This week is a music heavy show with new tracks for your ears. We discuss Fidget toys, Hinge profiles, typewriters, and cloches.

Transcript

Ben: Hello listeners! You're tuned in to Off The Rails On The Airwaves right here on WUML LOL. That's right, it's a radio show. It's slightly unhinged, and it has a couple of people talking during it occasionally. Not too much, but you know, enough.

Kyle: Slightly? Slightly unhinged? There are no hinges. in this in this show the door today will be a pretty hinged show actually though there will be a good amount of hinging going on just cuz we're gonna this week we're doing a very music heavy week for you all we've got some stuff that we want to we want to play we want to show you so we're gonna keep our chattering to to a minimum yeah I don't know

Ben: we got? What do we got coming up? Well, first of all, I'd like to address that you said there's going to be a lot of hinging, and I'm not I'm not sure if that's something that we want to say

Kyle: on it. Is that? Oh, is that like, is that like in the UK that would get censored? Is that I

Ben: Didn't I was thinking more of just like hinge as the dating app. Like, we're like, we're spending

Kyle: Two hours just like on our phone swiping. Yeah no we're gonna we're gonna be spending uh this show in its entirety reading uh hinge profiles to you all. So we'll do descript descriptions of the photo of the photos and videos uh we'll play any voice memos that they've posted on their profile.

Ben: Wow you can post a voice memo? I know it's crazy. I know yeah, I yeah, is it someone just talking to you? Hey, you should date me. I'm nice

Kyle: Yeah Yeah, it's like you got the photos you can do little little gifts and videos now And then you can put usually like a voice response to a prompt and say yeah, you can put tick-tock dances on there Profile if you want No, I Personally never put a voice memo. I don't know. It feels it feels odd to me It's funny because I will send voice memos to friends if like through text and stuff, but I won't do it on a Dating profile and I I very rarely

Ben: Into a voice memo that's on a profile too yeah i would be intimidated for sure yeah i don't know what it is something about the voice yeah well yeah it's very it's very personal you know it's it's almost it's sort of something that you don't like want to share just with like the public at large you know broadcasting on a large like platform Of like waves that could just like go to anyone and like anyone could listen to what you're saying Like literally anyone could be listening right now. I would hate for strangers to hear my voice

Kyle: Yeah, sure, especially if it if it just popped up randomly in between music segments, that would be super weird and odd Yeah, no, I think it's think part of it is that with radio I don't have to hear my own voice but if I post it on my profile I'm gonna listen to it back and I'm not gonna like what I

Ben: Hear yeah yeah it's pretty amazing how different your voice sounds when you're

Kyle: Not listening to it inside your own body I know my my voice in my own head Morgan Freeman and then I listen to uh any recording and I'm like oh who's this nasally

Ben: Guy what's going on yeah yeah well I think you sound wonderful and I like listening to you and

Kyle: I think that strangers would enjoy listening to you too thank you Ben I like listening to you coming up today we should probably

Ben: Yeah yeah sorry and transition coming up today we have some mostly new music I think we're doing a good job on the new music front we've got geese we've got Biffy Clyro we've got ripe featuring Lawrence I like that track a lot we've got a wonder horse May Simone's "Odyssey," "Atomic Life," "Bubble Love," oh that's a good one, "Mulally," I don't know this person, this must be a Kyle person, "Mulally," "Sing-a-long pop vocal arrangements that belie his young years painting vivid pictures in your mind. That sounds nice.

Kyle: Yeah.

Ben: Um, yeah, I think, uh, yeah, look forward to that. We're gonna meet you on the other side of it. But, uh, yeah, you're listening to Off the Rails on the Airwaves. Check out some music!

Kyle: - Yeah, I think it's gonna be the gateway to, oh God.

Ben: Wow, Kyle, that was a really nice selection of music that we just played.

Kyle: Wasn't it? Wasn't it a grand old time that we just had?

Ben: It really was.

Kyle: Fantastic, and you had some good stuff in there, too, right? Yeah. You got a good few tracks in there.

Ben: If you were feeling, you know, in a sharing mood. what what have you been doing for the past two hours the past two hours I have

Kyle: Been playing with this fidget toy exclusively just sitting down listening to music playing with a fidget toy this is a fidget cube there's a ton of different brands that make them now but I got it for a friend for for their birthday and then I got myself one as well and and I wasn't sure how much I'd end up using it use it all the time it's it's it's so nice it's got a bunch of different clicky rolly tactile things it keeps when I'm in a meeting where I'm horribly angry it keeps me it keeps me grounded it keeps me sane so yeah no i think i think uh it's it's gonna be the gateway it was inexpensive and so now i think

Ben: The world is open to uh to collecting new fidget toys wow that's the uh the fidget cube by antsy

Kyle: Labs good name yep that is it that's exactly it but ben have you ever used any kind of fidget toy Fidget spinners used to like, I don't know if they're still popular, but...

Ben: I used to have one on my desk just for, you know, visual aesthetic so that I looked like

Kyle: an actual human being, but I'm not seeing it now.

Ben: I'm not just a robot sitting here still and lifeless.

Kyle: Right. Yeah.

Ben: Uh-huh.

Kyle: Yeah, I wish.

Ben: I sort of enjoy wearing, like, I'm about to say wearables, adornments, you know, bracelet, watch, that sort of thing for that purpose. That's kind of nice.

