I WANT MY BOOM BOX BACK!!!!!!!! MAJOR RANT

About two years ago I made a NASTY discovery ( and it had gotten worse ) --- I discovered that it was virtually impossible to get an audio cassette recorder. I am not just talking about what I REALLY want but what I really NEED. That would be a double cassette player-recorder. Panasonic formerly made a really good one and YES, since the speaker on one side blew out I WANT ANOTHER ONE DAMN AND I WANT IT YESTERDAY!!!!!! But now one can hardly find a hand held cassette recorder. GRRRRRRRR!!! It seems that TPBT ( the powers that be ) made some stupid decision that those of us who record songs ( in my case it is my own original songs ) should have to learn how to do all this on a computer, that we should put all of our music on an MP3 player or ipod blah blah blah.

There is just one itty bitty problem with this( ok, so there are A LOT of problems with this but one main one ) --- those of us who were born before 1980 REALLY LIKE our cassette boomboxes ( the same way we also prefer LPs to CDs which sorry for those digital junkies, do not sound half as good ). We have boxes and boxes of cassettes from the 70s and the 80s etc and a lot of that stuff one can not find except for hordes of cash.

In my own case it is wanting to be able to record rough cuts of my original songs and not spend a fortune for it. Not to mention --- it is a heck of a lot easier to push a button that says record and sing into the built in mic ( ok, I cheat and hook up another mic with a little echo as well ) and the sound comes out pretty good and real good depending. THAT I can do!

But try and learn it on a computer? That means fiddling with this thing and that thing and then adjust this and that and then after that you need to do this and do that and then of course that is not quite right so you need to adjust this and push that and pull out this and then you need to do this and then you might lose everything you created and by then the little men with the white coats are coming to take you away and not hahahaha take you away either.

First of all in the good old days ( 3 years or so ago ) one could still find a boombox ( double with built in mic ) for under 100 bucks and the sound quality rocked. NOW, if one actually wants to get a decent cassette system ( and good luck in finding them even online ) one is expected to shell out thousands for fancy stereo components and find someone with an engineering degree to hook it up for you.

With the good old boombox you plugged it in put in a tape, twiddled with the equalizer a tad, pressed a button and you were good to go. I am a major tech dummy ( ok, ok,THE tech dummy of the universe ) and even I can do that! I could and did and have hundreds of cassette tapes of MY SONGS to prove that.

And on the low end, if you can find something, it is under 50 bucks and the sound quality is CRAP and usually there is no built in mic and of course it is not a double cassette player. I WANT MY BOOM BOX BACK!!! And put it in the damn stores thank you very much.

I don't want to order it online. The rotten one I have now I bought from the Panasonic website a few years back, they sent me a demo or a return ( I think it was the latter ), it took two months to send back, after jumping through customer service hoops. They then sent me another lemon. After that I just gave up the ghost.

But you know what is really pathetic? It is knowing that I would grovel to get my greedy little hands on ANOTHER of the same kind ( but without the blown speaker ). Are you listening, Panasonic? Or Sony or RCA and all the rests of you who are shoving ipods and MP3 players down our throats! I don't want my Mp3! I want my fat juicy smooth analog easy to use machine!

Do they even have a CLUE as to how many of us boomers are out there and we want our BOOMER BOXES back! It has really stifled me as how the heck do I get my songs recorded? I don't read or write music but I have some great tunes runnin' around in my head and need to get them recorded. I am NOT some fancy computer programmer with a doctorate who can figure out ANY computer music program --- unless it is a one button and sing into a mic routine.

And even then in these economic times why should someone have to shell out a thousand bucks or more just to record what sounds better on a 100 buck boom box? I just need a little double cassette boom box with a built in mic so I can record my original songs and dub a copy of them to send to my friends in Mississippi and Wales. To TPTB: can you send me one or ok maybe half a dozen? I will pay full price and I would be eternally grateful ( but no more lemons! ). PLEASE. And make that pretty please and a song sung for my supper on top of it.

PS I might add that these cassette recorders also work great for recording grandparents and their old memories.