So, I'm facing another round of problems involving magazines. Just last month, my scheduled issue of GAMES World of Puzzles didn't arrive on time. In fact, I still haven't received it. When I contacted the publisher about it, I was told that, due to problems in the disbursement center, it would take four to six weeks for the replacement issue to arrive. I was fortunate enough to find a copy on the newsstand when I went out of town the week it came out, or I would never have gotten the issue in a timely manner. This is includes solving and entering the contest. For some strange reason, no local newsstands carry GAMES any more. Yes, it is a very niche magazine, but it was somewhat widespread years ago. Well, I'm facing a similar problem now, as the current issue has yet to arrive, and the new one was supposed to hit newsstands this week. I usually got the magazine around two weeks early, so I am getting ready to contact the publisher again. However, I am waiting until the magazine's website updates, just to make sure that there is a new issue. It could have been cancelled. That's happening to too many magazines these days. Just this past week, the final print issue of Entertainment Weekly came out. I had subscribed to that magazine for twenty-nine years, until I finally stopped last year. The last time I renewed my subscription was just before the magazine went from a "weekly" that actually only came out every two to three weeks, to a true monthly, but without changed its name. So, my one-year subscription turned into a two-year subscription. That is when the rag went downhill for me. Even before the pandemic through schedules off, so many reviews and articles were no longer timely enough to be fully enjoyable. The focus shifted from all forms of entertainment with the most popular being the highlight, to the more artsy and "deserving" of merit with the most popular works relegated to the articles or sidebars. For much of the last year of my subscription, I didn't get a single review or article of a work I truly was interested in. I even skimmed/skipped many articles, something I had rarely done in the entire two decades previous. I used to read everything to be well-rounded. By the end, I just wanted to finish the stupid thing. I actually had the opportunity to get a super discounted rate subscription (as well as a free issue) a few months after the old one expired. I'm glad I didn't take the offer, as I would have only gotten a few issues before the mag folded, and I doubt I would have liked any of the other mags that the publisher would have replaced it with, if any. Most likely People. It still exists online, with some of the information it used to publish years ago, but I still would prefer a fairly current print version. All of this comes on the heels of me ending my run on Men's Health. It had just gotten too expensive to get an issue ten times a year, when to many of the non-fitness related articles stopped catering to my likes. I guess it still is an okay magazine, but it is nowhere as good as it was when I started collecting it back in the 90s. For a final magazine insult, the latest issue of TV Guide is late again. For some reason, newsstands locally receive it about three to five days later than it goes on sale in most other places. At least on location had it up a week late, after about half the programs listed had already been on. I could be getting it later on today, but there is still doubt with that.
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