Hopewell Valley Student Podcasting Network

Show Name: Hyperfixation Nation

Episode Title: Weird but true

Episode #8

You are listening to Hyperfixation Nation, the podcast with your host Blake. In this episode of Hyperfixation Nation I will be talking about some questions/brain twisters and weird facts about the world. These facts will make you laugh, will leave you puzzled, and make you question everything you know, hopefully at least.

Hello! So I have been wanting to do this episode for a while because I always have these facts in my back pocket and I like starting debates with the brain twisters because it spices life up! I always enjoy learning cool little pieces of trivia that maybe will help me win a game show some day, who knows

So these are some cool facts about the world that I have found over the course of my life and thought were really cool. I actually have a note on my phone where I put new ones whenever I find one. I also did a little research for this episode but a decent amount of these are facts that I have come upon randomly.

• Scotland's national animal is unicorn
• Australia is wider than the moon - moon is 2,113 miles wide and australia is 2,485 miles wide
• The eiffel tower gets taller in the summer because the iron heats up and thermal expansion occurs making it 6 inches taller when it is hot
• Human teeth are the only part of the body that cannot heal themselves
• Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur
• An 11 year old accidentally invented ice pops
• Warm water increases dopamine so we are more creative in the shower so if you’re struggling with a problem that involves thinking outside the box, take a hot shower
• Supermarket apples can be a year old!
• Wasabi paste is often actually horseradish instead of real wasabi because wasabi is expensive
• People used to say prunes when taking pictures - how did that change to cheese?
• Competitive art used to be an olympic event
• Cat pee glows under black light - ew but cool!
• J-lo is the reason we have google images in the search engine - so many people wanted to see pics of her 2000 grammys green dress that google added the feature
• British military tanks can make tea
• A blue whales heartbeat can be detected from up to 2 miles away
• Easter island heads also have bodies - what the heck happened to them?

Hopewell Valley Student Podcasting Network

Show Name: Hyperfixation Nation

Episode Title: Keeper of the Lost cities

Episode #6

You are listening to Hyperfixation Nation, the podcast with your host Blake. In this episode of Hyperfixation Nation I will be discussing the book series Keeper of the Lost Cities. I will cover why I love the series, my thoughts on the morals of the 3 main groups of people, and Team FosterKeefe vs Fitzphie.

I have been reading this series since I was about 8-9 years old and it has kept me hooked ever since. Keeper of the Lost cities is a fantasy book series that has some romantic drama - but it is not the main plot point, it has relatable characters, and it has a decent amount of representation. If you enjoyed Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan and Harry Potter by JK Rowling, you will probably like KOTLC. I have loved these books for so long that one could say that it is just a love and not a hyperfixation but every time I read one, I cannot stop, I just keep reading and reading and reading. My interest levels may go up and down but I still adore the series and will talk about it with anyone at any time. I love so many aspects of it and that is what I will be getting into next! ALSO SPOILER ALERT. I will be talking about everything that has happened in published books so far.

• The villains aren’t just villains, you can see that they are human and they aren’t really ALL bad
• The good guys aren’t all good either- they have done things wrong and they have mixed history with their actions also
• while the characters are fighting bad guys and have magic abilities and such, you can still tell that they are just teens also
• The love web - it isn’t just a triangle

• Neverseen
• Bad guys
• Lady gisela doing everything for her son - in a very twisted way
• They want to accomplish the same thing as the black swan but have different methods
• Black Swan
• good guys
• used to be a step ahead and now doesn’t know anything more than the kids
• keeping secrets - good or bad?
• the genetic stuff they did to Sophie
• Council
• sometimes good sometimes bad
• just trying to maintain an image
• want what is best for the elves

Hopewell Valley Student Podcasting Network 

Show Name: Hyperfixation Nation

Episode Title: All About Hamilton: The Musical

Episode #5

 You are listening to Hyperfixation Nation, the podcast with your host Blake.

In this episode of Hyperfixation Nation the Podcast, I will talk about the musical Hamilton and how it broke all Broadway standards. I will cover how it is different from every other Broadway musical, where it was historically accurate vs. when an artistic license was taken, and my opinion on some of the characters' decisions.

So we’ve got the music, the actors, and the politics in the show that are different from most Broadway musicals previously. We’ve got the creative license that Lin Manuel Miranda took because it made the story more interesting, it rhymed, or it was just easier to put in the show. And we’ve got the slightly controversial decisions of the characters like Burr shooting Hamilton and Washington serving the amount of time he did. 

• Music
• Rap
• Hip-hop
• R&B
• Soul
• Traditional show tunes
• Black and brown actors were on stage but the story doesn’t depict any slaves
• Lin-Manuel Miranda, the person who wrote the music, is Puerto Rican and wanted to incorporate the feeling of being sidelined into the music and Alexander Hamilton's character but also wanted to go against the white-washing of history. There is a musical with an all-white cast that is a show about a similar time that portrays the story in a much different and could be called racist, way.
• Having people of color play white historical figures flips the tradition of white people in blackface being on stage. 
• It showcases the good and bad things that these founding fathers did
• Sally Hemmings for example
• Say no to this
• The relationship between Angelica and Hamilton
• The politics/political stand that this musical represents
• Laurens especially being very for an all-black military force
• Black actors playing the all-white Founding Fathers
• The layers of the