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The Simple & Elegant MICAR Digital Wood Clock Reviewed
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May 29, 2025
It's a cube of wood with a clock buried inside. Well, not really, but the MICAR Digital Alarm Clock Wood LED Light is still a pretty nice, and very simple piece of tech that will look great on your desk or dorm shelf. Once you wrestle with setting the time correctly, that is. Tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ spent some time figuring out how to set up a MICAR Digital Alarm Clock and found it tolerable. But once it's set up? You've got a very nice looking budget clock suitable for any decor. Check it out on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2QgR6gJ
View Video Transcript
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a wooden alarm clock let's check it out
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[Music]
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Dave Taylor here and I'm looking at this
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this is a wooden alarm clock well it's
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not really wood it's actually a plastic
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or I don't know some sort of a laminate
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or something you can tell because you
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look on the back and you don't see the
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wood going through the edges it's just a
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yellow plastic that they've somehow
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infused with what looks like a pretty
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realistic bamboo finish now of course
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this is important because your time
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shows up through the clock surface and
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in this case it actually cycles between
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the time and the date and the
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temperature that the cube is
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experiencing so it's pretty funny on
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Amazon people are saying how does it
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know the outside temperature the answer
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is it doesn't it's not that
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sophisticated in fact let's put this in
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context this is the Mike our digital
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alarm clock wood LED light and it is
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$13.99 so this is not pairing with
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Bluetooth this does not talk to your
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phone it is not synchronized with the
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atomic clock it is a very basic
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rudimentary piece of technology but as a
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clock it actually is kind of interesting
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so as you can see we will just put it
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here and it'll just slowly cycle through
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time and date and temperature now if you
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don't like that you can actually suffer
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through the interface welcome back to
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that in just a sec and you can set it to
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be just time and it'll just show you the
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time it can also actually have what they
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call the energy stretch mode or energy
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saving mode where after a minute or so
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it will turn off the display and then
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you either make a loud sound or you tap
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on it and the display comes on
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personally I really dislike that why
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would I want a clock that isn't showing
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me what time it is and the answer is
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because if you're using it off of
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batteries like I am here then you want
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your batteries to last as long as
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possible now it does work with dcn or
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direct current and so it includes this
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little cable with its own little unique
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plug on it why it's not microUSB I
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cannot answer you but the other
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is in fact a standard USB connection and
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there's no wall outlets so you're on
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your own to have an actual power charger
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or anything like that but I will say
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that using this cord probably makes a
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whole lot more sense because according
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to the company the batteries do not last
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very long in fact if you have it on
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full-on mode like this at the highest
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brightness level they say the three
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Triple A batteries in the back
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here's your close-up of three Triple A
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batteries in the back will last a week
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one week and if you actually put it into
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that audio or what they call voice
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control mode then the batteries last a
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month so this is not a clock where you
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want to run it just on batteries because
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I am NOT gonna be replacing my batteries
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every week that's crazy but if you think
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of those as an emergency backup and you
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actually have it plugged in then you're
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doing okay right so you have it plugged
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in and if you lose power for a couple of
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hours and then you have the power come
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back which actually happens more often
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than people realize then your clock is
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fine and you don't lose the time or date
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so that's really nice that's really what
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the batteries are for now let's talk
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about these controls because the
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controls are very old-school which means
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they're super frustrating and annoying
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to work with as you can see in the
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close-up there are four buttons labeled
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set and up and down and reset and those
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are your options and you just sort of
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suffer through this complicated system
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where you you know push a button and now
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it's the hours flashing so you go up or
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down and then you push minutes and then
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up or down and so on and so forth not
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really that much of a crisis it's a
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little tedious because I find that I
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want to actually keep flipping back and
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forth to make sure which ones are up and
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down although I guess you could just do
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that by practice but here's the thing
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to be entirely fair once you get it set
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the way you want you're done so you
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don't actually have to do that very
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often at all possibly lives like once
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every year or maybe every time you hit
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daylight savings time or not so not a
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huge big deal although while you're
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setting it up
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like I said it can be a little
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frustrating and it's like a flashback to
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like 1991 or something I wish it synched
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with my phone but that would add another
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$50 to the product and it's probably not
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a $75 clock I'm not sure that would
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begin now you can switch between 12 and
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24 hour mode you can switch between
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Fahrenheit and Celsius for temperature
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and it includes three alarms however I
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have not actually had the courage to try
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it because I don't know how to turn off
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the alarm probably it's the reset button
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in the back but it is not an alarm clock
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where you just touch the top or
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something and then the alarm stops so my
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guess is probably 99 plus percent of
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people that acquire this clock have it
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sitting on a shelf or sitting on a desk
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obviously it would be perfectly
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acceptable and actually look really good
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for an executive or for a dorm room just
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having it on a shelf next to some books
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or something then look pretty nice
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actually and you know if you can figure
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out how to snake this cord behind it and
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that you can certainly buy USB extension
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cords so if you look at this and you say
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that is way too short you can buy like
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five or ten or 20-foot extensions
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especially for this because it's just
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using very minimal power it's not
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actually a day to sync cord or anything
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so you could actually have this clock
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way up in the distance and then you can
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have that drop down through extension
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cords to the power and wall outlet so
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that's nice it also has four luminance
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settings this is the highest setting and
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one of the things they've done that's
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really smart
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is that automatically at 6:00 p.m. it
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drops to half brightness and at 7:00
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a.m. it comes back to full luminance so
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without you having to do anything the
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nighttime mode isn't as bright as
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daytime mode that's good thinking on
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their part so what else can I tell you
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about it really not very much it's 3.6
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ounces - so it's super light and that's
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with the batteries in if you don't want
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to use the batteries and you just want
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to live on the edge hoping that your
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power always works then it'll probably
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be under three ounces it's super small
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this could be a nice little stocking
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stuffer or something right so that's
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what I got so now before we go any
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further if you could click on that
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subscribe button I really appreciate it
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give me some candid feedback I look
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at a ton of different products from
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thousand-dollar headphones down to $13
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digital alarm clocks do you actually
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care about these lower end products tell
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me leave me a comment let me know I
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think it's kind of fun to look at how
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all the technology spreads but you might
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look at it and say dude seriously stick
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to like actual gear but hey this is also
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consumer electronics so there you go
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now finally to sum it up the mic our
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digital alarm clock wood LED and I
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actually kind of like it it's you know
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it has its limitations it's also super
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entry-level it is $13.99 on amazon.com
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and if this is something you're looking
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for a nice simple modest clock that's
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just gonna sit there and work great then
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this might be something to check out
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with that this is Dave Taylor and I'll
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catch you in my next week
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[Music]
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