Being stuck at home most of 2020, I’ve been finding different ways to occupy my listening time, especially while working or exercising. I typically listen to music while exercising or working, but I’ve found with the lack of a lot of new music, most of my playlists and radio stations would simply repeat the same songs — which was rather annoying.

Instead, I’ve been turning to podcasts more and more as a way to get new content that I can occupy my listening time with. Some have become shows that I anticipate each week and cannot wait to listen to.

The podcasts

In alphabetical order, here’s my favorite podcasts that I’m listening to at this moment in time. The list doesn’t really change that much, and I started with a handful, but that’s quickly blossomed into more and more.

• All Consuming
• AppStories
• Automators
• Connected Pro (Subscription)
• Core Intuition
• Mac Power Users
• MacStories Unplugged (Subscription)
• MacStories Unwind
• The Rebound
• Rocket
• Same Brain
• The Talk Show with John Gruber
• To The Best Of Our Knowledge
• Under the Radar
• Ungeniused
• Upgrade
• The Vergecast

You’ll notice that there’s quite a few from the [Relay.fm] network, and I’ve liked the majority of their shows and continue to listen to them time and time again. I definitely have to give them a shoutout for their episode quality, content, and amazing hosts.

How do I listen?

I was using Apple Podcasts, which was my podcast player of choice a few years back, but has honestly gotten very lackluster with the syncing capabilities and playback capabilities with the latest releases.

A few years ago, I remembered trying [Castro] and really liked it, so I decided to give it another go and have really liked it as I’ve gotten back into listening to podcasts. It’s a little on the pricey side as far as subscription apps go, but it’s a great podcast player with a great watchOS app, customizations, and great playback controls and notes features.

Halloween is one of my favorite fall holidays, and one of my favorite holidays second only to Christmas. I always enjoy giving out candy and just the general spirit of celebrating the beginning of fall and all that it brings: Cooler weather, and of course, family gatherings. This year is a bit different though.

In lieu of celebrating Halloween in person with family and trick-or-treaters (don’t worry, I’m still leaving pre-packaged candy lined on the sidewalk for trick-or-treaters to take in a socially distanced fashion), I’m instead celebrating by watching some of my favorite Halloween movies.

Here’s my list of movies that I’m watching this year leading up to Halloween:

1. The Nightmare Before Christmas
2. Hocus Pocus
3. The Haunted Mansion
4. It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown (now on Apple TV+ for free)
5. The last 10 years of “Treehouse of Horrors” from the Simpsons

Last year I started setting some reading goals in GoodReads because I wanted to begin taking technology breaks and focusing on reading more. I’ve been reading off and on this year, but it’s been difficult to fully devote time to reading with everything that has been going on in our world. In July I started back my reading schedule in an attempt to still read 10 books this year, and I figured I’d give an update on where I’m at.

Here’s what I’m currently reading this month:

• (Completed) A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor by Hank Green — A second book in a great SciFi series by Hank Green that completes (or does it?) the series staring April May and The Carls. I read the first book last year and immediately pre-ordered the second one as soon as it was announced.
• (In Progress) The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien — I was never much of a LOTR (Lord of the Rings) fan growing up. For me, it was all about Harry Potter. So, I’m going back and giving this series a try (as well as watching the movies that match the book I’m reading). So far, the Hobbit is an excellent story and I cannot wait to get into the LOTR series proper.
• (Upcoming) Matilda by Roald Dahl — I’ve only ever read “James and the Giant Peach” as well as “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” by Roald Dahl, and it’s been a very long time. Both were good stories, and I was recently perusing the Kindle book store and stumbled upon this author again. I feel that I’ve done a disservice to myself by not reading more of his books, so I think I’m going to read each of the books that have a movie to go along with it and read the book, then watch the accompanying movie. I cannot wait to start this.

If you’d like to, you can follow my progress on GoodReads. I’m also open to any recommendations for what to read.