Honestly, I listen to (I swear that I don’t watch) YouTube videos while commuting. Video essay stuff, political commentary, etc. There’s plenty of YouTube content that is “audio-only-friendly.”
@ironcheftoni@Kyeh 15 feet? that’s good, at least you are getting out of bed! But if the cat(s) stay in the bed all day, why leave? Clearly they are on to something.
I’ve been working from home since the start of 2007, and only in the last two years have people begun to understand that I actually do a real job!
So no commute for ages now, but in the car and at other times, it’s all podcasts all the time these days. True crime and Scientology are my favorite topics.
@daveinwarsh I admire your courage. I listen to conservative talk radio or classic rock, but I wasn’t going to admit it.
I implied I was conservative once and was …um… reprimanded (?), so I don’t talk about it anymore.
But mostly they seem to be pretty good folks here.
@cinoclav My brother is a diehard Eagles fan living in Dallas. After they won the Superbowl his 4-year-old son was going around telling everyone “Fly Eagles fly!” for probably 6 months.
@cinoclav I have a huge hole in my Patriots fanboy heart for that super bowl. Both for the loss and that it was the beginning of the end of Tom Brady in the best looking uniform.
Back when it was just called going to work I listened to this weird ass device called a radio that came with the car. It played music, reported news and gave the ever useful traffic reports.
In my short trip to my office, I listen to my little head voices telling me what I need to do. Like fix the wallpaper in the hallway that the Avengers ripped off.
When I worked, I walked to and from. My wife would walk with me in the morning, then walk back home (her exercise). So, I listened to her on my “commute”. So nice and quiet not working anymore.
I call taking care of my dad work bc it usually is. I usually ride in silence bc I know his tv is gonna be blaring and it’s my quite time. On the way home I have to ride in silence from the tv blaring bc my ears can’t take anymore.
@Star2236
Thankfully Mom (90) lives next door, so no commute. She reads primarily, so no loud TV. Plus she is currently sleeping about 13-14 hours a night. I can see the day coming when she will no longer be able to live ‘independently’ at home. Meanwhile, cameras are a life changer as we can check on her to monitor her for falls etc. without us ‘being in her space’ – which is her preference.
Bless you for doing the work necessary to keep your dad where he is comfortable!
@chienfou
We have cameras too. He’s legally blind and has a peg tub so there’s some things he can’t do like prepare his medication, pay bills, go through the mail, anything legal related its all my category along with managing all dr appointment and medication and a whole bunch of other stuff. I also go other there to spend time with him too. I lived with him till I was 27 bc I’m just like my dad in so many ways and we always get along great.
My boyfriends dad lives right next to us and is recovering from a broken hip at 75 and thinks he’s gonna be snowmobiling this winter lol. Who knows he might be but we think he’s in for a lifestyle adjustment that he doesn’t wanna face. But you never slow down you never grow old.
Mostly, I listen to the drivetrain and tires; I’m better at spotting many forms of impending trouble than the ECM’s diagnostics a lot of the time. When I need something to assist in maintaining focus, I have an iPod full of trailer music. When that isn’t enough, it’s usually time for a Safety Snooze.
So, first of all, “Books on Tape?” — what is this tape thing of which you speak? Well, yes, I am old enough to know and have fond memories of loading up the cassette carrying case with about a dozen tapes of music for road trips, or having a full book you could buy on those cassettes great for listening on long drives. I did the first few Harry Potter books this way, either in a motorhome or older Jeep or Mercedes that still had those wondrous devices that twirl the plastic tape thingy and magically make low-fidelity sound come out.
Now I usually listen to audiobooks on various devices. I am not “cool” enough to have any vehicles that support bluetooth, but luckily my truck I use for long drives has the 3.5mm jack an I have old enough devices that still have those (new phones and iPads, S.O.L.)
This is for long multi-day drives across the country. I got through the entire finished books of Game of Thrones this way. This is over about 5 years/trips, a total of about 20,000 miles of listening.
@pmarin The first audiobook I purchased was on tape and the was in the early 2000’s. Our audio library still has 40 or 50 titles on tape. We have CDs, MP3 CDs, and now digital downloads.
Since then I’ve listened to hundreds of books and even though I don’t commute any more, still listen to 3 or 4 a week.
I bought one for my nephew when he bought his 99 F150 last year, only to find out the radio was “dead”
he went ahead and bought an aftermarket unit, and when he went to pull the dead unit out of the dash… it was just unplugged… but he already had the newer unit, and things opened up… so it now has a modern aftermarket radio, complete with USB and Bluetooth.
