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farewell, mini-disc

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2003.05.11

I bought my mum a DVD player to replace her CD player, which died while I was staying with her. The new unit has an optical out, so I thought I'd go get some MD's to finally use the optical in and fiber cable that came with the MD player Charlie and Jon got me for my brithday some years ago.

No dollar stores, major retail music shops, computer stores or even Radio Shacks etc carry them anymore. I eventually found a dusty package of ten (not a box, just ten to be sold separately in some cellophane) at "Edward's Music World", where the 20ish kid behind the counter couldn't identify them among the products (he put them down on the counter with some Zip disks, and said, "are either of these mini-disks?").

I wound up paying $40 for the ten. Oh mini-disc, we hardly knew ye.

rand()m quote

It has always seemed strange to me...The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.

—John Steinbeck, Cannery Row