Rethiking My Bathroom Reading Material

You know, with school being done, I really thought I would have a lot more time to spend writing a few times a week in between work and golf.  Turns out, I have been golfing a ton more than I expected.  Hey, can you blame me?  The weather is finally coming around up in my area, and I cannot bring myself to spend these nice days pent up inside.

Despite my absence, I have had things to write about that have come and gone, and I really need to start writing some ideas down because I feel like a 90 year old man when my memory fails me like that.  What’s got me even more in a box is the fact that the idea I had for my next post was stolen from me.  Yes, stolen … sort of.  Here’s the story:

So I got this month’s Maxim magazine in the mail on Wednesday, and they unknowingly stole my idea for a blog post when they ran their article about the ten worst broadcasters in sports. This was going to be my next top ten list, and I have actually had this as an idea for a couple months now. So since that post is now down the drain, I figured I could tell you why I am beginning to really dislike Maxim (aside from them invading my brain and stealing my ideas).

I have had a subscription for a couple years now. The first year’s subscription was given to me as a gift, and right when it was about to expire, the magazine sent me some hulla balloo in the mail saying that I could renew and get two more years for something like $20. At less than a dollar an issue, I couldn’t afford not to scoop up on that deal. I mean seriously, that’s a hell of a deal considering they are $5 each if you were to buy one magazine.

But, now that I’m a couple years into it, I’m starting to realize that this magazine just isn’t doing it for me anymore. To be quite honest, if you’ve read about five or six different issues, you’ve basically got the gist of about 95% of everything they’re ever going to cover. Aside from the fact that the magazine itself has fewer and fewer pages every stinkin’ month (added to the fact that the ratio of advertisements to actual content is becoming laughable), the material seems to get cycled through repeatedly depending on what time of the year it is. For example, at Christmas, they tell you about all the cool gifts you should ask for, but can’t afford, and in summer, they tell you about all the cool summer vacations you should be taking, but also can’t afford. Take last month’s issue; they ran an article about cool ideas for bachelor parties. All of them sound really fun, but the cheapest one was $1,200 per person and ran all the way up to just over 14 grand per person. I really don’t think the magazine’s core demographic can afford that kind of stuff.

Each month sees a different lady gracing the cover, and despite what you think, I very rarely give two shits about that person and her subsequent interview and racy photo shoot. But since sex sells, they toss some thin lingerie on a good looking broad, and bada bing bada boom they’ve sold ten million copies despite the fact that there is next to no substance at all. All they do is throw in a different set of overly expensive items each month that only 3% of the population can afford and top it off with a few different interviews with random celebs. One of the only reasons I used to enjoy reading the magazine was for the jokes that people used to send in, and they don’t even get published anymore.

I know I will not be renewing my subscription for a second time when this run expires.  I would rather find something else to read in the bathroom.  Any suggestions?  I also have a subscription to Golf Digest, which I really like but also foresee it getting repetitive after a year or so.  I’ve already had subscriptions to both ESPN The Magazine and Sports Illustrated in the past few years and I liked them both, but I watch SportsCenter and lots of other sports programming, so it gets to be overkill.

I would love a few creative ideas from you.  What do you read?  I get a discount on hundreds of different magazine subscriptions through work, so I would be open to a lot of different things.  Hit me with whatever you’ve got.

One love,

10

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Tags: magazine, Maxim

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