Kyle: - Oh, okay, yeah, you like roll it on your wrist or like fiddle with the, yeah, that makes sense. - Yeah. - Especially if it's a wind-up watch.

Ben: - Oh, yeah, I'm winding. I'm winding But no, I haven't really explored this. I mean could you it is the fidget cube like pock? Is this a pocketable item? Are you taking it with you? Is it mostly an at-home like while you're driving? While you're operating heavy machinery

Kyle: Yeah, well, I'm operating heavy machinery skydiving base jump like all that kind of you know at no I it doesn't leave home with me, but it very well could it's It's like it's pocket-sized. It's a it's not bigger than Like, I don't know. It's roughly the same. It's different dimensions, but it's probably a little bit smaller than an AirPods case

Ben: You know what? I mean? Yeah. Oh and that's a classic fidget

Kyle: Toy just son yeah yeah if you have any earbuds at all just opening and closing the cloche on that

Ben: Yeah okay the the what now isn't that it's it's i i see you're gonna get googled on that cloche can i get a spelling of that

Kyle: Uh, cloiche.

Ben: Cloiche? Uh, it's not looking good.

Kyle: Cloiche? Um, oh boy, oh no. Cloche. Cloche? Is that C-L-O-C-H-E?

Ben: A close-fitting woman's hat with a bell-like shape. An apparatus used in certain kinds of aeroplanes, consisting of a steering column mounted with a universal joint at the base, which is bell-shaped.

Kyle: I don't know what I was thinking about, but I said a word that I don't understand. I said a word that I don't fully understand. I thought that there was a... fun word for like, the opening and closing pouch on like a coin purse?

Ben: - Oh, it, it, there definitely is one, and we just don't know.

Kyle: - And it's not cloiche, yeah. - It's not, yeah, that seems to be associated

Ben: With a bell-like shape. - Okay. - Which is also very interesting, but yeah, I don't think it's a..,

Kyle: and air pods. Thank you. Thank you for catching me on that because I would have just kept saying that word and not known

Ben: It's an extremely fun word, and I'm guessing nobody knows unless they speak French and know the word for Bell

Kyle: Right, yeah, no, no I am Yeah, the the air pods case classic fidget But yeah, no, I mostly leave it at my desk or on my coffee table to keep my hands busy if I'd like. I have a bad habit of if I'm in a meeting where I don't need to be the one talking most of the time, unless it's directly pertinent to me or I need to respond, I'll end up just email or yeah writing or like doing work while the meeting is going on and so if it's a meeting where I'm like I should really pay attention it helps keep me

Ben: Focused on on the meeting that's reasonable sometimes during meetings I'll just type on my keyboard to look like I'm doing stuff but actually I'm just typing and not actually

Kyle: Doing work. Your keyboard's unplugged. Yeah. You have an unplugged Mad Catz controller that you're using to make you feel like you're actually controlling

Ben: The game. Yeah I just sort of like start typing a little bit and look through. Yes I'm gonna take a note on that and I'm just pushing buttons. You have a

Kyle: Really loud clacky keyboard so it comes through on the mic. Yeah. the sounds with my typewriter. Yeah yeah you're sitting there taking notes and then every so often you do the like hand swipe motion and I'm like what is does he have a bluetooth typewriter

Ben: What's happening? Okay surely that exists if it doesn't exist we're making it. Yeah that

Kyle: Would be a really popular product. Or just like a mod. You could not get a full day of work done on a Bluetooth typewriter. If you have to, if you're typing out emails and you've got to go shhink every, every like 10 words.

Ben: - Every line, yeah.

Kyle: - Yeah. - That would be amazing.

Ben: Maybe we could just make a, like a program for the computer where it makes the typewriter sounds as you type.

Kyle: So you could, like, use a regular keyboard, but it would make the sounds? But I feel like you need that action of, like, resetting the mechanism, so, like, it makes the noise of a typewriter, but after every, like, ten words or every line or whatever, you have to, like, click and drag a slider at the top of the screen. back to the left and then it makes the noise right yeah oh maybe we could get

Ben: Someone to like do like a sample library of all the letters on a typewriter and

Kyle: Then we could like turn that into something interesting yeah I bet they do

Ben: Sound slightly different right yeah yeah cuz it's different mechanically it's

Kyle: Happening so yeah you would need you would probably want to do multiple recordings of each key yes right because it's not gonna sound a hundred percent the same every time so you got to have like ten different T key presses totally cycle in between yeah interesting fun yeah well it's um yeah

Ben: we should we should do that that'd be a really good fidget toy just it's just a full typewriter

Kyle: Yeah yeah no i uh i don't know we'll see we'll see if i end up collecting more of these little fidget toys the fidget spinner does not really appeal to me i'll be honest but um but i don't know something with more clacky pieces i could see myself uh getting getting into let us know send us an email contact@offtherailsradio.org

Ben: Let us know what your favorite uh fidget toys are yeah or what you've been doing for the past two hours while while listening to this playlist maybe maybe you have something more fun than a fidget spinner that we could pick up maybe maybe they

Kyle: a fun art or craft yeah wow that would be nice imagine can you imagine can you imagine if we

Ben: Use those two hours for something productive why would we do that two hours on a saturday evening no way no way amazing well we're gonna leave it there for you folks we'll be back Next week, as always, Saturday 6-8pm. Stay tuned for more exciting music, Factory 303, and others, depending on the programming. As always, come back any time you're in need of something to listen to. This is W.U.M.L. Lowell.