When cassette tape technology matured in the 80′s becoming cheaper and of higher quality, it enabled easy home recording, and a new art form took shape. A mix tape could be recorded from different sources beginning with LPs, off the radio, and later from CDs. Nick Hornby’s “High Fidelity” which was later made into the movie starring John Cusack publicizes the etiquette that is so important in the creation of mix tapes and mix tape culture. No back-to-back songs by the same artist is a given. Starting off the mix with a song that will grab attention is key, but you don’t want to over do it, so you might have to turn it down a notch with he next track. Maintaining a flow is also very important because you want to maintain a seamlessness from one track to another. The most important aspect of mix tapes is that it allows the author to say something or make a statement through the music. With the rise of CD burners and the creation of mix CDs, the tape has fallen by the wayside. The idea of the mix has even surpassed the CD and gone completely digital. Muxtape.com allows you to create a mix that lives completely online and can be accessed from any computer with an internet connection. The site is so simple and refreshing to use that it’s as easy as uploading your own mp3s, dragging around your track listing as desired, and sending out a link to your mix. The site also makes it easy to randomly listen to mixes that others have created and bookmark them. Check out my mix.

 
Offically, the opening day of Major League Baseball was on March 31st, but today marks the official re-opening of the season when the world champion Boston Red Sox play the A’s in Oakland. (Their first two games were played in Tokyo, Japan.) If the Sox can stay healthy, having almost retained the entire team, they will be able to defend their title. They have great “up and coming” talent in Ellsbury and Pedroia, the powerhouse Ortiz – Ramirez one two punch, along with the unstoppable pitching of Beckett, Dice-K, Papelbon (in the bullpen). The season should be an interesting one, which means I just might need to sign up for MLB tv, or add the games to my cable subscription. It’s definitely tough living in enemy territory.

 
The analog word processor, also known as the Typewriter, has long ago fallen into obscurity after being technologically eclipsed by the personal computer. Let’s look at the typewriter’s downside: there is no delete key, forget copy and paste, and definitely no spellcheck. The typewriter is unforgiving, and yet in it’s day it was indispensable. It is the machine that replaced the handwritten, but was originally invented to help the blind to write. The first typewriters were created in the mid-1800s and were improved and refined over time. The appeal of the typewriter lies in the sound of metal letters striking the page, the clicking and clacking that has become synonymous with the written word in the typewriter’s 70 year reign. The finished product is also far different from the typewriter to the inkjet printout (from the modern PC). A typewritten page is far more tactile with slightly embossed letters imprinted into the surface of the paper. There is a certain standardization in shapes of the letter-forms, but also an unpredictability in the keystroke and how the ink will hit the page. As we have moved away from the handwritten our writing has become far less personal and is now very much anonymous. Anyone can shoot off an email with almost no thought and, more often than not, it appears impersonal. The typewriter, on the other hand, is a middle ground. There is a definite nostalgia in receiving a letter written on a typewriter, even if they are before your time.