Variety keeps sending me their magazine. Which is weird since my subscription lapsed in, like, August or something. And, yeah, I let it lapse. I wanted it to lapse. I'm sick of being confronted with Benedict Cumberbatch every other week, and I'm focusing more on my prose now than my screenwriting (please, God, don't let Cumberbatch write a book), and so . . . Yeah. Publishers Weekly it is.

And National Geographic. Because, you know. ::shrug::

So I was thinking about why Variety is still sending me issues. Because it's not an inexpensive magazine to produce; the trim size, the paper stock, the cover stock (I used to work in publishing, I know about the manufacturing specs for these things) . . . And yet it's probably more costly for them to lose a subscriber than it is to keep mailing me one of the thousands of magazines they make each week. Because in order to stay afloat, Variety needs advertisers. And they only get advertisers by showing they have a decent circulation—that is, a fairly large number of subscribers, which one assumes are also readers. So as long as they keep sending me magazines, they can add my number to their totals, thereby tantalizing advertisers with the notion that those adds will reach many, many readers.

Note to advertisers in Variety: I hardly ever even open the damn thing any more. I skim it sometimes, maybe? But really, it often goes directly into the recycling bin. I'm now so far outside the industry there doesn't seem to be much point.

But sure, if you want to keep sending it, be my guest . . . The kids might could use it for an art project or something . . . ???

Nah. NG is better for that kind of thing, I think.