Csquared Thoughts

The New York Times competing against itself

I thought this was rather odd.

Earlier this year when everyone in my company was undergoing a pay cut, I cut a lot of extra expenses. One of the things that got cut was the Saturday and Sunday print New York Times, which was running close to $40 a month. I replaced it with the book review by mail at $1.75 a week.

Recently I decided I'd like to get the e-edition of the Times. At about $15 a month for 7 days a week I thought that was a good deal. So I called to cancel the book review, and was told that I got the e-edition free with the print book review. The representative even tried to connect me with the e-edition folks so I could cancel, though that connection, fortunately, didn't go through. Because what I discovered is that what you got with the review was only that day's paper. If I wanted to read the Tuesday Science section on Wednesday I was out of luck. With the paid e-edition you can go back to previous issues. Not to mention that the navigation on the paid version is much better. So I called again and got the same spiel, but just told the representative what I said here.

Just so strange for one business unit of the Times to be competing against another.

if today is Tuesday, the comics must be...

These are rough days for newspapers, and they are working hard to stay in the black. That means not everything might be where you expect it.

I enjoy the San Jose Mercury News and the comics section. But finding it...

Monday and Tuesday, the comics are in the Local section. Wednesday and Friday and Saturday the comics are in the Silicon Valley Life section, where you'd expect them to be. Thursday they are in the Eye tabloid Entertainment section.

But I've gotten used to that, and I can tell the day of the week by where the comics are.

magazines worth keeping

I wrote a while back about cutting back on magazine subscriptions.

It occurred to me the other day that a good way to determine whether a magazine is worth keeping is if you get a little jolt of delight when you pull it out of the mailbox. Happens for me with Outdoor Photographer, Cooking Light, Food & Wine, and Books & Culture. (And Books & Culture needs a blog entry of its own. Soon.)

The others? Maybe think twice before renewing.

less is more

With the economy being what it is, and with my company's 5% pay cut a few months back, one of the things I've done is to reduce the number of magazines I subscribe to. I'm not renewing subscriptions as they come due. I am keeping a few favorites: Cooking Light, Food & Wine, Outdoor Photographer, and some others. And I'm probably still getting too many magazines.

But as I pare down, fewer magazines mean more time to enjoy the ones I do get. That's a good thing.

it's almost too much...

...to see Ron Howard on the cover of the AARP magazine. He was born the year after Terry and me.

(You may be asking why I am reading the AARP magazine in the first place. As anyone who has reached that age knows, when you turn 50 the AARP will find you and ask for your membership. Because we believe their lobbying efforts will be very important in the coming years, we joined. The magazine comes with the membership.)

baseball in winter

Yesterday I mentioned the new XM radio in my car. This past weekend I finally got around to figuring out what I wanted for all my presets. (18 in all, so it took some thinking.) At the high end of the dial, I selected channel 175 for my last present. That's the baseball features channel, right before all the play-by-play channels. Need to be ready when baseball season starts.

In any case, when I was setting the channel on my preset, they were playing a rebroadcast of a Philadelphia Phillies game called by Harry Kalas. I only listened for a couple of minutes, but it reminded me how much I enjoy hearing baseball on the radio when broadcast by a good announcer. It was a relaxing, soothing moment hearing that.

Looking forward to baseball season.

another thing I miss

I wrote in August about things I missed. Here's one more.

I miss Ebert and Roeper.

You'll know that this was originally Siskel and Ebert, the great team of Thumbs-up/Thumbs-down movie reviewers. When Gene Siskel died, Roger Ebert settled on Richard Roeper to co-host the show with him. When Roger Ebert was unable to do the show because of his inability to speak due to complications from cancer, Richard Roeper settled on critic Michael Phillips as his co-host.

In the midst of Roger Ebert's disputes with ABC/Disney, the right to use Thumbs-up/Thumbs-down was revoked, but the quality of intelligent movie reviewing was maintained with Roeper and Phillips.

This summer both Ebert and Reoper ended their affiliation with ABC/Disney. The new show, which premiered this weekend, is hosted by Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz. It is, as I feared, a serious decline in quality from its predecessor. Not only is the quality of the reviewing inferior, but they've added a "lightning round" in which they bring in three other critics to comment on the week's movies.

As Terry said, it took five critics to replace two.

My recommendation: "Thumbs down." Or, in the new parlance, "Skip it."