quality to them. Because when people tell stories, they tell them. In fact, you tell a story. It’s an audial medium. And I knew that if I wanted to do a podcast, that telling stories would be important.

So anyway, in my head it’s like “Okay, it’s an audial 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 bing! 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, where I’m just sitting.

I mean normally, you know, before I started doing my podcasts, I mean on my 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.” And at least that was the concept. That was the premise. I’m like “Okay, I need half an hour, I have half an hour.”

Now, some people might say, you know, “But if you do it in your car you’ve got to do it by yourself.” Now, I—that did not intimidate me. Like I said, I have a background doing standup, I have a background in improv. I’ve explained before, I—I winged my vows at my wedding. I’m pretty comfortable being on the cuff—(???) off the cuff. And so I was like “Okay,” I felt up to it.

Now I mean, it’s challenging. One of the—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 could 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, I—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 going to—I’m going to try to this. I’m going to attempt it.” So I said “Okay, I’m going to do an experiment.” So before I told anybody about it,  I decided “Okay.” My tele—my phone has a app that record—you know, a voice memo app, that comes with the phone, and I’m just 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 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 like the first thing I—you know, set I 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. And it’s my wife. And Lora is 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—so because I’m just recording on my phone. So those that think I have like some advanced—I have—there’s no post-production, there’s no editing, I get in my phone, I hit play, I talk, I hit stop.

And so when my wife called, I’m like “Oh, okay, I’ve—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, well, my phone has the ability to just—you know, I can put it 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, I—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 in to work and I took it to Trick, who is our editor for the website. And I said to him, “I’m—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 on my social media. Because I had my Twitter and my Tumblr and my Google Plus. And I’m like, “Okay, I’ll record it and I’ll upload it—it’ll be my social media thing.”

And what I found was, Trick was like “Oh, no no no, we’re thinking of starting some podcasts and we’d love to do your podcast.” And I said, “Okay.” So he said, “Well, I’m going to—I need to take some time, I’ll listen to it, and I’ll get back to you.”

So I—at this point, I—you know, the first one went really well, I was kind of like—(???), and I’m like “Okay, I’m going 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 cast a week. I would—you know, 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 it was taking time on their end. But I was just doing podcasts. So—and I think I ended up getting ten 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 have a multi-part, then I’ll do the next one Tuesday. So I just remember what I said. I don’t want to wait a whole week because I don’t want to, like, repeat—as is I already had a few podcasts where I’ve repeated stuff that I forget I said something. But I do them back-to-back.

And so what happens is, I’m getting ahead, because I don’t—I record more than one podcast a week because when I’m doing multiple podcasts in one week, I start getting a little bit ahead, I’m trying to solve that problem, I’m like—right now, I’m like eleven, twelve weeks ahead. Because I recorded this twelve weeks ago.

Oh, another thing by the way, I’ll explain this, is—so here’s how my podcast works. Monday morning, usually, I will get in my car. It’s podcast day, I tell my wife it’s podcast day so she’ll remember she can’t call me, I get in the car, 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 when 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 record 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, gotta do the whole thing again.” Like for example, I tend to talk about things from the past mostly, so this problem 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—so the worst I’ve ever done is I think I 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 “Aah, 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—my—“I didn’t make it” stops where I—show where I give up. But usually I think it’s funny, like I’m, you know, driving and I’ll just start, you know, I don’t know if I’m swearing. But I’ll just go “Aaaah! I’ve got to do this again.” But usually—usually I’ll get it on the first take. 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’ve 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, you know, this is fifty-two weeks a year, I would like this going for a while…” So what I started doing is I said, “Okay, I’m going to start spacing out me 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 the sets where I started talking about stuff I’d 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, 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 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 podcasts is me talking about sets that I’ve designed or—I’ve also talked about some sets that I’ve developed. I mean, one of the things I’ve realized about doing a podcast—or actually doing anything is, you had to know your medium, you’ve 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 was 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 has.” Because, you know, I’ve been working on Magic for eighteen years. And I’ve been Lead Designer for ten years. And I’ve led—you know, I’m starting my twentieth set. You know. I’ve—and I’ve been on—not only that, not only have I led twenty designs, I’ve been on probably fifty designs. And I have, you know, been on twenty, thirty development teams. I’ve been on a lot of teams.

So most sets in Magic I—have something I can talk about. And even the few sets where I don’t—I wasn’t actually on the set, I have insight into the set. Or some historical stuff. So I realized that okay. Number one, my vantage point is I have insight people don’t have. Number two what I realized is that one of my roles is that of a historian. And that one of the things that—I’ve tried to do this in my column to some extent, but I’ve 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, you know, 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. And I mean that’s not all I do, but it’s a responsibility I’ve taken on. And that I kind of have a very unique vantage point in that I’ve been here for most of Magic’s development. You know, I’ve been here for most of Magic’s growth.

And that—I mean, 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—I just have this insider view, and that look. I believe Magic is 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—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, and, you know, 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, but—on tape. On—you know. On digital recording. And I—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 realize that, like my column, I needed to have some sub-podcasts, 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, sixty-some expansions, and assuming I do one, you know, ten times a year, I don’t know, fifteen times a year—I spaced out a little bit. I had 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 start—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. (???) Another meta-thing I started was my card type meta-discussion. Where I talked about the different card types. The funny thing is, I didn’t start it as a meta thing, I started it because—well, I guess I started it and then realized I’d already started it, because with Matt Cavotta I had done planeswalkers. So—but then I realized that I could talk about card types, and so so far I’ve done—I’ve had 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’d 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 I’m 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, you know, when I’m writing a column, if I say something—I proof myself and I can take it out. But here I say something, it’s like, you know.

