Monthly Archives: November 2008

So over the last few months I’ve slowly been feeding like 1200 cassette tapes to the garbage man. Before you flip out, of course I tried to figure out alternative ways to get rid of them. Turns out they’re not really recyclable. Who knew? Then it turns out that if you post them on craigslist – even for free – nobody is interested in them. I know this because I tried – several times – because I invested ton of time and money and emotion into these tapes, and throwing them in the trash is the last thing I wanted to do. This must be exactly how the guy who spent 10 years collecting 1200 buggy whips felt in 1925.
I’ve been cleaning them out of this big old card catalog they’ve been stored in for years and years. I got it at the University back when they decided that libraries full of handsomely substantial wooden card catalogs with dovetail joinery and drawer after drawer of musty index cards that ooze a sense of higher academia would be better served by ugly greenscreens and F10 and F8 keys that impart no sense of purpose but hey, I’m sure those computer databases way easier to maintain and stuff. No offense. None taken. And hey look, cheap card catalog! That’ll be perfect for my unreasonably large Grateful Dead tape collection! Score!
But yeah, who listens to tapes anymore? Not me. I haven’t for years. But how neat was that transition? Like one day we’re all trading tapes thru the mail, then a year or two later it’s all CD’s thru the mail, then a year or two later it’s all downloads. Poof. And those romantic stories of the cool older kid who worked the golf course snack bar slipping you a fresh 4th generation copy of 5/1/70 Alfred College before he looked the other way while you tee’d off? Gone forever. Oh, and those trading networks you spent years grooming? Worthless. The playing field was being re-leveled.
Anyway, I cleaned out a few more drawers last night. At the back of one drawer I found this huge stack of MaxPoints, which were a buyer loyalty program Maxell ran back in the heyday of the cassette. It was basically a “buy 6 get 1 free” type of deal. (25 points in each blank cassette, 150 points got you a free tape by mail.) This pile has like 3500 MaxPoints in it. Whoops, shoulda sent those in. I remember when Maxell canceled the program. People went nuts. I googled around and found this recap of the history of the situation. It’s doublefunny because the content sorta dates to the actual end of the program. Concerns about Maxell as a brand and manufacturer? Yeah, cassettes were dead like 20 minutes later. But back then it was like a bomb going off. No perspective.
Oh rearview mirror, you crack me up.