JuJuDeals

We’ve heard good things about you; that you’re a promising new talent. The Agency is always glad to help an eager cadet meet their potential in service to the Crown. As you can imagine, this career tends to have a high… Well let’s just call it a “high turnover rate.” Let’s see what your chart says here, then. Hmm… Hmm… Excellent. Your test scores are well within the 90th percentile. Your obstacle course times are the best we’ve seen in three semesters. Your firearms and self defense instructors have both written letters of recommendation. It certainly seems that you have everything we’re looking for in a Double-0 Agent.

It’s likely that, by now, you’ve heard tales of the exploits of our most storied agent; 007. While it’s true that he has had many great successes and performed above and beyond the call of duty numerous times, one should know that he isn’t perfect. Sure, he’s foiled the schemes of balding would-be despots and curiously themed lackeys dozens of times, but he leaves a path of destruction in so doing. He can also be a bit… careless, you could call it, with the rather delicate equipment that Q commissions to him. This brings us to you.

Being the newest Double-0 Agent in the field, you will be given a number. As your achievements accrue and the agents above you retire, or are retired, your number will decrease. For now, you will be known as agent 0052. Unfortunately for you, being the lowest on the totem pole means you’re last in line for assignments and gear. Since 007 has once again blown through this year’s entire budgetary allotment for spy gear in the course of his latest outing, Q has decided to assign civilian equipment to all new agents. Now, I know you’ve heard about all of the sexy gadgets you would supposedly be getting upon attainment of Double-0 status, but until we can perform an audit and request more financing for the department, the laser pens, exploding mints, and x-ray contact lenses are going to have to wait. Actually, we won’t be giving out the x-ray contact lenses anymore regardless. 007 racked up another harassment suit.

Oh, come now, don’t look too down. We’ve still found some actually quite impressive pieces of civilian technology to kit you with. For instance, have a look at this; the NT-301 Portable LCD TV. It has a 3.5″ LCD screen, which is bright and large enough for you to make out the coded messages we hide in daytime TV. It receives FM radio transmissions, which is great for when a fellow agent is in the midst of battling a megalomaniacal radio DJ and pirates the signal to request assistance. Or, you know, for listening to music. Either way, the telescoping antenna can pick up those signals loud and clear. Speaking of hearing those signals, you can play them through the built-in speakers, or if you’re on a stealth mission, through the included earphones. Lastly, and this will be of most interest to you and the other agents, do you see that small slot on the unit? You can insert SD or MMC data storage there, allowing us to give you mission parameters, dossiers, training videos, and other classified information to view later.

See? We knew you’d love it. For us, the best part is how inexpensive it is. A few seasons of commissioning these affordable gadgets and we should be able to requisition you a cell phone that unfolds into a machine gun. Anyway, why don’t you go ahead and take the NT-301 with you and get familiar with it.

Oh, one final word, though. Don’t lend it to 007. He breaks everything, and if you lose this, you’re going into the field with nothing but a calculator watch.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before:

You’re on a road trip. You’ve listened to the three CDs in your glove box five times each. You have some more in your trunk, but they’re probably under all your luggage and you really don’t want to pull your car over and get to your destination any later. You look out your windows at the landscape speeding by and all you see are hills and the occasional bored-looking cow. You grit your teeth, brace for impact, and turn on the radio.

Middle of nowhere radio is pretty much the definition of a crapshoot, in that it’s mostly crap, and it makes you want to shoot your radio. Sometimes you’ll get some barely audible, static-riddled pop music from the early 90s. Sometimes its deeply unhinged local talk radio from a guy that believes politicians are actually alien reptile men in disguise. Usually it’s someone reading from the holy text they wrote in their tool shed about how his talking dog is blessed with the power of prophecy and you should give him some of your money. It’s times like this you think “I would give everything I own to pick my own tunes right now.”

Fortunately for you, everything you own is waaay overshooting the mark. Try something closer to $15. With an FM Transmitter, you can broadcast your MP3 player, CD player, heck, maybe even your record player to your radio. Just find a station with nothing on it, set the transmitter to that station, and voila. You are now the owner of your very own portable radio station.

Oh, and if the alien-hating talk radio guy is taking call-ins, you should tell him about the guy with the psychic dog. They’d probably get along swimmingly.