As it is, by the way, I’ve actually leaked a few things in my articles—in my podcast. 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. Which was by accident. Because when we named Friends, Romans, and Countrymen, it was a completely different theme, and then we changed it to Greek. Which is close to Roman, which the quote is a Roman quote.

And by that point it was like—I couldn’t change it, but “Oh, Friends, Romans, 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. 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, and 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 podcasts. So what happened was, the way it started was, literally I was—Mondays I do podcasts, and one day, you know, Matt Cavotta texts me and goes, “Can I have a ride to work?” And I said, “Oh, sure, but just be aware, you know, on Mondays I do my podcast. Would you like to be on my podcast?”

Because one of the things I’ve tried to do is, I—the meta—the meta of this podcast is I’m driving to work. And literally, I am driving to work. You can hear—you know, 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, not all the time, but I like to—I like to, like I got gas once, I—you know, like 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, and Matt—I mean, legitly was carpooling with me. And so what happened was, then Ethan Fleischer found out that I needed to carpool with Matt. Now, Ethan lives in the same city I live, not—I mean, Matt literally lives blocks from me, and I—we do carpool.

But Ethan said, “If I can’t—if I drop myself off at your house, could 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 Great Designer Search. Whenever I carpool with somebody, I try to pick a topic that I felt both of us could talk about.

It’s fun 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 is one he suggested we do planewalkers. The second one was about Future Sight, which was the only design team he’s been on. And the third one was about flavor text, which both he and I have done. So he and I have worked out—I have 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’s going to 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 this 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 and driving to Renton.” You know.

I mean, I don’t know, one of these days—like I said with Ethan. Ethan was the only person really who like went out of their way to come carpool with me. I—there’s a few other people I said, “Hey, if you want to come and carpool with me, you can be on.” I have 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.” (Part Two).

And—I don’t know. I feel bad, I feel like there’s a lot—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—I’m not doing it every week, I know not everybody cares about the Pro Tour. And so even if you don’t care about the Pro Tours, I’m hoping…

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 could follow along. Mostly you tell stories.” So they’re like “Every once in a while you start talking about card names and we have no idea what you’re talking about, but…”

And that’s another interesting thing, by the way, is producing a podcast is just—so for example, I’m—for those—I’m a fan of Kevin Smith, for those—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, in the 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. Why don’t you—it’s fun!” You know. And so now that I tried it—look, I’m like, “It is very interesting. I do enjoy podcasting. It is—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’ll talk and I’ll talk back, so. I’m not sure if that’s just me, but—and I mean, one of the things I do enjoy, one of the things that’s fun about podcasts, and 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 to 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 or two in mind. It’s not like I get in the car without—having 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—I don’t want to make it any harder for me 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—I mean, you guys have learned first-hand, 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 is good. But sometimes when I just need to call up—like 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 get (???) podcast about “What’s that card again? It’s red, it’s in Alliances,” you know, I’m just like—although you’ll notice, the way my brain works is like—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—I’ll redo it, but that—that’s as much editing as it happens. And you’re getting me pretty unfiltered. Although one of the things, if you’ve ever met me in public is—in person, is I am pretty unfiltered. I’m not the best filterer.

One of the things I 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—my part of that brain is like sleeping a lot or something. I—you know. 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 the benefit to say what you’re thinking. But anyway. That’s my Izzet nature. Is that I have good, interesting thoughts—you know, mental thoughts, and then (???) “Let’s say them aloud.” You know.

What else can I say about my podcast? It—here’s one of the interest things 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. And so it’s very bizarre that I associate my podcasts with where I am on my drive to work.

Oh here’s another thing about this 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 thirty minutes to get to work.” You know, on a really fast day I can get to work maybe twenty-seven, twenty-eight minutes. And a lot of days it takes longer than thirty minutes.

And there’s been some classic examples. I had the bread truck overturn where I had a fifty-two-minute podcast, fifty-one, fifty-two minutes. I have had a bunch of days where I had to go the back day, where I had a longer podcast. You know, and 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—oh interesting, I… I’m going to be later today.” Or I’m on a topic that I didn’t expect to talk forty minutes on, and I’m like “Oh,” you know, “Okay…”

And 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…” Code Names is one where like “I probably have thirty minutes on code names.” And if I had gotten traffic, I’m like, “Okay, I’m going to talk about code names I had never talked about yet. Which I probably haven’t made public yet.” So—but it is interesting.

I mean, it is—in some ways, this is my improv muscle being used, where like I have a topic, 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—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 a certain amount of time to fill.

And in real TV, like, 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—he would give—our teacher would give the amount of time that was (???) 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 to work yet, stretch it out.” Somehow I always picture that. So anyway, I’m getting very close to work today.

Trying to think… any last thing to talk about podcasts? Oh, let me talk about the reception of the podcast! So one of the things 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 time.

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 they 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 have been in line for a long time so I come and chat with them. And it used to be people would be 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” was “I listen to your podcast.” It was very touching.

I’m—even though I don’t know exactly how many people listen to it each week, the fact that I know a lot of people listen 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—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 it’s—I got to work in twenty 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.