The nostalgia of music stores and CD shops, and the novelty of magnetic sit-stand desks, sprinkled in with some “angry girl music” and an intro to mechanical keyboards.
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The nostalgia of music stores and CD shops, and the novelty of magnetic sit-stand desks, sprinkled in with some “angry girl music” and an intro to mechanical keyboards.
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Toast & Roast:
Georgie:
Geoff:
Geoff 0:00
Hi and welcome back to another episode of Toast & Roast. I am your co host, Geoff. And this is my co host, Georgie.
Georgie 0:17
Hello.
Geoff 0:19
What’s up. How's your week been going?
Georgie 0:21
It's been going fine. So I went to the music store today.
Geoff 0:24
Like a like a, like a music store where they sell music?
Georgie 0:28
No, where they where they sell instruments.
Geoff 0:31
Oh right.
Georgie 0:31
But speaking of places that sell music, we went to Castle Towers last week.
Geoff 0:39
And where's Castle Towers?
Georgie 0:41
So, Castle Hill. So we had a family thing.
Geoff 0:44
Jesus.
Georgie 0:44
So had to go out that way.
Geoff 0:47
So for reference, if anyone's been to Sydney, and they wanted to go here, it'll take them like at least half an hour from the train maybe?
Georgie 0:54
No, you—
Geoff 0:54
From the city.
Georgie 0:55
Okay wait.
Geoff 0:56
From the airport.
Georgie 0:57
There’s a bus that you can get.
Geoff 0:59
Oh, God, don't even start with the buses.
Georgie 1:01
I will start with the buses though. Because since they built that M2 motorway, you can actually kind of go to the Hills area in the northwest of Sydney. Straight from like York Street or whatever it is in the CBD.
Geoff 1:14
Oh, wow. You're right, look at that. 610X. 46 minutes.
Georgie 1:18
That's, that's the one, right. But like if you were to drive, it's kind of a pain anyway. Just wanted to totally sidebar and say that there used to be a CD shop called Sanity. Do you remember?
Geoff 1:34
Oh yeah, Sanity, I remember Sanity, even Perth had Sanity? They, they weren't that far behind.
Georgie 1:40
Oh, okay. Well, last time we went to Castle Towers, which would have been only a couple of years ago, I think, they had the Sanity there, this time it was gone I think.
Geoff 1:46
I mean, yeah. Sanity didn't keep up with the times, they didn't start selling vinyls and all that hippie stuff.
Georgie 1:58
Yeah.
Geoff 1:59
Hipster stuff. Sorry. Sorry. Hipster. Not hippies. Don’t wanna.
Georgie 2:03
Yeah.
Geoff 2:04
Don't want to mix them up.
Georgie 2:05
Like cool, like cool shit that people are getting into type type thing, even though...
Geoff 2:10
Yeah, we're getting into the vintage stuff. Yeah, I agree that some vintage stuff is really awesome. Like, audio gear. When you get to the like vintage audio. They have light bulbs and stuff. You've seen that?
Georgie 2:21
No, but my dad gave me like, these gargantuan like studio headphones. You know, like the 80s. Now the problem is, you sweat immediately. You put them on. Because there's just so old and clunky, huge and I wore them commuting once when I was in uni—
Geoff 2:41
Oh my god.
Georgie 2:42
And I probably look like a fool. But there you go.
Geoff 2:46
Yeah, have you heard of this brand called Schiit?
Georgie 2:50
Okay.
Geoff 2:50
Schiit’s even more bananas.
Georgie 2:52
To clarify, S, C, H, I, I, T. No I haven't.
Geoff 2:58
It's hilarious because if you look up if you go to their webs, if you go if you look them up on Google, I think it’s like “yep, Schiit is our name, and it's pronounced well like hey, man, there's some really good Schiit. Now have your attention”.
Georgie 3:12
I guess it's similar to Schitt’s Creek or whatever it is.
Geoff 3:16
Oh, yeah, up Schitt’s Creek. Schitt Creek.
Georgie 3:19
But that's like T...
Geoff 3:22
Schitt’s. S, C, H, I, double T. I tried watching that show, something about it seems so like fake? That I couldn't keep watching it, like so engineered.
Georgie 3:32
I have not watched it. But I think it seems to me that a lot of people from the US are really into it. So maybe I don't get it. Maybe—not I, because I haven't tried to watch it. But maybe if I watched it, I would understand what you mean.
Geoff 3:45
It's like it's basically a story about how rich people are now no longer rich and they have to deal with everyday people's lives like kind of problems.
Georgie 3:55
Yeah.
Geoff 3:56
And I guess that's that's why Americans like it. Because it's sort of like a billion billionaires like all of a sudden having to live in motels and do their own laundry and stuff like that.
Georgie 4:09
Yeah.
Geoff 4:09
But that's kind of the pull. Anyways, Schiit. Schiit. Nothing's—I love this is kind of like the dbrand. Like marketing.
Georgie 4:19
Is it?
Geoff 4:20
Like—
Georgie 4:20
I've never actually I don't think I've looked at the brand's website for a very long time and I only know them from Marques Brownlee.
Geoff 4:26
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So dbrand, they’re like “the latest assault on your wallet”. They are probably best known for Darkplates where they created black PS5 plates. For those who don't know, you can actually replace the side panels of a PS5. So they made they made these Darkplates. But quick story, when they made these, they made the first version, Playstation or Sony actually went off to them. Well, actually, they went after anybody who made custom plates.
