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Reposted by Noisy Signals

Obsolete Sony @obsoletesony.com · 20h

I’ve spent the last year working on this. Every iconic Sony portable audio device ever made, all in one book. Kickstarter launches in one week.

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 1d

#vss365
We both stood there, looking at it, on its side, legs moving with unattainable purpose, not able to right itself.

In all seriousness and solemnity she said, “Maybe you should have gotten the #deluxe model?”

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 2d

#vss365
“And what would *you* do for this job, Mrs. Hansen?”

She slowly pushed away from the table. It wasn’t the #undertone of violence in his question or the way he played with his steak knife.

But this was just a lunch interview for a receptionist. She wouldn’t need her old skills here, right?

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 3d

#vss365
“#PIRANHA!”
“BARRACUDA!”
“PIRANHA!!”
“BARRACUDA!!”
“Will you two shut up?! It doesn’t matter what they are if we’re dead! Now find a way out of this trap!”

James Bond hated working with early-career field agents.

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 4d

#vss365
As they walked away, it started to rain. I hurriedly check my phone.

It was a thunderstorm rolling in, so the carnival would be closing before it became a mudpit.

I guess I would be using that number sooner than I thought. I fished around for a #raincoat and headed into rain.

FIN

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 5d

Ahh, nothing better to flip and even out a #Radiohead day than some #BoardsofCanada. Go get a #balloon and some #math and ease the fuck on.

Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 5d

Aw Fuck, it’s a Radiohead day.

A day just to chill out and listen to Radiohead because you feel like listening to those same melancholy songs and there’s nothing else to do.

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 5d

#vss365
“Yes,” the aunt replied with a knowing smile. “Brats can be so impetuous.”

Bingo. I’d check Reddit (or, god forgive me, 4Chan) later, but I guess “Auntie Dom/Brat” was a thing now.

With a #verve I reserved for religious types & true weirdos, I shooed them away…after asking for a number.

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 5d

#vss365
Whatever #libertine thoughts I had, I pushed way way down. I wasn’t getting a good vibe from whatever these two had going on.

“Ain’t she a little old for a kiddie leash?” I opined freely.

They looked at each other with a sense of opposing obviousness only paralleled by a yin-yang symbol.

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 6d

#vss365
I pulled the phone from the stack and handed it to Georgia, who had to be at least 16.

“Where did you go?” the aunt asked.

Georgia tapped #ash from a half-smoked cigarette. “Smoke break.”

And then the aunt took the end of the kiddie leash and attached the girl back to her wrist. “There.”

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 8d

#vss365
I was about to win myself a date by promising her niece would waltz in the next 30 minutes, when this teenage girl walked up.

“Georgia!” the lady screamed and hugged the girl.

Georgia, whose aloof vibe #clashed against her aunt’s emotionalism, just looked at me and asked for her phone.

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 8d

#vss365
Her face lit up like a baby at Christmas. “Shit! I forgot.” A phone magically appeared and went to her face.

A buzzing sound came from a phone an #associate dropped off 30 minutes ago on the phone pile.

The waterworks started up again. But I knew how this story would end now.

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 10d

#vss365
“Well, no one’s dropped off a kid,” I reassured her. “You want me to call security?”

She shut off the waterworks and looked like an #advert for a tissue company. “No. I got to find her or my Maggie will never forgive me.”

I went for the obvious. “Does she have a cell?”

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 11d

#vss365
I decided to play it cool. “Some mother you are.”

She broke down crying. “She’s not my kid. She’s my sister’s! I had one of those #elastic bands connecting us and….” She held up and empty loop.

I had always doubted the effectiveness of those things.

I did a scan of the kiosk. No kids.

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 12d

#vss365
She walked into my office like a dame from a 1930’s hardboiled #pulp detective magazine.

This was even more impressive considering I was wearing a paper hat for the amusement park and ran its Lost-and-Found kiosk. Too many phones.

“I lost my baby,” she purred.

Whoa! A real case?!

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 12d

Just a reminder for the lead up to #TronAres, that the excellent #TronUprising is back on Disney, featuring Elijah Wood, Bruce Boxleitner, Lance Henriksen, Mandy Moore, and #PaulReubens.

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 12d

#vss365
We pulled into the highway #oasis, still shaking.

New York was in flames behind us and we didn’t know if it would burn out or set the East Coast aflame.

But we were safe for now.

“You okay?” I put my hand out.

A very weak “yes” came out.

“Some blind date, huh?”

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 13d

#vss365
It was all a #blur.

But to be fair, I was going at 0.99c.

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 15d

#vss365
“MINE!”
“LIKE HELL!”
“OVER MY DEAD BODY!”
“AND THE KIDS!”

They were the worst couple she had ever seen.

She calmly stepped from the bench and hitched up her robe to expose a lightsaber.

“Quite a #conundrum. You two wouldn’t happen to be students of history? Solomon? Alexander the Great?”

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 16d

#vss365
Watching them attack the family in the car, I finally got it. Who was right, who was wrong, who was lying, and who was just trying to live.

The cold hard stone that had been my empathy #sublimated into a burning sun of compassion.

I was no longer frozen. I acted.

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 17d

#vss365
“I call her the ‘Mary Jane’.”

Howard seemed especially pleased with himself. It was his first boat. I didn’t want to ruin things by pointing out the remains of the previous #escutcheon named it “Sea Hag”.

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 18d

#vss365
It was after persistent #scrutiny that the kids realized it was the greedy old rich white guy who was behind everything.

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 19d

#vss365
The nightingale’s voice was #sonorous
Her imprisonment was rather onerous
She found freedom from life tyrannical
Was then replaced by a bird mechanical
Though the contraption was exotic
It lacked the soul melodic
So on his deathbed the emperor understood
Beauty is in the heart not the wood.

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 20d

#vss365
“She always had an aire of #caprise about her,” he noted as she switched out the Coke for a Pepsi in her shopping cart.

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Noisy Signals @noisysignals001.bsky.social · 21d

#vss365
“Of course I’m prepared for such an #eventuality!”

To wit, she reached into the cabinet and pulled out a duck.

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