One of the guys in my band called up last night and asked if I had an item I hadn't thought of in quite a while: a tape cassette.

He wants to make a mixed tape for his girlfriend.

Not a mix CD (about 20 songs) or an MP3 CD (about 200 songs) or a filled up iPod (depends, but at least a thousand songs if not much more).

A 90-minute mix tape has about 30 songs, but it has a front and back side. There is a flow. And you have to put one together in real time.

A mix CD only takes 15 minutes or so to throw songs onto a playlist and burn it. Maybe move the songs around a bit, but you don't hear it play as it gets put together. So you won't be listening to one song recording and decide what a good follow up might be like you would while putting together a good mix tape. Mix tapes are both planned out and spontaneous, and this dichotomy makes, sometimes, for a really great musical journey.

I make mix CDs for people every once in a while, and I know it isn't the same as those good old mix tapes.

I've always been, to a big extent, my own DJ. I used to make mix tapes for my car all the time. I needed a new one every month or two because I had long commutes. I'd spend two to three hours putting together a tape on a day off. I did this until I got a CD car stereo in mid-2003. And then I put together MP3 CDs of different genres. Now I have an iPod Nano that has between 1300 to 1400 songs on it. I switch out songs every three weeks or so. If the song played since the last switch out, I take it off and then load up different songs. My computer has over 11,000 songs on it--the majority of my hard drive. But I only use my iPod in my car during commutes. Otherwise I have a CD in my car stereo for shorter, non-work drives.

I don't hook my iPod up to my home stereo either. I have CDs and vinyl for that. You have to set boundaries.

But no cassettes anymore. No more mix tapes. I had a few blank ones left when I stopped making them, but haven't found them yet. I might have trashed them. I have a few more places to look before practice this afternoon.

Right now the iPad is a fetish. It might end up becoming a useful tool for people. It might replace print magazines and newspapers and books. It might become a Mac Cube.

Advancements don't always advance society. The new thing is usually new in some way, but it's not always good. Sometimes the new thing is actually an old thing with different clothing. And sometimes the new thing is old before it even comes out. Stillbirth technology happens all the time. Do you realize that some companies tried to sell people music on flash drives? Did you fall for that?

Getting a digital camera made me take fewer pictures than when I had a film camera. And, in many cases, I take a bunch more crappier pictures and only a few really good ones. I find that I don't pick up my camera for a month or more. Half the time the batteries have run down, and I have to recharge them before I can take more. By the time the recharging is done, I have no need for pictures.

I'm a bit of a luddite and sentimentalist. I know many things were better when they weren't so small and ubiquitous. When people weren't spending half their day fondling them.

When we had to go home and check the answering machine for messages while we were out, we valued phone calls. Now everyone screens and will not answer if the name on the phone isn't someone they want to talk to. It used to be a mystery who was on the phone, and you had to answer. Now everyone has five different ways to get a hold of everyone, and no one really wants to talk to anyone.

On Facebook (which is the new MySpace, which was the new Friendster, which was a novel idea), we check in to see what our friend list is talking about over the last hour or so. There are gigs going on (I have lots of musical friends). There is the preacher who (I think) I went to high school with, and he is using the platform to spread His word. There are people who are reposting idiotic jokes about the government and asking me to repost them if I "like" it (I don't "like" it, btw). There are scores who let everyone know what they ate for breakfast or that the coffee this morning was really good. And then there are the random statements that may or may not make sense. I tend to fall into the last category.

Is any of it necessary? If you spent a day away from all of this, would your life suffer? Or would you find you have some free time to do something else?

Like hunt down a blank cassette to make a mix tape for the you you were years ago when all of this was, at best, just a crazy idea in someone's head.

Matt Worley has one working cassette player, but he never uses it.