Georgie 5:00
Mm. Okay, yeah, I mean, I get it. But what happened?
Geoff 5:03
Yeah. So basically, they shut down everybody's plates. But dbrand decided to make this on the nose like Darkplates 2.0. So it's juuuust different enough that they could probably defend themselves.
Georgie 5:20
Right is that why it says the tagline says “checkmate lawyers”.
Geoff 5:23
Exactly, exactly.
Georgie 5:25
Okay.
Geoff 5:25
It's like, “imagine this. You're a $15 billion yen enterprise who just spent a small fortune designing the next generation gaming console, a privately held corporation run by robots makes it black. The world rejoices, you're livid. You vent your frustrations to a team of lawyers, they get to work. Now under threat of litigation, those robots have to redesign their Darkplates, whilst also funding a legal defense. Needless to say, some corners were cut”.
Georgie 5:53
So they literally cut the corners on the design. So—
Geoff 5:57
Yeah.
Georgie 5:57
And you know what, it actually looks better. So if you get these Darkplates, I feel like it kind of looks nicer than the original PS5.
Geoff 6:06
Yeah, less “colour” looking. You know, like, they put vents you know, they add vents, give these fans some air.
Georgie 6:15
This is so funny. And I like the vibe.
Geoff 6:18
Yeah, it's actually they’re avoiding lawsuit. “Thanks, Sony”. And then they’re basically poking the bear. They're like, come and get us. You know, we were not afraid of your lawyers.
Georgie 6:29
It’s a good marketing campaign. It’s pretty good. Wait how much are they? That say $59. That seems rather—
Geoff 6:36
US dollars.
Georgie 6:37
That still seems somewhat, okay?
Geoff 6:41
US dollars. Yep. To be honest, I liked the two tone look. So if I were to get these plates, I'd just get classic white (laughs) I’d get the white version.
Georgie 6:52
It just looks the same. I mean, yeah.
Geoff 6:55
Yeah. Anyways, back to back to one sec, music a little bit.
Georgie 7:00
Yes. Okay. So I don't know if anyone knows this. Actually, some people do. But I used to be in a band and it fucking sucked.
Geoff 7:08
Wait, you used to be in a band? What did you do?
Georgie 7:12
Write all the songs. And then nobody wanted to do anything with me. So the band was kinda just me. And so anyway, the reason went to the music store. So every time I go to a music store, which hasn't been for a while, before today, I get this feeling of nostalgia, right. So for anyone who doesn't know my background is that I grew up playing piano. And then I taught myself guitar. And then I learned some drums and I studied music at school. And—
Geoff 7:39
I forgot, we actually have an episode where we talked about you—
Georgie 7:42
Recording? My music, don't look for it, but you will find it if you look hard enough. (laughs) But yeah, like we went—so Nick has been really into the drums like he doesn't yet know how to play. But he's been thinking about buying like an electric drum kit because we live in an apartment.
Geoff 8:02
Yeah. He's not yet he's not yet good enough and still bothering the neighbours. (laughs)
Georgie 8:09
Well, yeah, so we don't have, so just randomly, we have a couple of guitars at home, just that we've had from, like, when we used to live with our parents, and we decided to keep them, we don't, we don't really play.
Geoff 8:21
Oh, yes, I know. I used to also have a guitar.
Georgie 8:24
Ah.
Geoff 8:25
Yeah. The one point I was like, oh, yeah, I'll I liked the bass. I think I was watching YouTube videos and people playing the bass. So I said, Yeah, I want to play the bass. But Dad said, you should probably learn to play the real guitar first. And then he got me a classical that was nowhere near as cool as the bass so I was like, nah. I learned Smoke on the Water. Of course.
Georgie 8:45
Yes.
Geoff 8:48
That's the only thing I learned. Anyways, go on.
Georgie 8:50
Yeah. So we went to the music store and Nick has been doing some research into what electric drum kits to get and whatnot. And, like, I kind of learned the drums at school, but I also kind of partially taught myself but it's—my opinion—I feel like it's not fun if you don't have like a band to play with. But Nick would like to play for fun. So he can go ahead and do that.
Geoff 9:13
Have you seen the YouTube videos? The people who do like drums—
Georgie 9:17
You can do drum solos.
Geoff 9:18
Solos of music. Yeah.
Georgie 9:20
Yeah, it's good. So anyway, I go and sit there were both like trying out the drums the drum kits in the store and I'm like, wow, I miss doing this, I miss playing music and shit. Not going to get all emotional, but I remembered I suddenly remembered because I previously forgot that I written a song called, and when I tell you this, you can guess what kind of music I wrote. (laughs) The song was called “My drumsticks made a hole in my bag”.
Geoff 9:50
So you were the Simple Plan of—
Georgie 9:52
(laughs) I was going to say yeah, if you if you guess like some angry pop punk girl kind of, that, that was the music I wrote.
Geoff 10:02
The Avril Lavigne of drums, drummers.
Georgie 10:04
It’s probably not even that good, you know, just like, but the stuff that I recorded myself they were like acoustic things me singing on the guitar. It's also very different. But the shit I wrote for like my—haha, Schiit—for my band was like, like it was. It was just yeah. What was that? I think it was in 10 Things I Hate About You, he said something about girls who can't play their instruments or something. And then I think in another movie, someone said yeah, just like girls hitting pots and pans or something.
