Times have certainly changed.....Thanks Internet

I was reading a blog that I infrequently visit, the other day. One of the posting titles was "I Miss Mixed Tapes". I didn't read the blog, but it still got me thinking. When I was young(er), mix tapes were a popular passtime. My buddy, Ed, and I almost got competitive about it. We would see who could make the best mix. We tried to see who could make the tape flow the best. Then we went to the opposite extreme. Who could mix the most startling contrasts. We also tried to expose each other to new bands we may not have heard otherwise. So the mix tape was personal. I always had The Verve on mine. My quest was to convert the entire world to Verve-ism. It worked after a few albums. Then they went away, only to reappear earlier this year. But I digress. My point is that when I made a mixed tape, I put my favorite tracks on it. Or I put on songs that I knew the recipient of my hard work would enjoy. With the proliference of the internet and file sharing (legal or otherwise), mixed tapes have become a thing of the past. I spend way too much time hunting down little gems to put on CD. All of my mix CD's are discs of rarities, demo's, live, or otherwise unreleased songs by my favorite artists. Some of them are unreleased for a reason! So I never really make mixed CD's for myself. And when I make a CD for someone, it just doesn't feel as personal as it used to with a tape. I don't need to think what songs to put on when I can drop a band's entire recorded output on one disc in MP3 format. Drag and drop just doesn't satisfy me as much as pushing the little record button. Am I the only one? I don't think so, since another blog inspired this post. Who else feels this way?