Friday 13

[altivo]

Two months in a row with a Friday the thirteenth. Some math whiz can figure out how often that happens. Has to be only when February has a Friday 13 and it's not a leap year. My guess is about once in a decade or so.

That early robin has been sitting outside my work window every day this week, in an ornamental crabapple tree. The crabs are about the size of large peas, freeze dried after the winter. I was wondering where he'd find bugs or worms to eat with the ground still frozen. Today I saw him eating the crabapples several times. He just swallows them whole. Hope he can digest them. I think he was trying to sing even, judging by his movements and the puffing in and out of his throat at times.

Then on the way home I saw several more robins along the edge of the road, so I guess he's not the only one now. It's still darned cold. Gary had the woodstove going all day today, which is unusual for him. I actually slept in the living room last night (he was out of town at his mom's) so as to be near the stove.

Flipped through two magazines after dinner. One of them, Food and Wine, we are getting for free for some reason, since we never subscribed to it. The other is Better Homes and Gardens, to which I did subscribe when they sent me an offer of three years for six dollars total. Magazine publishers must be really desperate to keep their subscriber count up so they can charge enough for the ads. Both publications are loaded with ads, more pages of advertising than content I'm sure. I'm glad I paid nothing for Food and Wine because it's snooty and pretentious and full of itself. The recipes, as pictured, look like haystackes or the top of my compost bucket when I lift the lid. The wine they praise comes at $100 a bottle. Someone needs to tell them there's a depression going on. Even if all those bank execs who made out like bandits last year, plus Madoff himself, are subscribers, most everyone else is likely to be getting a bit pissed at them. BH&G hasn't changed in my lifetime. Some of the recipes sound like they might be worth a try. The home decor not so much. Their current thing seems to be trying to "tone down" a house by decorating with garage sale bargains and so forth. I have no objection to that, but all the photos look incredibly contrived and most of the rooms would not be usable in my opinion. Oh well, what, 36 issues for six dollars is about 18 cents apiece isn't it? About 5% of the cover price ($3.49.) One interesting recipe or one useful grocery store coupon a month is all it will take to pay for that.

Comments

[alaskawolf.livejournal.com]

yay for friday the 13th :)

[bladehorse.livejournal.com]

Sunset magazine was along the same lines as BH&G, and they too became taken over by adds till thats all there was to see. They started out at like 40 sheets,bonded, now theres like 100 sheets cheaply stapled together to make a book of adds. We no longer subscribe to this.

[lobowolf.livejournal.com]

My house is already decorated with yard-sale bargains :P I was cool long before the recession, I guess.

Your description of Food and Wine reminds me of Real Simple magazine which was a glossy hoity-toity magazine with recipe/decorating/saving tips...you know, useful tips showing you how to stretch the most from your frugal budget by buying a used Mercedes instead of a new one, how to find a Prada handbag at a discount, how to live with $25 bottles of wine instead of $150 bottles, and how to survive when your shoe budget is only $150! Some people's idea of "roughing it" is still way above my level of lifestyle.

Of course, it's greed and materialism that took down the economy in the first place, so I suppose if you have to trade your Mercedes for a Ford and your filet mignon for macaroni and cheese that life has come full circle.

http://www.realsimple.com/

[schnee.livejournal.com]

6 USD for a 3-year subscription is an incredible price, yes - you can't really go wrong with that if there's even the slightest bit of useful information, even a single interesting article or recipe, or even a single coupon or so you can use in each copy then, yes.

Of course, I'm still amazed they even manage to recover their printing costs etc. that way, but I assume that in the end, you're not so much the client as much as the product being sold (eyeballs) to the real clients (advertisers).

It's one reason why I don't have any paid magazine subscriptions anymore - there seem to be hardly any left that don't double-dip by first charging you and then going and also selling your attention to advertisers. And while I wouldn't mind the advertising as such, I'm often not quite sure how impartial magazines will really be when they - for example - test a company's products (in the case of e.g. computer magazines) or report on a company (for weekly news magazines) while also relying on that company for advertising revenue.

[flamekist.livejournal.com]

I've found plenty of useful recipes from BH&G, but that was years ago. I'm going to have to look for this $6 subscription deal and sign up for it again.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

There are only so many home styles you can do :)
I always found that a lot of the homes didn't look very comfortable not easy to clean.

Receipes? *sits near you looking hopeful that you'll make something*