Geoff 10:39
Oh, man, rude.
Georgie 10:40
(laughs) Anyway, have you heard of The Linda Lindas?
Geoff 10:48
No, not heard about Linda Lindas?
Georgie 10:50
Have we talked about this before? So they're a pop punk I guess girl band, but, they're all really young—
Geoff 10:58
Hey look it’s you!
Georgie 10:59
It’s so not me. I wish it was me.
Geoff 11:01
This is on you, on the left.
Georgie 11:02
So they're all really young actually. Like I think the oldest one just turned 18.
Geoff 11:06
Man, I think this thing that I don't think anyone should let they're like less than fifteen year old, like, child become famous. I don't think it's healthy.
Georgie 11:18
Well I don’t, I feel like I think because they're some of their dads because they all kind of related, or friend or family friends. I think their parents were already like involved in music. So they had a bit of a head start, I guess you could say. But they became famous like I think last year because they released a song called Racist Sexist Boy. And it really spoke to some people obviously, right? Because like, how often do you have like, an Asian Latinx girl group are really young, and singing about some real issues.
Geoff 11:57
Yeah.
Georgie 11:57
They, they released an album. I think it was early this year. It's good. Worth a listen. So yeah.
Geoff 12:05
Nice, nice. So you're there banging drums? Did you decide that to just get a beat map? Or like, what?
Georgie 12:12
We haven't got it. Yeah, I can't remember what the model was called. But I think Nick is still doing some research into which one to get. But now he doesn't really have any space in his in his like office to like put it, so he's gonna have to get a new desk. Because his desk is rather large. But he's had it.
Geoff 12:32
Yes.
Georgie 12:33
From IKEA. And he's had it for like ten, ten years. So this has had a good run. So how was it? I don't know if you told me but it sounded familiar. But he started looking at Desky?
Geoff 12:43
Yes, Desky. I don't know if I told you about it. But yeah, Desky is a thing.
Georgie 12:47
Yeah.
Geoff 12:48
He wants to get smaller, right.
Georgie 12:50
Yeah.
Geoff 12:51
So yeah, probably not Desky. Like this stuff is always 70 centimetres deep and crap like that.
Georgie 12:58
Well, my desk is like 120 by 80. It's not that big. So,
Geoff 13:05
80 is deep. Like—
Georgie 13:07
Yeah, it's—
Geoff 13:07
65, 70 is like regular type deep.
Georgie 13:11
Yeah, actually, mine is deep, but the the length is not so much. But yeah.
Geoff 13:16
Mine’s 120 as well.
Georgie 13:17
I think his one is like about twice as long. I'm probably exaggerating, but he has a very long desk.
Geoff 13:23
Yeah.
Georgie 13:25
So he's looking to get a smaller one so that the drum kit can kind of like fit in the office space.
Geoff 13:29
Under the table just like put the drum kit under it.
Georgie 13:34
Yeah. Just roll it out when you need to.
Geoff 13:37
Yeah.
Georgie 13:37
To play.
Geoff 13:39
Or you have it spread on the desk. So you can be like drumming on your desktop.
Georgie 13:45
Yeah, but I have to admit and I think I've probably said this to you. I think I said to you, do you know how they have a cable management thing?
Geoff 13:51
Yeah.
Georgie 13:52
I looked at the video and I was like that's actually okay, whereas I think I said to you I think cable management is like some pipe dream scam thing like.
Geoff 14:01
Yeah.
Georgie 14:01
I still think it's like a fact of life with people trying to like make that shit better. You're dreaming.
Geoff 14:07
Oh man. Let me show you this desk that recently popped up from Secret Lab, if no one knows about them they do gaming chairs and low key gaming chairs are not comfortable, don't even try.
Georgie 14:20
Wait do you have a gaming chair like now?
Geoff 14:22
No.
Georgie 14:22
No?
Geoff 14:22
I have the Herman Miller Aeron at the moment.
Georgie 14:26
I hate—oh, we've talked about this, like, I said they’re too, they're too deep as a small person.
Geoff 14:33
Yes.
Georgie 14:34
The chairs are too deep, but if even though I can move the head back like the backrest like forward, it's still, I don't know maybe I just got shit ones at work or some—don't tell my employer.
Geoff 14:45
There's definitely a bunch of them and the work wouldn't, probably wouldn't give you an, oh wait. I said Aeron, didn't I, no I have the Herman Mani, Herman Miller Embody which is I guess, adjustable depth. But anyways.
Georgie 14:58
Yeah. How'd you get yours, did you buy it online? Did you go somewhere what they sell them?
Geoff 15:03
Oh, I went to this store called I think called Living Edge or something like that. It's actually probably a little bit closer to you than me.
Georgie 15:11
I think someone's, yeah, I think I know about this.
Geoff 15:13
Yeah. So you can go in and you can try, but like they literally have this platform and it has all the Herman Miller chairs and you can just sit on all of them.
Georgie 15:21
So it's like IKEA but Herman Miller.
Geoff 15:23
Yeah, well the thing is they they do other like, really no joke, it’s like the bougiest place, if you were to look for a bougie place to buy stuff, this would be it. Look at this. Like these are, I don't even know what they are they mirrors and they're like, like crazy string on on the wall.
