A few weeks ago, I was cajoled into ordering a Sunday-only home delivery subscription to the Chicago Tribune while innocently browsing the fine produce at my local supermarket. To be honest, I kept staring that the salesman's beautiful pale-blue cashmere sweater (the quality of it was like nothing I had even seen on a man!) and thus somehow ended up signing away a precious $12.95 a month for the convenience of a driveway-dropoff of a pile of paper & ink.

This morning, I actually looked forward to perusing the paper while sipping coffee. I first browsed the coupons and then hit the usual suspects: front page, Home & Garden, Metro, Tribune magazine and...the Book Section...uh, where was the book section? I rifled through the pile twice more and still couldn't find it. Before cursing my distributor, I did a quick Google search and learned that sometime ago the Trib did away with the Book Section in its Sunday edition, offering a pared-down version of it, tabloid style, in the SATURDAY paper -likely the LEAST-READ edition they print.

WTF?!

I don't understand how PRINT MEDIA decides to eliminate news of PRINT MEDIA...but yet, retain the utterly inane "Q" section: this week's highlights in Q includes a discussion of Lindsay Lohan and the trend of wearing knee socks with tall boots. Oh, and despite prodcing their own magazine, they also include a copy of low-brow "Parade" magazine. [sidebar: I can't help but giggle, thinking of Stewie Griffin reprimanding his future self in disgust: "You read Parade?!?!"]

Except for the value I do find in Metro (local news, obituaries, etc.) I may delete this subscription and go for the New York Times instead.