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Speaker 1: Hey everybody, Hey, hey, oh, we're so excited coming to

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Speaker 1: you today with something a little brief, something a little new. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, we've been seeing each other for a little

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Speaker 1: while now, so you gotta keep it fresh. You gotta

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Speaker 1: try something exciting, y'all. Know, sometimes a story pops up

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Speaker 1: in the news and it feels like a perfect fit

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Speaker 1: for this show. But it's hot, it's fresh, it's trendy,

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Speaker 1: and it's short, too short for a full episode. So

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Speaker 1: we decided, when something like this comes up, but we

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Speaker 1: can't just look away, we're gonna bring you a little

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Speaker 1: mini episode that we're calling real quick Uless Romance. I

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Speaker 1: guess who came up with that name. So if you

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Speaker 1: have logged into social media lately, your feet is probably

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Speaker 1: absolutely flooded with little gray, yellow, and green squares I know,

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Speaker 1: minus well yeah, and when you see them, it probably

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Speaker 1: feels you either with rage or joy. And this game

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Speaker 1: is called Wortle, and it's basically like the hottest thing

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Speaker 1: on the internet right now. So yeah, and if you've

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Speaker 1: ever played Mastermind, it's basically that game. The rules are

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Speaker 1: pretty much the same. You're trying to guess a five

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Speaker 1: letter word and so you type a word in, you

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Speaker 1: press enter, and it'll tell you each letter, whether it's

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Speaker 1: gray or yellow or green, about its placement in the

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Speaker 1: final words you're trying to guess. Honestly, it's easier to

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Speaker 1: learn than it is to explain. So if you don't

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Speaker 1: know it already, just log in and try a game

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Speaker 1: and you'll know how to play in seconds. But the

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Speaker 1: squares that you're seeing on your timelines, that's basically how

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Speaker 1: many turns it took that person to get to the

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Speaker 1: correct word, right. So it's a little bit of a

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Speaker 1: competition for people to show, you know how many turns.

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Speaker 1: I got it in three. I got it into those

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Speaker 1: crazy people. I just saw somebody get it into today,

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Speaker 1: and I was like, what anger I. On January three,

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Speaker 1: New York Times wrote an article called Wortle is a

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Speaker 1: love story by Daniel Victor, and of course we had

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Speaker 1: to check that out, and it turns out that the

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Speaker 1: creator of the game is Josh Wardle, a software engineer

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Speaker 1: in Brooklyn, and his partner Polack Shaw loves word games,

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Speaker 1: so he decided to whip up a little digital game

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Speaker 1: for her after she blew through the Daily crossword and

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Speaker 1: spelling be games from the New York Times, which means

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Speaker 1: she's really smart. By maybe she should slow down on

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Speaker 1: the word games. I'm just saying the daily the Daily

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Speaker 1: cross word of the New York Times is very hard. Look.

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Speaker 1: I used to blow through Mondays and Tuesdays like it

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Speaker 1: was nothing. Wednesdays would take me two days, you know, Thursday,

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Speaker 1: all right, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I'm out, You're out, I think.

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Speaker 1: David Sadaris once said that Sunday's puzzle requires the kind

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Speaker 1: of mind that can bend spoons. I mean, I'll do it,

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Speaker 1: but it'll take me weeks. So I don't like to

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Speaker 1: do it. I want to feel smart stupid. Exactly. It

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Speaker 1: was stick to Mondays and Tuesdays in this house, blow

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Speaker 1: through a Monday in like half an hour, and be like,

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Speaker 1: I am very intelligent, thank you very much among us.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, so he created word for her and that

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Speaker 1: was it. Basically, it was just the two of them

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Speaker 1: playing this game for months. I mean, this guy just

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Speaker 1: used the skills he already had to create something enjoyable

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Speaker 1: for someone that he cared about. Take a note, friends,

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Speaker 1: they can be as simple as that. You've got skills. Exactly.

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Speaker 1: Soon they introduced the game to their relatives and they

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Speaker 1: shared like a group chat where they all got obsessed

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Speaker 1: and sort of shared how many turns they took and

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Speaker 1: how long they would play for. So Word all thought,

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Speaker 1: maybe other people are gonna like this too, and he

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Speaker 1: put it out in the public on November one, and

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Speaker 1: on that day nine people played. Two months later, three

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand people were playing along. And of course now

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Speaker 1: it's everyone you know, right. There's no ads, no links,

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Speaker 1: no nothing. It's just a simple once a day game.

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Speaker 1: And I do want to add in here that we

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Speaker 1: are not being sponsored by Word to Earth in New

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Speaker 1: York Times. Here, it's really just it just felt like

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Speaker 1: a fit into the show, so we have to do it.

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Speaker 1: I just realized it sounds a little like a word

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Speaker 1: old US piece, but hey, it's a cool story sponsored episode. No,

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Speaker 1: it's not if only doesn't have any money. There's no

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Speaker 1: ads exactly. It's just about to say, honestly, the marketing

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Speaker 1: is so brilliant because it makes it the little squares.