Before audible and other digital competitors existed, even before books on cd, there used to be several local “commercial audiobook-lending stores”. You paid a monthly fee and could “check out” one or two books on cassette at a time. No due date, as long as the monthly fee was paid. but you couldn’t get another book until you turned in what you had.
This was my real intro to audiobooks. And … I was hooked.
these stores were very frustrating to me and the other audiobook fiends I knew. They had far larger “abridged” than “unabridged” libraries, as most people listened during their commutes and seemed not to want to take on a 15-25 hour book, let alone keep track on the cassettes in their cases.
And you could wait what seemed like “forever”, hoping that someone would finally turn in the book you’d been waiting 6 months for. This happened a bunch with series books - a listener could get stuck on a title in the middle of the series. We used just read print version of that particular book in order not to go nuts waiting.
We would also use interlibrary loan to get certain books, but those waits could be even longer. The local library collection of unabridged audiobooks was quite small.
I still have some cassette and CD audiobooks (JK Rowling, John Le Carre) packed away somewhere. I’m too fond of them to give them away.
But cassette and cd books were damned expensive. I used to buy them at garage sales and on eBay sometimes. Pricy even there, I really had to want thr book to spend that $.
And then I discovered audible and various competitors. Chirpbooks, E-stories, Nook audiobooks, Kobo. Google, Apple, and so on. ,
That tapped into my tendency to be compulsive in purchasing books. My library is now embarrassingly large, but it’s so nice to want to start s new book and have thousands from among which to choose.
So I guess I qualify as someone with an “audiobook problem”. : )
There are worse problems I could have.
If anyone is interested, the real history of audiobooks goes back to Homer and before, when special performing artists proclaimed religious works, histories, myths, poems. and other important texts in public.
This was also the way most persons experienced early novels: because many of the poorer persons either couldn’t read, or could barely read, and certainly couldn’t afford books as entertainment. So, in European villages and cities, the rich individuals would purchase books to be read in public to the gathered communities: in churches, meeting places, and pubs, and outdoors if the weather was nice.
The narrators were literate volunteers who took pride in their skills, and the most effective narrators got a choice of the best bits or fav books. There was sometimes a slight theatrical flourish; musical performances, persons chosen just to do dialogue, church bells at key moments, etc.
Daniel Dafoe snd Samuel Richardson’s novels were well-known to the non-reading population because of public performance readings that sometimes took weeks to complete. The practice still existed for Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.
There was also a tradition of reading aloud both novels and nonfiction within families. as shared entertainment or education. This tradition continued in some families at least up until the start of WWII and after.
But true “recorded books” had to wait for recording technology. It really took off in the UK (by various charities) and in the US (by the Library of Congress) after WWI, as a often free service first for disabled veterans, and later for anyone disabled who needed assistance to read printed books. Over time the library curators used every dominant recording tech of each era. In the pre-WWII era, postal worked used to deliver insanely
heavy stacks of 78 rpm records containing unabridged works. I think, in the US, a player was provided at no charge for persons who were certified as eligible for the free service.
And I think the Library of Congress program is still active in some form today, tho I think they’ve gone instant-download-digital and they cooperate with innovators in that tech.
If anyone wants a REAL history of audiobooks: I am very fond of The Untold Story of the Talking Book by Matthew Rubery.
Here’s a link to Amazon listing.
Of course, this book is available at various audiobook sellers.
An early “golden voice” of the audiobook world was the very gifted Alexander Scourby (who also acted on stage, TV, film, radio.)
He started recording books in the 1930’s, and was most active thru the 1960’s. Some students if this book format still find his voice to be the high quality mark of recorded narration.
He recorded the entire Bible twice: first, the KJV, later the Revised Standard. Each full recording is supposed to have taken years to complete.
Also recorded T H White’s Once and Future King, as well as unabridged novels by Faulkner, Tolstoy, Joyce, Homer, and many others. Almost 500 books in all, for the Library for the Blind service.
When I first heard his narration work: tho he sounded great, the digital copies were created using old tapes and records. There was a lot of scratch and hiss.
Now a lot of his work is being re-mastered w modern tech assistance using the original tapes, and re-released. His vocal performances still hold up, tho they are in an older style of narration.
His narrations can be found for sale at the big digital audiobook distributors, and some of it is on YouTube.
The NFL films weren’t listed in Scourby’s IMDB or Wikipedia pages. But … his narrative vocal and speech stylings were a fairly common trained speech pattern and approach for mid-century acting and narration techniques.
