my annual mix cd is ready!

So, usually every Christmas I send out a mix CD along with cards. This year, I didn't feel like I had enough music to make a good enough mix so it sorta slipped past me. Then people kept asking me if they had missed the post advertising the mix and I started to think that maybe I shouldn't break with tradition! And, as luck would have it, I got a few CDs for Christmas and now I have enough music to fill up a disc!

So, if you're interested in this year's mix, comment with your mailing address. I've set all comments to "screened" so no one else can see your address and I will delete them afterwards so that it's not floating around online. If you'd feel more comfortable with messaging me, that's okay too. :)

Let me know! Instead of a Christmas gift, this will be my Valentine's Day gift to all my friends! Because I love ya!

<3

(if you want to see the track list for previous years, just click on the "yearlymixcd" tag.)

question o' the day

Traditional media versus new media. Your thoughts.

I'm going to assume here that "traditional media" is more physical media, where "new media" is more computer based, probably online or at least digital.

I still feel like both have their place. I still prefer to read physical books, but this act if very personal and private for me. I usually read while I'm at lunch alone or about to go to bed. I don't need to have 100s of books at my fingertips, just the one. BUT on the other side of things, the amount of information I can access when I have a computer and internet and a library card is much more vast than what I could have with just the library card.

One of the positive things about "new media" (and also one of the negative things) is how quickly they can be updated and changed. Databases that contain biographical information can quickly be updated if a person dies suddenly while physical Encylopedia's will be out of date until next year's publication. BUT the flip side is that if a database goes out of business or changes hands, people can lose access to that information very quickly.

One of my biggest pet peeves right now are the way that digital rights to television shows are being traded around. I didn't mind when a show could be accessed via streaming as long as all of the major companies had the show. For example, Downton Abbey used to be available to stream on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. But in the last few months, Amazon has made some sort of deal with PBS and they now have exclusive rights to Downton Abbey, leaving Netflix and Hulu users out of the loop. That bugs me. I understand wanting to have the show behind a paywall of some kind BUT the fact that I can only get to it through Amazon Prime annoys me.

As you can guess, I don't watch live TV anymore. When I was a kid, I was all about the "appointment tv", losing many Friday nights to Fox Mulder and Dana Scully rather than missing my show, recording them all on VHS to watch later. But once I discovered the DVR and then Netflix/Hulu, I felt so free! I could just watch my shows when I had time!

I also prefer communicating via the Internet, though this probably comes from growing up just when IM was taking off. I've never been a phone talker. I did do the pen-pal thing for a little while but as soon as email was available, I abandoned pen and paper pretty quickly.

Not really sure if that answers the question, maybe because I don't know my answer. :) I think because I sort of straddle the pre-Internet and post-Internet generation, I have a foot planted firmly in both new and old media.