Georgie 15:43
So they have a homewares, like, other furniture as well.
Geoff 15:47
Yeah. And they also don't have they have like things that are not not even furniture. So you can get that little—
Georgie 15:53
Decor and stuff?
Geoff 15:54
Or is it? Yeah, a crystal rock vase. $1240.
Georgie 15:58
That is—oh, no. Okay, that’s really expensive. I’m like that's my jam. It looks really good. But no I’m not gonna spend that much.
Geoff 16:04
Here's an organic S2 suspension lab. I'll just leave that imagination to figure out the link but it's seven $7,652 for this hanging suspension.
Georgie 16:14
How much is that table? That round one.
Geoff 16:17
This table? “Enquire now”. So really it's a million dollars. (laughs)
Georgie 16:17
(laughs)
Geoff 16:22
You have to enquire for this, this round table.
Georgie 16:27
Oh man.
Geoff 16:28
It's an intense store to be honest. It's pretty cool. Things we could probably never.... but they do they have the Eames lounge chair and ottoman as—
Georgie 16:38
Too expensive mate.
Geoff 16:39
Very cool 12, oh $13,000. So yeah, my partner and I went in there to try out their Herman Miller chairs and then walked out with an idea of which models to buy and then you go online and you buy it from them. Or you can ask them to put the purchase in for you as well.
Georgie 17:01
But you can't literally take it home. Like they usually just let you see shit and then you order.
Geoff 17:06
Yeah, yeah, I don't think they have actual warehouse in there.
Georgie 17:10
They’re just a showroom. Man, that makes, I don’t know, it feels like—
Geoff 17:17
I did want to just walk out with one. But I think I actually configured this one. I think it's different different bases, different colours and stuff like that. My partner we didn't realise there was three types of Aerons, there's three sizes A B and C. So—
Georgie 17:36
Like in height.
Geoff 17:36
...to try it out. No, depth and size, literal like the whole size.
Georgie 17:41
Right because the ones we have at work, like—
Geoff 17:44
Yeah, exactly.
Georgie 17:44
Up past my head, like the backrest is past my head. I'm like why?
Geoff 17:49
Well, to be fair, the backrest being past your head is might be like—
Georgie 17:53
A good thing?
Geoff 17:53
A headrest, a headrest.
Georgie 17:55
Well it wasn't very comfortable. It was shit. It's kind of like on the airplane where you have a shit head rest.
Geoff 18:01
Oh my god where you think you can kind of like lean to the side but you can't really?
Georgie 18:06
Yeah, you know what sucks, you know the airplane headrests some of them are adjustable in the side so you can move, fold them in, and I like that.
Geoff 18:13
You know for like, for like eight years I didn't know that was a thing, I had flown so many times I'm like, and then like one time just like folded, I’m like, oh my god this thing is separate and you can fold it? My god.
Georgie 18:25
What's very disappointing when you know that they can do that and then you try it and they can't and you can't.
Geoff 18:29
It's still uncomfortable as fuck.
Georgie 18:32
Yeah, but it gives, like if you move your head to this like you can at least rest. It's not like dropping down your shoulder and creaking your neck and shit.
Geoff 18:39
I am tempted to get those neck pillow things like—
Georgie 18:42
Speaking of those neck, speaking of those neck pillow things right? You know how we're talking about how I have like 11 piercings in my ear and shit. Like some people permanently—like because you're not supposed to sleep on them while they're healing. They permanently sleep with like some kind of travel pillow so that they don't like crush their piercings in their sleep. I think someone Someone sent me a link to a good one on Amazon. That was a little bit adjustable.
Geoff 19:05
Was it the, there's this like neck pillow that looks like kind of like a scarf. I think we've actually looked at this, but, oh here we go, the TL, TRTL travel pillow. It's like looks pretty ridiculous.
Georgie 19:20
It looks like a big scarf. Yeah. Does it work?
Geoff 19:22
Yeah. Is it like really stiff or something? It's really strange.
Georgie 19:28
Hidden internal support.
Geoff 19:30
Oh, that's probably some kind of like big wire or something like that.
Georgie 19:34
Silicone, I don’t know?
Geoff 19:36
Yeah, silicone.
Georgie 19:37
Look. It looks silly, but I would consider it like if I was, you know.
Geoff 19:42
Yeah. I mean, you don't have to blow it up. That's probably my main—
Georgie 19:47
Portability. Yeah.
Geoff 19:49
Just fold it, put it away. It comes in red, black and pink. That's the only colours you need. And grey.
Georgie 19:58
Pink?
Geoff 19:59
Pink.
Georgie 20:00
It's 50% off.
Geoff 20:03
Holy shit save $10.95. Right, back to this desk. Shit. Oh my god black Friday's coming up. Good thing I didn't buy everything I want it from my desk. Ah, just a short thing, so I got a new mechanical keyboard, right?
Georgie 20:21
Yeah.
Geoff 20:22
And I got, I thought I had bought all the pieces, I was like, cool, I've got the bass, I've got the switches. By the way, most people, most people, I guess don't know that your keyboard actually is comprised of like three different parts, the base of the keyboard, because I mean, on the laptop, it looks all pretty nice, base, on the keyboard, and then under each of your keys, there is a mechanism which gets pressed down with your key press and that mechanism is called the switch. And then you can take your key cap off and you see the switch. Let me
Georgie 20:56
Not if you have an Apple keyboard. Fuck my life.
