This morning was the day to figure out how I had come to spend so much money in January. Sadly, they all rang true save one. CondeNast NY for ninety dollars. I was changed from "associate" to "associate" until we hit on it. The New Yorker. Yes, I'd done that. Actually, for the second year in a row.
I grumble about this to my friends and they grumble back. I'm adding you all to the list of grumblees; I will not do this next year!
I read everything on line. Everything! A few years ago those annoying pop-ups began. You have read three of five free articles so far this month. Of course there are more than one reporter and one newspaper in this world, so I would see who else had covered the story.
Sadly, I suppose, New Yorker is far more than journalism. It's commentary helps me sort out all the facts. But then, the essays, the cartoons and poetry! And I am caught by the pop-up, and subscribe another year.
There is no such thing as a free lunch, or a free newspaper. That pop-up has got me for the Times, the Post, and even my local rag, The Reekin' Journal! I don't need an annual subscription when I can be intelligent about selecting another free article or not. I generally don't read for another grain of truth. I read because I am addicted, since I read "Spot walked to school with Dick and Jane", and the list of ingredients in Cheerios.
A melted ice bird, taking off from my drive the other day!
Last week's flowers still look good, so we didn't buy a new bunch.
And now I will return to researching how to play Pinochle. Nancy and I are loosing awfully, and the guys could not contain glee last week. I know it sounds like whining, but you play the cards you're delt.
That was one of Greg's many power meld hands last week. He eventually outbid Nancy's run of diamonds, and we all know, if your run is not trump, only the marriage counts.
We've met five times this year. They are four hundred and five points ahead. Today I am going to study power pinochle strategy.
I read the Washington Post cause they make it cheap for Kindle users.
ReplyDeleteI too read the WP online, but I get the Smithsonian and National Geographic via mail. My excuse is that I pass them on to Daughter and Granddaughter. Silly me. We keep Consumer Reports for our selves....why I don't know.
ReplyDeleteI subscribe to Consumer Reports too ... hate to throw them away. Ticks me off that they charge subscribers for the online edition. It's so much faster/better to be able to do a search online than try to find out which issue covered which topic/item. But there are other articles in the print that don't make it online. :/
DeleteI get quite a few print magazines and the local paper and also get pulled in to reading online, a site I like is realclearpolitics, they have articles from lots of sources. Our neighborhood library has a box of free magazines so when I am done reading mine I take them there to share.
ReplyDeleteLook at it this way -- your subscriptions help to fund quality journalism at a time when that is desperately needed!
ReplyDeleteNot a card game I know Joanne. But keep up study if it helps you to beat them eventually.
ReplyDeleteLovely flowers by the way.
Instead of Dick and Jane, I read Alice and Jerry. But yes, also the list of ingredients on the Cheerio box. Everything!
ReplyDeleteAnd I have one of those New Yorker bags myself.
I have two.
DeleteI would give up my NYTimes subscription before I gave my New Yorker subscription. I've had it since the dawn of time.
ReplyDeleteI love the New Yorker but gave it up this year. I'm reading it at the library. Did the same for National Geographic. If you contact the New Yorker they will cancel your subscription and refund you for unmailed magazines.
ReplyDeleteI read lots. And yes, that includes cans and cartons. I read the WP online to try and understand a little better what is happening on your side of the world.
ReplyDeleteHave never played pinochle though. Or bridge. 500, euchre, canaster, Rickety Kate...
Hari OM
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to journalistic readings, I take what I can where it's available; fortunately my two favourite UK papers are both still free to read (though do request consideration of subscription). As I only read them a couple of times a week, and usually only for certain news articles, I do not feel the pressure to pay. But I get why you go for the New Yorker. It's a fine publication. YAM xx
I do like having paper bills.. have you noticed that some are specifying paper free to get the best deals? Some you can't even opt to pay a little extra to cover the cost.
ReplyDeleteI can read my bill for my credit card online too, less paper that way too.
ReplyDeleteI don't subscribe because those articles can be found by doing a search if I really want to see it. There are so many news articles available and I read the free ones. What a great hand!
ReplyDeleteI read on my iphone, for some reason I don't get the demands for subscription or the warning about dwindling free articles on that device. you've got a lot of ground to make up at cards.