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Speaker 1: People are just sharing and they're like three turns or whatever,

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Speaker 1: and you're just like, what am I looking at? It's

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Speaker 1: so curious. So it's all word of mouth and miss

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Speaker 1: Shaw his partner ended up taking a really big part

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Speaker 1: in building the larger game because in English there are

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Speaker 1: about twelve thousand five letter words, but a lot of

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Speaker 1: those are kind of bunkers, weirdo words that hain't nobody

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Speaker 1: know not to guess that. For example, have you ever

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Speaker 1: heard of yawnick? It's like phallic, but it means in

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Speaker 1: the shape of volva, or like that George O'Keeffe painting

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Speaker 1: is very yawnick, so yeah, Or like the Washington Monument

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Speaker 1: is phallic, the birthday party tunnel in succession is nic perfect.

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Speaker 1: Or how about karst k A R S T. Well,

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Speaker 1: obviously that's the irregular formation of limestone. Everybody knows that.

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Speaker 1: So anyways, Shaw got on board and she sorted through

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Speaker 1: the twelve thousand five letter words in the English language

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Speaker 1: and eventually paired it down to about and at one

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Speaker 1: word a day, that'll give him enough for about six

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Speaker 1: years of gameplay. Yeah, that's pretty good. Josh was also

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Speaker 1: apparently part of designing this other internet game kind of

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Speaker 1: experiment for Reddit. Back in I hadn't heard about this,

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Speaker 1: but it's called the Button, and what it was. It's

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Speaker 1: a little button with a countdown timer and every time

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Speaker 1: you click the button, it resets, and anyone can click it,

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Speaker 1: the time will reset. It's the same for everybody. If

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Speaker 1: sixty seconds goes by with no one clicking the button,

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Speaker 1: the game ends. And it ended up going on for

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Speaker 1: over two months. It was like two months and four

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Speaker 1: days before sixty seconds passed with no one pressing the button.

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Speaker 1: It ended up being pressed a million times, one million,

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Speaker 1: eight thousand, three sixteen times exactly. Yeah, and like people

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Speaker 1: formed cults around it. They were like pressers and non pressers.

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Speaker 1: Like people are really emphatic. I'll never press the button.

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Speaker 1: People couldn't wait. So it's this weird social experiment. I

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Speaker 1: think it's brilliant totally. People love to label. Yeah, we

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Speaker 1: love to label ourselves absolutely, and then just to see

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Speaker 1: how long something can be sitting there on Reddit before

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Speaker 1: somebody just goes a full minute without interacting with it,

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Speaker 1: trending that stuff is it's crazy. So yeah, so it's

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Speaker 1: I guess not surprising that he would turn around and

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Speaker 1: be able to make a cool word those skills and yeah,

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Speaker 1: every day Shaw wake up. She warms up with the

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Speaker 1: spelling Bee app and then she dives into word all

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Speaker 1: and even though the game is being played by everyone

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Speaker 1: but you right now, actually everyone but me, because I'm

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Speaker 1: not playing it, even though I love word games, but

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Speaker 1: haven't given it a world yet anyway, even though it's

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Speaker 1: being played by like so many people and it is

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Speaker 1: again the hottest thing in the world right now. She

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Speaker 1: knows that it started as a gift specifically for her,

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Speaker 1: and she told New York Times quote, it's really sweet.

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Speaker 1: This is definitely how Josh shows his love's cute. Now

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Speaker 1: we're all reaping the benefits of his adoration of his spouse.

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Speaker 1: Love does so many things for the world. You know,

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Speaker 1: really brought us all a little gift, didn't it. I

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Speaker 1: love that it's it's one word a day, same word

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Speaker 1: for everyone. He said that was that was part of

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Speaker 1: the appeals to make it kind of scarce, right, so

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Speaker 1: he wouldn't just sit there droning on and on. It's

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Speaker 1: not about sucking your time away. It's just a little

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Speaker 1: thing you can share with everybody. And I think that's

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Speaker 1: really cool because I will get sucked into a word

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Speaker 1: game or any kind of like bring teaser games. I'll

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Speaker 1: just play him for I'll look up and be like,

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Speaker 1: oh God, I've wasted my life. Oh my God, I

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Speaker 1: have a word jumble game that like is basically my

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Speaker 1: before bed. Yeah, because there's no tim or on it,

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Speaker 1: so you just like make words and to oh my god,

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Speaker 1: the amount of times and I'll sit there. It's terrible.

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Speaker 1: So thank you Josh for giving a ship about our productivity. Well,

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Speaker 1: I hope you'll enjoyed that. Again, just a quick little

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Speaker 1: pop and we just wanted to share that story, but

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Speaker 1: it wasn't going to make a full episode, but we

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Speaker 1: figured we'd we'd just send you out a little minione.

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Speaker 1: See what you thought. Yeah, Plus, it's nice to see you.

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Speaker 1: You know, we're getting greedy for your company. God, Yes,

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Speaker 1: we had to give you something on a random day.

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Speaker 1: It's true. It's true. So I hope you enjoyed it.

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Speaker 1: Let us know what you thought. Of course, reach out

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Speaker 1: to us anytime Romance at I heart media dot com

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Speaker 1: right or on social media Twitter and Instagram. I'm at

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Speaker 1: Dianamite Boom and I'm at oh great, it's Eli. The

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Speaker 1: show is at radic Romance. Tell us what you thought

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Speaker 1: of this little mini show them. We'll keep them. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I do them occasionally. It's not gonna be every week.

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Speaker 1: We ain't got time. For that, but when something comes up,

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Speaker 1: we'll do it. And we will be back with another

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Speaker 1: brand new episode tomorrow and every Wednesday and Friday, so

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Speaker 1: don't miss out on the next one. We'll see you then.

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Speaker 1: Bye h