Geoff 20:59
Yeah, I mean, you can, all those pieces are still there. They're just not removable. You probably don't even want to try and remove a key cap off your one.
Georgie 21:07
No. Speaking of. Yeah, mechanical keyboards, like, because I'm a noob. I know vaguely how they work. But if someone wanted to get into it and buy their own shit, like what would you advise them?
Geoff 21:21
Oh, good question. So there's a site called Keychron. And I'm sure everybody would would know the name if they were going to recommend it. But essentially, these guys, or these people, are in the business of making cheap, affordable mechanical keyboards that are very, you know, buy it, and you, you get what you get, you don't have to do anything. It's pretty good.
Georgie 21:45
And then if you wanted to, because I know I have some friends who like make custom keycaps. So I could buy this. And then I could buy the custom—well they have to be compatible, like, well, how does compatibility with that stuff?
Geoff 21:56
So compatibility, everybody has this, like basically this, this switch, it's like a little crosshair. And 99% of keycaps, I believe are compatible with this. Everyone makes it with this with this in mind. So you can pull all the key caps off, and then put them, put the other ones on.
Georgie 22:14
Nice.
Geoff 22:15
Like, wow, you have friends that make artisanal keycaps.
Georgie 22:19
Yes.
Geoff 22:20
Shit’s like super expensive.
Georgie 22:22
Yeah, don't don't, don't talk, don't talk to me about price.
Geoff 22:26
They're really nice. So if anyone isn't aware, once you remove the key caps, you can get people to make custom key caps. And generally they're starting at like $50 for one key. So if you thought, take your Escape key, for instance, is the one that most people replace, take the Escape key, $50 for that one key.
Georgie 22:47
Okay, that is expensive. I kind of didn't like, I didn't know how much it might cost.
Geoff 22:54
50 Australian dollars, sometimes in US dollars too.
Georgie 22:57
So funny because like I was talking to my friend about expensive hobbies. Some hobbies lend themselves to being a lot more expensive than others.
Geoff 23:06
Yeah, the thing is, when the kind of keyboards is that every part can be really pretty expensive. Keycaps can exceed the price of the keyboard itself, all parts of the keyboard. So I found ones that were $260. But it's kind of like shoes, you know, you look at a pair of shoes, you go $260 for this pair of shoes, but I could also buy something that is just, you know, 50% the price, like $100. And it's still 90% good compared to the other ones. So you might, it depends on what you care about.
Georgie 23:38
Yeah, I think people are probably paying for like super custom, like very—
Geoff 23:42
Not even.
Georgie 23:44
No? What do you mean?
Geoff 23:46
So if you have a look at the keys on your keyboard, and you were like, hey, these looks like a pretty good set, you can find more expensive ones that look pretty much the same. So you take, GMK is well known—
Georgie 23:59
Well, maybe I'm thinking of like independent creators, right? Like, probably will charge more and it’s, stuff is probably—
Geoff 24:07
Where is is it? What's that web, Etsy, right?
Georgie 24:10
Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah. I think that was what I had in mind. Like.
Geoff 24:15
So usually people who make their tea cups do one or like a set of maybe four or five, they don't do a whole set of like 106 keys.
Georgie 24:23
I love this review. “It's not as hazy as I'd hoped. But it's still a gnarly looking keycap”.
Geoff 24:28
Yeah, yeah. So you can see this and this one key cap is already 46 Australian dollars, maybe 50. This is 20% off already.
Georgie 24:38
Make your own. Can you make your own? I don't know anything about making them. But—
Geoff 24:41
Yeah, if you have a 3D printer or like a resin printer, then yes, you can make your own keycaps but I don't think that it's easy. I don't think it's trivial. Handmade is what it's called.
Georgie 24:53
You know, like 90% of the stuff on Etsy says handmade even though I'm pretty sure not. There a couple of like, you know, not so authentic things there. By the way, if anyone can hear that it's really windy outside.
Geoff 25:06
Oh, yeah, I left my door open too. Anyways, you can see how this key caps aren't really that special. They're black. They've got white lettering on it. It looks like every other key cap, but this thing costs like 442 Aus—US Dollars. 146.
Georgie 25:20
There are 363 people on the waiting list. Oh.
Geoff 25:23
Yeah, yeah, that's another thing. So key caps are generally if you get custom ones, or you find ones that you really like it, chances are, they're very limited. They have, you have to join a group buy or you won't ever get them, because—
Georgie 25:37
Shit.
Geoff 25:37
They've already sold out, and you'll never be able to buy them. So that's where I'm at at the moment. It's like I've been trying to find nice key caps that are in stock and reasonable price. I have. I have ended up on a on a set, though. So hopefully they come in. And they're compatible, because I bought two sets already that were cheaper, off Amazon. And they're always missing—because custom keyboards have custom size, different size keys to regular keyboards. So you have to make sure that when you buy it, there's a ton of options like there’s 500 different control sizes, there's, two Enter sizes, Shifts, Alts, Function keys. This is where it gets expensive is where you have to cater for the fact that your keyboard’s custom, and you have to get more sizes. So yeah, that's kind of like being a journey.
Georgie 26:31
Damn.