His was just better at using that speech pattern in an audiobook format where the narration sessions are really long, and all sorts of written material can be included; a good narrator has to be able to handle all sorts of stuff.
If I’m recalling the same NFL narrator that you remember, I think the NFL guy had a slightly deeper baritone voice. Also, Scourby was born in 1013. The NFL films didn’t start up until the 1960’s, so he might have been outside their preferred demographic. Also, at the time, they were a tiny company. I don’t know how they picked their original talent, but they may hand just gine with less expensive and less we’ll-known voices.
The NFL films Wikipedia page doesn’t include Scourby in the list of their narrators.
I’d like to see a document-history of NFL films someday. They certainly know how to sell the sport.
@f00l@kjady@pmarin@zinimusprime
I really like that old-fashioned speech pattern and accent - it seems so dignified and reassuring.
I miss it, actually.
Don’t commute but listen to CNN on XM in the car.
Honestly, I listen to (I swear that I don’t watch) YouTube videos while commuting. Video essay stuff, political commentary, etc. There’s plenty of YouTube content that is “audio-only-friendly.”
NPR
@Cerridwyn Me too
@Cerridwyn Yup
The kids yelling about how they don’t want to have to go out to wait for the bus that will be there in 83 seconds
Music. Back when I worked, my commute was just long enough to listen to one full Tool song. You know traffic was bad if you got to another track.
npr, or music when npr starts getting too repetitive or uninteresting
The woeful cry of an orange cat that if not fed in the next ten minutes will surely starve to death
@ironcheftoni
So a very short commute?
@Kyeh yes, since working from home the commute has been reduced from 15 minutes to 15 feet
@ironcheftoni
@ironcheftoni @Kyeh 15 feet? that’s good, at least you are getting out of bed! But if the cat(s) stay in the bed all day, why leave? Clearly they are on to something.
@ironcheftoni @zinimusprime
Obviously inspired by Henri le Chat Noir:
I’ve been working from home since the start of 2007, and only in the last two years have people begun to understand that I actually do a real job!
So no commute for ages now, but in the car and at other times, it’s all podcasts all the time these days. True crime and Scientology are my favorite topics.
Howard 100 then whatever
Conservative Talk radio, Bluegrass or Classic Rock.
@daveinwarsh I admire your courage. I listen to conservative talk radio or classic rock, but I wasn’t going to admit it.
I implied I was conservative once and was …um… reprimanded (?), so I don’t talk about it anymore.
But mostly they seem to be pretty good folks here.
@daveinwarsh @Tadlem43 Ironic how the political group that touts it’s open-mindedness & tolerance is so intolerant of people that think differently…
Ads from a certain to-be-unnamed 99 cent store.
@phendrick Must not be Dollar-and-a-Quarter Tree, then.
@xobzoo Suffice it to say this place is even more meh.
On the freeway I listen to Slipknot. Gets me in the right frame of mind for the city idiots.
@tweezak Cidiots, if you will.
Commute?
Local morning show that has a bit of music mixed in on the way to work. Sports talk on the way home. Fly Eagles fly!
@cinoclav My brother is a diehard Eagles fan living in Dallas. After they won the Superbowl his 4-year-old son was going around telling everyone “Fly Eagles fly!” for probably 6 months.
@cinoclav I have a huge hole in my Patriots fanboy heart for that super bowl. Both for the loss and that it was the beginning of the end of Tom Brady in the best looking uniform.
/giphy Tom Brady
@zinimusprime He was never an Eagle!
@cinoclav
/giphy vomit in mouth
I don’t commute…
Back when it was just called going to work I listened to this weird ass device called a radio that came with the car. It played music, reported news and gave the ever useful traffic reports.
@Goofmont Tell us more!
In my short trip to my office, I listen to my little head voices telling me what I need to do. Like fix the wallpaper in the hallway that the Avengers ripped off.
http://catler.org/woot/commute.MP4
When I worked, I walked to and from. My wife would walk with me in the morning, then walk back home (her exercise). So, I listened to her on my “commute”. So nice and quiet not working anymore.
Toucher & Rich
I call taking care of my dad work bc it usually is. I usually ride in silence bc I know his tv is gonna be blaring and it’s my quite time. On the way home I have to ride in silence from the tv blaring bc my ears can’t take anymore.
@Star2236
Thankfully Mom (90) lives next door, so no commute. She reads primarily, so no loud TV. Plus she is currently sleeping about 13-14 hours a night. I can see the day coming when she will no longer be able to live ‘independently’ at home. Meanwhile, cameras are a life changer as we can check on her to monitor her for falls etc. without us ‘being in her space’ – which is her preference.
