(Slightly) longer episodes

This will read more like a blog post than a straight update. But for those who don't want to stick around, I'll give you the gist of it here:

We're now extending our maximum episode time to 60 minutes. Have a good day!

OK, so that's the actual update. Now I'm gonna ramble on about it for a while.

With a few exceptions, especially in the case of special guest episodes or when I was just sloppier at editing, I really really tried to refuse to go over 50 minutes in length. The original aim for the show was 30-40 minutes, and of course once Paul joined as a host, it got progressively harder to stay within that range.

Naturally, as with speed limits on the roads, when you set a maximum, there is a bit of a buffer granted as some slack - we aim for 40 minutes, but it's OK to go over so long as it stays under 50 minutes.

However, if I allowed myself to trod the slightest bit over 50, then the rule becomes "anything under 60 minutes". And so on and so forth.

Therefore, lately I've been cutting a lot of great content to reach the 50 minute maximum, because they were parts that were easy to cut, and because we had to cut SOMETHING to make time. In the case of the latest episode with Ivy Dupler, in order to easily reach sub-50 while keeping as much of Ivy's awesome content as possible, that meant actually removing myself entirely from the interview.

Not that I minded removing myself from the interview, in fact I'm considering possibly employing that tactic more in the future. But the reality is that now that we have 3 hosts on the show, it just makes sense to allow for a bit more time so each can share a bit more floor between us.

So now our episodes will be 40-50 minutes, with a hard max of 60. I know there are people who actually enjoy longer podcast episodes, but I don't want to go down that slippery slope that will eventually lead to 2-3 hour episodes. Reaching that length often requires a certain level of inability to edit one's work, and to just assume that everybody will think everything we say is awesome. My philosophy is to cut out all the fat to the point where we have to start trimming the meat, because if we're starting to get rid of meat, then what's left will be the prime cut.

Anyhow, that's my braindump for today! Thank you all for listening and enjoying the show! Thank you to all who support us with your donations - we're going to start thanking you on the show because we currently aren't expressing the appreciation that we feel towards you.

Stay safe, stay healthy, and take care!

- Ric