Geoff 26:31
I've, I have a keyboard with no key caps on it. So I can't actually use it. So it's just been sitting here on my desk. Sadly. All the money. But the bright side is most of my keyboard has been covered by my work because I've finally found a workplace that actually gives a work, work from home stipend.
Georgie 26:52
Does that, do you get that every year? Do you know?
Geoff 26:55
No, I get it. It's a once off.
Georgie 26:57
Yeah, we have the same thing. I think we had a $500 budget, which, on these headphones I'm wearing right now. And they went a long way. I just don't use them so much these days. Because like the main reason for getting it was like when we had a one study and Nick was in the same study. And like being in this. I don't know, people were just like, how did you do this, but being both in meetings at the same time, the same fucking room was annoying, but now I have my own room. So I don't really need these as much anymore. Still good for like travelling and whatnot though.
Geoff 27:31
That's essentially what I got these wire, these noise cancelling headphones for was that I knew that I was working in offices and offices were noisy generally. So I just wanted to tune them out. And then travel because I fly back every year. I spent most of the stipend on a ridiculous macro pad knob. I don't know if I've showed this to you. But essentially—
Georgie 27:52
What is this?
Geoff 27:53
It’s a vol—it's a massive volume knob.
Georgie 27:55
What?
Geoff 27:56
With with three buttons on it? So—
Georgie 27:59
You program it to like, yeah, the three buttons to do stuff?
Geoff 28:03
Yep.
Georgie 28:09
What did you program? (laughs) Pause?
Geoff 28:09
So I had a Magic Trackpad before and because I don't have one anymore. I can no longer side to side scroll. So I've been trying to do side side scrolling. That's like good for editing. But I found out that I could program it to do Zoom shortcuts.
Georgie 28:28
So you can mute.
Geoff 28:28
One—yeah, well, one button to turn my camera off and one button to leave. I can leave with one keypress. And for those who don't use Zoom very often or even like you can do it for Google Meet. But you know, it's always nice to be able to like just tap that button instead of finding the controls. So yeah, so far, there's four, there's four layers, so I can switch between four different sets of macros.
Georgie 28:56
Yeah, nice.
Geoff 28:58
So I can switch to a Zoom one and then I switch to like, I don't know, a Figma one, and then I have some shortcut keys.
Georgie 29:04
Next minute Geoff accidentally leaves this meeting. (laughs)
Geoff 29:07
Yeah, cuz I just pressed the button. No. So yeah, anyways, what were we talking about? Yeah. Oh, yeah. This desk right?
Georgie 29:14
Yeah.
Geoff 29:15
We were talking about, this is an amazing desk by Secret Lab. One for one. It's not... I think the biggest thing is that it's mat—it's metal. And all the accessories are magnetic. So if you want a headphone stand you just magnetise it to the bottom of the desk. If you wanted to, I don't know...
Georgie 29:41
Is it really strong magnets?
Geoff 29:43
I don't think it's really really strong, like it'll hold your headset but if you smash it, of course it's just gonna fall off. But, but back to your cable management stuff. That‘s a good photo.
Georgie 29:54
I don't know if I like this metal, this metal, like the whole the surface is metal.
Geoff 29:58
Yeah yeah, that's why they have desk mats that magnetise to the top of your desk.
Georgie 30:03
Something about magnetised stuff just screams like drama for me, like.
Geoff 30:10
So at some point you you place your watch over it, you just, your watch just sticks to it.
Georgie 30:14
So I used to have this winter coat, right and the closure for it was hidden, but it was magnetic. So like you fold over the front, and then little hidden magnets, like, not too many of them. But inside the front flap would like connect to the, ones on the other side. And then when I walk past like, like counters in like a restaurant or something like that, it would just get stuck. And like basically open my coat. I was like, gee, I didn't really think this was true, but... yeah.
Geoff 30:44
So your coat’s just going to magnetise to your desk.
Georgie 30:46
Yeah, actually, I don't have that coat anymore. I grew out of it. But still it was, it was funny.
Geoff 30:51
Yeah, anyways, so they have this whole thing where at the bottom of the leg, there is a socket, and you can plug, you plug that into the wall, and then and then it passes the power all the way up to the top of the desk where there is a like tray on the on the back of the desk.
Georgie 31:10
Yeah.
Geoff 31:10
And then so then you can essentially plug a power board—oh, there it is—in the leg, you can essentially plug a power board into into the little tray and then you can feed all your cables into that tray. And then it's all very seamless.
Georgie 31:25
So yes, similar to the Desky one except this is seems to be like it's already there, you don’t have to set up.
Geoff 31:31
The, the thing with the with like other standard ones is that it comes with the plug and you have to like plug it into the wall. And then if you wanted to have like a power strip in your in your desk you have then plug that power strip into the wall.
Georgie 31:46
So I have I have a standing desk, right? It's just, oh my god, I have—yeah, you're right. I have a power board down there.
Geoff 31:53
Yeah.
Georgie 31:53
It plugs into the wall. And the other thing that's plugged in the wall is the desk itself. But the power board has my charger for my laptop, and then the plug for the external display. And then I plug everything like cables and shit into the external display.
Geoff 32:12
Yeah.
Georgie 32:12
That's what I do. But every time I raise the desk, some shit comes untangled, etc, etc. So I think that's why there's an appeal to these standing desks with cable management.
