Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Amidst the chaff, randomalia, and knitting blogs of today's blogexplosion surf the Mix CD Exchange stands out like a beacon. "A community for people who love putting music together in just the right order to create that perfect transition, that sweet irony, or just that amazing compilation of songs" -- how perfect! How quaint! How...inaccessible!

I aim each week to provide perfect, smooth, surprising transitions through my radio show, of course. I take pride in the perfect subject-set there. But though I continue to wish (as do some of you, happily) that I could make these sets available as digi-files for all, our show doesn't stream, and there's no burner in the radio station. It's just not gonna cut it to send cassettes in to the CD Exchange.

In the end, though I teach the subject and think about it often, I'm not really that digital a creature of habit. I listen to CDs, not an iPod; in the car, I prefer radio or (gasp) actual mix cassette tapes; I still own a rack of vinyl, and chose an LP player over a CD burner when buying the stereo. I envy those folks who can surf from bed, or walk wireless through a seamless datastream household wherein all media are essentially one, but I'm not about to become one. This is primarily because:

I have an addictive personality, and thus a tendency to overattend to the Interweb when I should be spending precious hours with my wife and daughter or, say, sleeping.

I'm a social science and media geek -- Ed Tech, not IT, and certainly not hardware-oriented. Sure, I like plugs and wires, gadgets and giggles -- the ADHD helps -- and the satisfaction of a job well done. But I'm not the kind of guy who's likely to home-wire the stereo into the rest of the computer. Trying to set up wireless in the house was so frustrating, we put the gadget away, which was, while humiliating, a pretty big triumph.

We're broke, and have no money to pay for 'net access.

So though the laptop itself is work-provided, we're off the grid at home. When I blog, I blog from work. When someone sends me email on the weekend, I don't get it until Monday. Yes, folks, though it helps to have "work" less than 500 yards away, I may be the only media and technology teacher "out there" who is proud to leave the technology at work each day, reserving the home for family and play.

But there are days, and there are sites, that make me wish it were otherwise. Curse you, Mix CD Exchange, for making me wish I could "send" you my radio-or-otherwise thematic "mixes," download those of others, and listen to them while blogging, in the dead of the night while my daughter sleeps.