ReplyDeleteI like the ice bird heading South. Our news is so loud that we can hear each other from the other side of the Atlantic.
ReplyDeletePinochle is game I like to play.
ReplyDeleteBut as for bill pay I'm still leary.
Coffee is on
Have never played Pinochle. Would like to learn it some time. Hope you find strategies that work. We've started getting fresh flowers here; nice touch especially in the "dead" of winter when nothing else is growing (which really isn't true here in Phoenix, but you get the idea).
ReplyDeletebetty
Next time you play cards they won't know what hit them lol.
ReplyDeleteRead The Guardian online! It's free, as another of your fans pointed out. Paid for by ads of course.
ReplyDeleteI read all the British papers online, for free. Thank you.
DeleteI think the Guardian struggles to survive financially, like most British papers these days. Which is why we finally signed up to a small monthly donation.
DeleteI did that, too, and feel pretty good about it.
DeleteOMG... the connections! LOL My husband and I played Pinochle with our Navy friends religiously before we had the kids -- haven't played it in years! And yes, addicted to reading for sure... it explains why I have 2 physical Kindle readers plus Kindle for the PC, 2 library cards (one for California and one for Arizona) and stacks of books all over my living room. Oh, and two bookcases full of books!
ReplyDeleteI have no doubt that once you learn the game well, you will quickly pick up the points.
ReplyDeleteAs Margaret said, The Guardian is free. Other than my local newspaper and weekend big city paper, The (free) Guardian is my choice of reading the news of the world.
So lucky you are without the snow!
ReplyDeleteI love the New Yorker but sure can't afford to subscribe. Thankfully I can borrow back issues from our local library.
We used to get old New Yorkers from people we were friends with. Alas the friendship perished and the supply dried up. So far we have not subscribed because it takes us too long to get through them, and soon we would be up to our navels in magazines. They do write some astoundingly good stuff.
ReplyDeleteGood investigative reporting is very important in the world of news from Facebook postings.
ReplyDeleteLove the melted ice bird :)
ReplyDeleteI can't read newspapers online, I prefer to hold the real thing, read what I want from it, then set it aside to pick up again later. I don't read anything political, it just confuses me. I read the news parts that aren't political, the funny pages and then do the crosswords.
The Dutch weekend paper delivered to the door with all its magazines and supplements is enough. Our local library gets loads of papers and magazines. Otherwise, I read the British papers on line, watch the BBC and Spanish news on television.
ReplyDeleteAnd sit happily arguing out loud with an awful lot of it!
Those subscriptions can make us poor. Well, maybe not really, but they add up.
ReplyDeleteI have stopped almost all paper invoices. I am pretty careful about tracking things, however.
As you say, when news sites start blocking you, if it's a big story it can always be found somewhere else. But Jenny and I did decide to give a small monthly donation to the Guardian, since we read it so much online.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad I don't have to hold the inky NYTimes anymore. I love reading it online. I do get the New Yorker delivered and the London Review of Books. There is always a backlog of unread LRBs so that's what I carry on planes and trains.
ReplyDeleteI donate monthly to The Guardian and subscribe to The Economist. But I hate the paywall tactics of NYT and Washington Post and will not pay them a penny, value the free press though I do. I may be irrational here, but that's my right. (Once I had a subscription to the NYT and still couldn't read their articles on facebook, even after several emails with a rep of theirs. Never again.)
ReplyDeleteYes, I still have the sign in problem. For such big enterprises, they make it hard.
DeleteYou caught some great photos! Melted ice bird is exceptionally nice.
ReplyDeleteI dislike cards and only play with the grandkids on occasion.
ReplyDeleteI rely on CBC for news and other sources on-line. It is easy to be sucked into fake news however.
Reading is my guilty pleasure. I can escape the world or study the world. Sad that so many do not love to read. Probably how the unreading leader of the free world managed to con so many. Too bad so many think the tweets of an idiot are like reading a well thought out essay.
ReplyDeleteI read the Guardian because it's free. I just have to delete the begging letter when I open the app.
ReplyDeleteWow! Your flowers are really lasting a long time. I get magazines from the airline thing for free, but then I have too much and end up not reading them. Sigh...
ReplyDelete