Geoff 32:24
Yeah, I think it's genius. They just, like you just plug the desk into the power and then it passes the power up to the top of the desk. It's great. Yeah, of course, you can just buy all of like the accessories they they provide, like here’s a really slim line thing power strip that will fit.
Georgie 32:42
That's how they make money.
Geoff 32:43
Yeah. All the accessories. The lighting, you can get lighting strip that is magnetic. So you can just like stick it in the, stick it on—
Georgie 32:51
On the back.
Geoff 32:51
On the surface, on the back. These little magnet things cable management so that it doesn't fall off the table.
Georgie 32:58
Oh my god, because it's magnetic.
Geoff 33:01
Because it’s magnetic, yeah you just place it anywhere you want. Yeah. Because like, traditionally, if you have a look at any setup videos on YouTube, everyone's like gluing, like using 3M tape or something and sticking cable hooks underneath the desk, and I've done this before, but it's all permanent. Right? You just like, as soon as you put everything in that you're just like, um, now I gotta like, want to move it, but I can’t.
Georgie 33:25
Yeah.
Geoff 33:26
I’ve got something new. Anyways, I’d probably get this desk, but like in 10 years or something like that.
Georgie 33:34
When your desk dies kind of thing?
Geoff 33:36
No, when I have space.
Georgie 33:39
Oh okay.
Geoff 33:39
I don’t have any space for it. And this—
Georgie 33:40
How large is the smallest one you can get. Are they all like?
Geoff 33:43
Good question?
Georgie 33:45
That looks like a giant desk.
Geoff 33:47
Yeah, there's two sizes. Mag, Magnus Pro, oh here you go, height adjustments. 120 kilos.
Georgie 33:55
I love the weight thing. I made this dirty joke when it's when we were watching the thing and it said like it can hold like 150 kilos, I’m like cool, so you can do stuff on it. (laughs)
Geoff 34:05
(laughs) You can hold me and my partner.
Georgie 34:10
Haha, yeah.
Geoff 34:10
There you go. There's two. One is 50, 150 centimetres by 70 centimetres, and one is—
Georgie 34:19
150 centimetres is four foot 11.
Geoff 34:23
Yeah, 177 centimetres by 80 centimeters deep.
Georgie 34:28
Yeah.
Geoff 34:28
So I'd probably try and get the smaller one. If they're still in production in five years, because who knows? It could be a big flop. But yeah.
Georgie 34:37
Are they new, how?
Geoff 34:39
Yeah, it's very new. They just put it on preorder. And yeah. And they got a review from Linus tech tips so that I'm sure they won't fail.
Georgie 34:50
Okay, we’ll see.
Geoff 34:51
This is, this is pretty good marketing. I can't zoom in on it but they basically say “world's first single cable proprietary power solution”. They have a picture of what it looks like for normal for other sit-stands, and then what it looks like with their desk. They just continue going down the down the line, like here's all the cables and shit. And then here's what it looks like with the management. My favourite one is actually the integrated like controls, they put it in—
Georgie 35:18
In the desk.
Geoff 35:18
The height of the desk will like top—
Georgie 35:22
Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's funny because the little video that that you're playing like, that's what, that's what happens. Well, it's not what happens in mine. Actually. Yeah, mine has like a little bit of a what do you call it, like a part of it juts out the bottom for the controls? But, but I don't have armrests on my chair. So that's not gonna happen to me, bitches.
Geoff 35:41
Zero armrests. That's the solution.
Georgie 35:46
(laughs) Yeah.
Geoff 35:46
Speaking of armrests. I had a chair that didn't have armrests. And I found that like the sh, my shoulder right at the neck, like started to actually hurt.
Georgie 35:58
Hmm.
Geoff 35:59
Because my desk is actually not deep enough for me to be able to rest my arms on it while I type. So my, my elbows would be sinking too far.
Georgie 36:09
Like they're too low down? If you—
Geoff 36:11
Yeah.
Georgie 36:12
Ahh.
Geoff 36:13
Yeah. So then it started to hurt. I'm like, I started researching heaps. I'm like, do armrests solve this actually solve this problem. And I was really skeptical because I was going to spend, I dunno, two grand on this chair. And I didn't really want to spend that money and not have this problem solved. And so far, it's been good.
Georgie 36:30
Wait. So you do have armrests?
Geoff 36:32
Yeah. Now I have armrests, which is very annoying.
Georgie 36:35
Are you rem—are you removable? (laughs)
Geoff 36:38
(laughs)
Georgie 36:39
Are they.
Geoff 36:39
I am removable.
Georgie 36:41
Remove yourself from the Zoom. Yeah. So are they removable for the Herman Miller?
Geoff 36:48
Oh no. So basically, they just adjust really, really low. So I can like adjust them down so that they go under the desk if I want them to.
Georgie 36:55
Oh, yeah, the ones I had. The one I had at work was like this, and I kinda, I kind of liked that because I needed mine pretty low. But I don't really get the neck problem with my current desk. Maybe because I just am I able to—
Geoff 37:07
You have a very deep desk?
Georgie 37:09
(laughs) Well, I can adjust it, like the sit-stand as well. So I didn't. I ended up kind of not needing the armrests.
Geoff 37:16
Yeah. In any case, it's good that you don't have any neck pain. Because that's a big problem.
Georgie 37:23
Yeah. Feeling old yet?