Bless you for doing the work necessary to keep your dad where he is comfortable!
@chienfou
We have cameras too. He’s legally blind and has a peg tub so there’s some things he can’t do like prepare his medication, pay bills, go through the mail, anything legal related its all my category along with managing all dr appointment and medication and a whole bunch of other stuff. I also go other there to spend time with him too. I lived with him till I was 27 bc I’m just like my dad in so many ways and we always get along great.
My boyfriends dad lives right next to us and is recovering from a broken hip at 75 and thinks he’s gonna be snowmobiling this winter lol. Who knows he might be but we think he’s in for a lifestyle adjustment that he doesn’t wanna face. But you never slow down you never grow old.
Mostly, I listen to the drivetrain and tires; I’m better at spotting many forms of impending trouble than the ECM’s diagnostics a lot of the time. When I need something to assist in maintaining focus, I have an iPod full of trailer music. When that isn’t enough, it’s usually time for a Safety Snooze.
Audiobooks. : )
Everything from trash to class.
@f00l me too… I love it all. And twice a week have to work from the office which has moved and now is an hour away
used to listen to sportstalk radio, now no commute
So, first of all, “Books on Tape?” — what is this tape thing of which you speak? Well, yes, I am old enough to know and have fond memories of loading up the cassette carrying case with about a dozen tapes of music for road trips, or having a full book you could buy on those cassettes great for listening on long drives. I did the first few Harry Potter books this way, either in a motorhome or older Jeep or Mercedes that still had those wondrous devices that twirl the plastic tape thingy and magically make low-fidelity sound come out.
Now I usually listen to audiobooks on various devices. I am not “cool” enough to have any vehicles that support bluetooth, but luckily my truck I use for long drives has the 3.5mm jack an I have old enough devices that still have those (new phones and iPads, S.O.L.)
This is for long multi-day drives across the country. I got through the entire finished books of Game of Thrones this way. This is over about 5 years/trips, a total of about 20,000 miles of listening.
@pmarin The first audiobook I purchased was on tape and the was in the early 2000’s. Our audio library still has 40 or 50 titles on tape. We have CDs, MP3 CDs, and now digital downloads.
Since then I’ve listened to hundreds of books and even though I don’t commute any more, still listen to 3 or 4 a week.
@pmarin they do make Bluetooth cassette adapters…
I bought one for my nephew when he bought his 99 F150 last year, only to find out the radio was “dead”
he went ahead and bought an aftermarket unit, and when he went to pull the dead unit out of the dash… it was just unplugged… but he already had the newer unit, and things opened up… so it now has a modern aftermarket radio, complete with USB and Bluetooth.
@kjady @pmarin
Before audible and other digital competitors existed, even before books on cd, there used to be several local “commercial audiobook-lending stores”. You paid a monthly fee and could “check out” one or two books on cassette at a time. No due date, as long as the monthly fee was paid. but you couldn’t get another book until you turned in what you had.
This was my real intro to audiobooks. And … I was hooked.
these stores were very frustrating to me and the other audiobook fiends I knew. They had far larger “abridged” than “unabridged” libraries, as most people listened during their commutes and seemed not to want to take on a 15-25 hour book, let alone keep track on the cassettes in their cases.
And you could wait what seemed like “forever”, hoping that someone would finally turn in the book you’d been waiting 6 months for. This happened a bunch with series books - a listener could get stuck on a title in the middle of the series. We used just read print version of that particular book in order not to go nuts waiting.
We would also use interlibrary loan to get certain books, but those waits could be even longer. The local library collection of unabridged audiobooks was quite small.
I still have some cassette and CD audiobooks (JK Rowling, John Le Carre) packed away somewhere. I’m too fond of them to give them away.
But cassette and cd books were damned expensive. I used to buy them at garage sales and on eBay sometimes. Pricy even there, I really had to want thr book to spend that $.
And then I discovered audible and various competitors. Chirpbooks, E-stories, Nook audiobooks, Kobo. Google, Apple, and so on. ,
That tapped into my tendency to be compulsive in purchasing books. My library is now embarrassingly large, but it’s so nice to want to start s new book and have thousands from among which to choose.
So I guess I qualify as someone with an “audiobook problem”. : )
There are worse problems I could have.
If anyone is interested, the real history of audiobooks goes back to Homer and before, when special performing artists proclaimed religious works, histories, myths, poems. and other important texts in public.
