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Now I’m Just Being Silly
Although not really that silly. It’s more akin to visualizing a memory, however imperfect the finished result may be.
Circa 1991 or 1992, waiting at the Van Ness station for an outgoing train to take me to Church Street. I remember grooving to Sade (most likely Promise or Stronger Than Pride) and the music was really moving me, prompting me dancing my ass up and down the platform while waiting.
I didn’t care what people thought.
It was quite liberating.
The image is almost period-accurate. The iconic Apple silhouette this was modeled on didn’t come into being until 2001, and those headphones…well, Sennheiser didn’t start making the HD600s until ’98 and I didn’t get my first pair until this year, but the period-accurate predecessor looks similar enough that no one would probably notice from this photo.
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Grail Obtained
Sony D-7. This was the model of my very first Discman, bought new in 1985. That particular one is long gone, but when I started getting back into this hobby a couple years ago I rwas keen to get another. Unfortunately most of the offerings on eBay were either prohibitively expensive or looked like they were ridden hard and…well, you know the rest of the phrase. This one came up about a month ago and the seller indicated it had “new batteries in the battery case.” (The D-7 doesn’t have “batteries” in the traditional sense. Think of its battery pack like what you’d see inside a laptop these days.) Even if the BP-200 pack was shot, the rest of it was in such great condition I figured I’d take a chance and would send it off to Kaosun like I did with my D-15 some time ago if it actually needed the mods. I put down the maximum bid I was willing to part with, and waited for the auction to run its course. Imagine my surprise when I won the auction for far less than my maximum!
It arrived yesterday. It really is in pristine condition. Everything works, and while I haven’t run the battery down to see how long it lasts yet*, it does work off the battery pack just fine. It’s not a Kaosun repair; there’s no charging LED on the battery case, but it seems to be just as good.
Yeah, like all pre-GForce players of the era, you just have to breathe on it and it will skip, but that goes with the territory. The fact that it sounds amazing more than makes up for it, and it can drive my Sennheisers louder than what I can tolerate—something that can’t be said for the examples of the later Sony players with the digital amplifiers I have. The mechanism is much quieter than either my D-10 or D-15, two other players of the same era—which is kind of surprising.
So yeah, I’m squealing like a schoolgirl meeting the Beatles in 1964 at the moment…
*EDIT: It lasts long enough to get through 4 CDs before needing to be plugged in to recharge.
*EDIT (10/29): Out of curiosity (and no cats killed in the making of this post) since publishing it initially, I popped the cover on the battery pack. Inside were 4-AAA cells wired in parallel with appropriate ancillary circuitry for the circumstances. I might’ve been somewhat offended if I had not read about using just this method, albeit with the flat gumstick battery design.
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Sony D-10, Inside and Out
I may have published these pix already some time ago. This was done as more of a test of altering the way the gallery displays than anything else.
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How I Always Saw Them
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(L-R) Kent Kelly, Chas Dooley, Don Hines, summer 1977. None of them are still with us, so I don’t think they’ll mind.
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Definition of Insanity
The Day The Sisters Came To Town
Mass-in-Protest and ceremonial canonization of Harvey Milk, during Pope John Paul II’s visit to San Francisco., 17 September 1987 at Union Square.
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Scenes From Another Lifetime
Stop Me
More Adventures In AI-Assisted Photo Restoration
Before & After
Drag the vertical divider, or use the slider below to compare.
Yes, once upon a time your host had a beard. It was the first and only time. Now I want to grow one, but I no longer can. The radiation of 23 years ago for my first cancer made quick work of the follicles on my cheeks and jaw, and once gone, they never grow back. Still, I have my memories…
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It Was A Lazy Afternoon
There’s Nothing Worse…
…than going through your photo albums in search of a particular photo that for whatever reason is missing from your digital archive—and realizing along the way that there are dozens of photos that either never got scanned or have gone missing as well.
I guess I have a new project.
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Fucking Over Republicans Since 1976
An Oldie But A Goodie
🤣 🤣 🤣
Am I The Only One Who Misses This?
Damn it! Another AI generated image that isn’t immediately obvious.
At first image this looks like a real photograph. But then I noticed something was off about the CDs in the racks. They weren’t square, nor were they in the long-box packaging that briefly flourished in the 90s to thwart shoplifting. Then I noticed the generic posters hanging over the racks and then the shopper’s feet in the foreground.
Here’s a real photo of the glory days:
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Feeling Cute, Might Delete Later 🤣
New Phone, New Camera
You Can Never Go Home
I was responding to this post on reddit when I thought I could do one better than just driving by the house. We actually had the opportunity to go in the house the last time it was on the market and took the naturall took lots of photos. Apparently that sub only allows one attachment per post, so I had to assemble the photos I had in mind into a single image.
(Yes, there was a bit of Photoshop restoration work done on the two photos from the 70s.)
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In An Alternate Universe
Prompt: Age the person in this photo 45 years. Give him a shorter haircut and a full beard.
The Butterfly Effect. Different genetics, different timeline, different struggles.
But since we’re playing around today…
This is the eternal me, the forever 28-year old guy that lives in my head.
And that guy who never thought to grow a beard until it was too late to actually do it.
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HOW Does It Know?
Prompt: Cleanup, sharpen, and colorize.
It got the color of the patchwork suede jacket almost exact. The flannel shirt was indeed red, and the t-shirt underneath was navy.
As my dad used to say, “How do it know?!”
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Reminds Me Of The Outside Areas Of The Backrooms
Singin’ The Blues
Happy Equinox!
And in honor of the day, the morning soundtrack:
And once again I am twenty years old, skimming over a vast sea of golden dunes in my landspeeder under a double sun in a hazy, wheat-colored sky…
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Siesta With Tears For Fears
Nose
Random Photos From SF
Just a few photos I discovered on my hard drive in a folder called Scans (to be sorted). Looks like most of them are from 1988-89.
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A Long Time Ago, In A Galaxy Far, Far Away…
Suburbia, 1973
That caption isn’t too far off the mark. We swear—even though it was brand new construction on a former onion field and we were the first owners—the place was haunted.
We’d all be downstairs in the family room (or me in my bedroom which was also on the same level) and doors would slam up in the bedrooms upstairs, even though there were no windows openand noting else to cause a breeze.
Once, on the verge of sleep, I found walking up the stairs that went from the lower level to the ground floor. I looked over my shoulder and saw myself asleep in bed. I turned around and was greeted by what I can only call a shadow figure (gives me chills now jsut remembering it). I knew he wanted into my body. He lunged at me. We wrestled, tumbling down the stairs. I got up the literally dove back into my sleeping body.
After I’d gone off to college, Mom took to sleeping in my bed downstairs because Dad’s snoring had gotten too insufferable. That was, until one night when she was violently shaken out of the bed. “Never again,” was all she said of the incident.
I mean look at all those smiling faces. What kind of entity would bear that family any ill will? (Taken at the grandparents’ place in Sun City later that year (probably Thanksgiving or Christmas).
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50 Years Ago
Oh the places you’ll go. The things you’ll see. The men you’ll love…all of which will ultimately transform you into who you are now.
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