Geoff 37:26
Yeah. Anyways, so back to the music store. So you play there on the drum kits and stuff like that. And does that inspire you to go back to starting up music again?
Georgie 37:42
I don't know. I don't think, like it kind of, so it kind of did. But I was like, don't think about it, because I'm sure it won't happen, I guess.
Geoff 37:49
Yeah.
Georgie 37:50
Yeah. I like—okay, I like music. And I liked that I had a music background. But I think as we sort of established with other things like photography and stuff, sometimes you just know that you're not into a thing anymore. You just accept that, like you had that time. And it was good. And yeah.
Geoff 38:08
That's pretty good. Actually, well, so I was looking at the photographer's at the concert like in that.
Georgie 38:14
Yeah, yeah.
Geoff 38:15
I was just like, oh my god, that would be so awesome. I get to, like, free of all these random people and their arms and shit. And just take a photo.
Georgie 38:23
Yeah, but you got to work, but, you know.
Geoff 38:26
Damn it. Oh, yeah. So my new phone arrived. Just quickly, we got a couple minutes, got my new phone. It's, it's, I said this to my partner, I said that my arm is actually getting tired.
Georgie 38:42
Yeah, you said that to me as well. Do you use the, okay, so because you had the Mini right, and you could reach over the other side of the screen, right?
Geoff 38:49
Yeah, yeah.
Georgie 38:50
So now do you have to use the other hand?
Geoff 38:52
No. So the thing is, with the with the one handedness, it's okay. It the fact that I can I can reach pretty much across the entire screen anyways. The problem is that it's heavy. I think that's the thing. It's chunky and heavy and a little bit wider. So whilst you, I am able to do it, it's more tiring to—
Georgie 39:16
Yeah, just you gotta kind of manoeuvre the whole phone. You're basically not holding it the same way when you reach it. Actually, it's very funny because Nick has the same phone and like now he's like, he I think he used to be able to do it like one handed like most tasks, but then sometimes I’m sitting next to him, he has this like, other arm around me, right? And he's trying to do something he's like, “Can you press it? Can you press it? Can you because I can’t reach?”
Geoff 39:37
I was doing that the other day too. I was like, oh, no one arm’s gone. I can't even like go to the top of the screen to do like Instagram controls.
Georgie 39:48
You know that, the accessibility thing?
Geoff 39:49
Yeah, that, that control, that accessibility control is just so bad.
Georgie 39:52
Doesn't help?
Geoff 39:52
Like, well the thing is it's such a small area at the bottom. Like if you try and swipe it, you're basically swipe, swiping the screen And you could be like halfway up Twitter or something like that, whilst you're trying to like, move it down.
Georgie 40:04
Ah, yeah.
Geoff 40:06
So you—
Georgie 40:06
Actually... Yeah.
Geoff 40:07
Because it's very small.
Georgie 40:08
I think there's something that really kind of sucks about these gestures. Because there are a lot of times when I'm scrolling up like, so my finger is moving down to up, down to up?
Geoff 40:21
Bottom to top?
Georgie 40:22
Yeah. And because of I don't know, I guess because like you're saying, the, the area, whatever it thinks that I'm swiping like this, like to the side—
Geoff 40:31
Ah, yeah, to the side.
Georgie 40:32
It thinks I want to go back to the previous page in a browser, and I'm like, you piece of shit. I was scrolling up. Like. And Nick was like, you’re doing it wrong. I'm like, no, I think my fingers are just small or something. But it's funny, right? Because these things are supposed to help. But it's just funny when they don't work as expected.
Geoff 40:49
So so to mitigate this whole fact that I can't completely reach over. I don't grip the phone completely, right, my fingers don’t wrap around the left side, like your fingers are now like table, table mode. I’m like using my phone in the most precarious manner for something that's so arguably de, delicate I suppose. So yeah, that's been, that's been pretty much my only thing is like, I think everything else is perfectly fine. It's just like the weight of it is, is noticeable. And my arms do kind of get tight. So I ended up like, I end up leaning the bottom on tables. And on my, when I'm lying down.
Georgie 41:28
Just like, here—
Geoff 41:29
Yeah, just like leaning it on it. I have to prop it up on something whilst I use it. It's pretty...
Georgie 41:37
Oh man. First world problems.
Geoff 41:39
Yeah. Well, I mean, like, like, we were talking about photography and stuff. It is nicer. It'll be better for my photography needs. And that's it. That's my phone for five, ten, five years until it dies. Mark my words. I said this—
Georgie 41:55
I’m listening! (laughs)
Geoff 41:55
I said that about two years ago, but I mean, also, I had said that if I change phones every two years, so what the hell?
Georgie 42:07
And it's been two years, so it's fine. You did good.
Geoff 42:12
Yes, that's what I like to tell myself anyways. So I've entered like another expensive hub. To be honest, the keyboard I'm probably not going to touch. Granted I have two other keyboards, which prior to this one, but that's beside the point. All right. Well, that's all we have time for, surprisingly. Thanks for listening. What’s it, you can follow us on @toastroastpod on Twitter.
Georgie 42:39
Yes. And you can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Wherever you listen to podcasts, and the big drum kit.
Geoff 42:50
Ooh. And what's the, new episodes every Monday, I think, yep, new episodes every Monday.
Georgie 42:56
See you next week.
Geoff 42:57
See you next week.
Georgie 42:58
Bye.