This was also the way most persons experienced early novels: because many of the poorer persons either couldn’t read, or could barely read, and certainly couldn’t afford books as entertainment. So, in European villages and cities, the rich individuals would purchase books to be read in public to the gathered communities: in churches, meeting places, and pubs, and outdoors if the weather was nice.
The narrators were literate volunteers who took pride in their skills, and the most effective narrators got a choice of the best bits or fav books. There was sometimes a slight theatrical flourish; musical performances, persons chosen just to do dialogue, church bells at key moments, etc.
Daniel Dafoe snd Samuel Richardson’s novels were well-known to the non-reading population because of public performance readings that sometimes took weeks to complete. The practice still existed for Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.
There was also a tradition of reading aloud both novels and nonfiction within families. as shared entertainment or education. This tradition continued in some families at least up until the start of WWII and after.
But true “recorded books” had to wait for recording technology. It really took off in the UK (by various charities) and in the US (by the Library of Congress) after WWI, as a often free service first for disabled veterans, and later for anyone disabled who needed assistance to read printed books. Over time the library curators used every dominant recording tech of each era. In the pre-WWII era, postal worked used to deliver insanely
heavy stacks of 78 rpm records containing unabridged works. I think, in the US, a player was provided at no charge for persons who were certified as eligible for the free service.
And I think the Library of Congress program is still active in some form today, tho I think they’ve gone instant-download-digital and they cooperate with innovators in that tech.
If anyone wants a REAL history of audiobooks: I am very fond of The Untold Story of the Talking Book by Matthew Rubery.
Here’s a link to Amazon listing.
Of course, this book is available at various audiobook sellers.
The Untold Story of the Talking Book https://a.co/jhEDAkY
/image “the untold story of the talking book”
@kjady @pmarin
An early “golden voice” of the audiobook world was the very gifted Alexander Scourby (who also acted on stage, TV, film, radio.)
He started recording books in the 1930’s, and was most active thru the 1960’s. Some students if this book format still find his voice to be the high quality mark of recorded narration.
He recorded the entire Bible twice: first, the KJV, later the Revised Standard. Each full recording is supposed to have taken years to complete.
Also recorded T H White’s Once and Future King, as well as unabridged novels by Faulkner, Tolstoy, Joyce, Homer, and many others. Almost 500 books in all, for the Library for the Blind service.
When I first heard his narration work: tho he sounded great, the digital copies were created using old tapes and records. There was a lot of scratch and hiss.
Now a lot of his work is being re-mastered w modern tech assistance using the original tapes, and re-released. His vocal performances still hold up, tho they are in an older style of narration.
His narrations can be found for sale at the big digital audiobook distributors, and some of it is on YouTube.
Here’s a less that 1min snippet:
@f00l @kjady @pmarin
That voice does sound very familiar.
@f00l @kjady @Kyeh @pmarin He sounds like the guy that narrated the NFL films shows from the 60’s & 70’s.
@kjady @Kyeh @pmarin @zinimusprime
The NFL films weren’t listed in Scourby’s IMDB or Wikipedia pages. But … his narrative vocal and speech stylings were a fairly common trained speech pattern and approach for mid-century acting and narration techniques.
His was just better at using that speech pattern in an audiobook format where the narration sessions are really long, and all sorts of written material can be included; a good narrator has to be able to handle all sorts of stuff.
If I’m recalling the same NFL narrator that you remember, I think the NFL guy had a slightly deeper baritone voice. Also, Scourby was born in 1013. The NFL films didn’t start up until the 1960’s, so he might have been outside their preferred demographic. Also, at the time, they were a tiny company. I don’t know how they picked their original talent, but they may hand just gine with less expensive and less we’ll-known voices.
The NFL films Wikipedia page doesn’t include Scourby in the list of their narrators.
I’d like to see a document-history of NFL films someday. They certainly know how to sell the sport.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFL_Films
@f00l @kjady @pmarin @zinimusprime
I really like that old-fashioned speech pattern and accent - it seems so dignified and reassuring.
I miss it, actually.
NPR.
radio/mp3’s/streaming, etc…
I only live 4.5mi (5-10min) from work
@Charliedoggo trying to run down the stairs faster than me! Thr commute to the kitchen is short but entertaining
I am constantly listening to podcasts. Usually scary stories or history. Love Knifepoint Horror I can listen to that podcast over and over.
My audio system was ripped out by tweekers in 2014 and I never bothered to replace it.
96.7 The Ticket
DFW’s all sports, all the time radio station