Ken C. Pohlmann

If you happened to be at cruising altitude last Monday, your pilot probably got on the comms and made an unexpected announcement. Effective immediately, the mask mandate had been vacated. What??? Oh no!!! Fortunately, you were wearing your Dyson headphone.

Man, oh, man. Can this really be happening? Over these many years, I have purchased all manner of excellent Sony products: radios, televisions, tape recorders, receivers, amplifiers, turntables, Betamax video recorders, CD players, DVD players, Blu-ray players, MiniDisc players, headphones, boomboxes, speakers, soundbars, videogame consoles, phones, camcorders, cameras — you name it. But will my next Sony purchase be…a car?

Amazon is close to achieving its goal of world domination. Much like Alexander the Great, Mr. Bezos is surely weeping because he has no more worlds to conquer. But cheer up, good sir. Amazon's most talkative progeny will soon go to the final frontier, where only a few men have gone before.

Many years ago, I would ride my bicycle to the neighborhood record store, lean it against the window (no need to padlock), spend an enjoyable hour lipping through LPs, pick one out, and buy it (cash, of course). I would then slip it into my backpack and ride home, put the needle in the groove, and enjoy the sound of my purchase. Oh, how times have changed. In particular, the cool kids are now buying music as non-fungible tokens (NFT).