Many had been looking to ending 2020 and blamed it for all the bad in the world, but the calendar flipped and bad stuff is still happening. I think the last time anyone made an update here, there was maybe a thought that things were getting better. COVID continues on as does our current President's tactics. I have continued to work on my Portuguese but more recently have been thinking maybe this Mars thing is not a bad idea.
Until whatever happens next, we just started getting home delivery of the newspaper again - what is a newspaper? It's this thing that gets delivered to your porch and it is made out of paper. For the past couple days, we've been collectively working on the crossword puzzles in it. Scott and I have almost finished the Sunday Times crossword puzzle which would feel like an amazing accomplishment.
I forgot about the newspaper and how it is enjoyable to read when you are eating meals alone. You spread it all over the table and put your plate on top of it. You can use it as a napkin. You can drop things on it and it does not matter. It's been so long since I read a physical newspaper I forgot how to navigate the "continued" notes.
The kids have not seen a full newspaper in so long they didn't know how to find the comics. They apparently took the whole thing apart and in a state of confusion, pulled apart sections of sections.
Strangely, the comics still take up a full 2 pages of the paper. This for a thing that today only had 2 folded parts - the front page and sports. All the rest of the content was smashed into these sections, which even with all that content, were still pretty small sections.
I guess there is not a lot that you can't get somewhere else, but aside from the comics, here are things that make sense in the paper still:
- national and global weather
- daily puzzles
- advice columns
- local news with in-depth coverage
- opinions
- political cartoons
- letters to the editor: feedback that is still measured as compared to the wild eyed ranting you see in internet comments (also reviewed so just truly useful letters are printed)
- obituaries (my grandma used to head straight to this section to make sure no one she knew died. She would need to attend the funeral and give koden if so)
- real estate sales in local zip codes
There are things that don't really make sense to me:
- TV listings
- Classifieds - I would almost be suspicious of someone who uses this still
- AP news - this is just splattered all over the internet anyhow, isn't it?
We'll take the paper for 13 weeks. At that point, we'll enter the regular cycle of them hiking prices and not delivering the paper on time. From there, there will be complaints, but the paper will be renewed another 13 weeks. At that point, the price will be hiked again so that it is on par with our cell phone bill. Rationalization about paper waste will begin about this time, as well as escalated concerns being raised about the cost of the paper. At the end of the second 13 weeks, we will call the paper and tell them to suck it. I know this cycle well since my dad also followed these steps. He would renew though for years and it took quite a bit to finally get him to quit, he did it though. Secretly, the physical paper is a little bit of an addiction.
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