Frazz by Jef Mallett for April 17, 2012

Because of the deteriorating quality of news papers, I found myself only really reading them for the funnies Anything else in them happened yesterday….so here I am, newspaper free…Although I still subscribe to the Mackinac Island Town Crier. But they have an on line version for the same price, so I’m thinking about switching…..

This would be such a great Working Daze…

I used to get the paper strictly for the comics but quit over ten years ago. The printed comics were getting fewer and fewer and smaller and smaller. So much easier and better online. Half the ones I follow are only web comics.

Unless you have money to burn, you usually only replace your smartphone after 20 or 22 months, when your contract is almost up…at that point you can usually get a huge discount on a new phone, if you’ll accept a 2-year contract extension.I don’t know anyone who’s bought several in a year, cos they’d be paying full retail, hundreds of dollars each…though maybe I just don’t run in those circles.

Konabill, Varnes and JP Steve….from yesterday….Surely there’s a point to every unread explanation, a groan for every 8pm pun…

So many people read these forums and never post.They come along a week later, or a year…and appreciate the jewels of wisdom… the slick wordplay…Otherwise…. sob… my life is… wasted….

Yeah paper manuals have pretty well become extinct. But in a curious twist of fate, I have to complain about my quirky internet service using my quirky internet service.

I don’t get it…

I quit reading the paper several years ago as the economy and personal finances declined. I feel for students of journalism who have/had plans for working at a big paper or magazine. Papers have become like slide rules, obsolete.

Looked at a Time and Business Week magazine int he allergist’s office last week and felt like I was reading a pamphlet of blogs with quick reads. Inly one or two articles had any depth to them.

Hate picking up a newspaper and inside it lists the blogs to go to or the evening news that says, “For more on this story, go to our website at …” Why don’t you just tell me the news and quit telling me what is coming up?

If he bought several, he may be slowly going senile. This is really scarey. Or it may be some sort of weird hobby. lol

There still is the New York Times. And when I visit LA I read the LA Times cover to cover — if newspapers has covers and omitting the sports. But both have complete coverage.

Our local papers consistently tell me I am a hateful selfish lout for being white, male and in the suburbs. Why would I give money to people who clearly stereotype me worse than a klansman?

I’m sure you have newspapers worth reading in the states, as we do in Denmark. Problem is, to understand the ones worth reading, you have to make an effort (and have brains to do so) :-)Try the ones that bring Doonesbury!

How are we supposed to get coupons?

It’s hard to believe that 100 years ago, the newspaper was the centerpiece of mass media because that was pretty much the only medium there was at the time.

Yeah, I had plans to be the great dashing print journalist. You know, parachute jump into Buckingham Palace grounds for a Royal wedding, that sort of thing?

I knew I wasn’t going to do TV news…a woman I knew slightly was murdered on the street where we lived and the newsies…LA’s finest…lay in wait for her kids to get home from school, where they had left before anybody could stop them and hold them from discovering their mother’s demise and the street full of tv vans…“How did you feel when you saw your Mother’s blood,” etc…I KNEW I could never be tv news-guy.

But being able to interview and write stories? probably that and being a decent guitar player is what kept me alive in the service…my friends didn’t put me where their ‘reporter’ and git-box player could get hurt. You know, “Kumbaya” around a campfire? we did that in SF, too.

And I found POWER…I’d check out the team camera…and tell a general or whoever was bucking for promotion…“Yes sir, could you back up a little? get closer to the whirling blades of the propeller…?” Some people will do ANYTHING if you’ve got a camera in your hand…

SUSAN, o thou cooool one.

I recycle my papers…. right into the bird cage, editorial section UP…

Actually, the cost of an iPhone (or any smartphone) is about $600. The phone companies charge you $200 up front and bury the rest in the 2-year data plan you’re required to sign up for. It works out to about $20/month that you pay for the phone. That’s part of the reason they have those high early-termination fees.

“Old as tomorrow’s newspaper.

Gotta have my morning Washington Post, plus our local rag. Sundays we also get the New York Times. Yahoo for paper! I recycle it by putting it under mulch in my garden beds to keep away weeds.