From: charless@sco.COM (AutoPope)
Subject: Re: Cardboard, cardboard, everywhere!
Organization: The Somewhat Contagious Operation, Inc.
Date: Mon, 05 Oct 1992 09:39:52 GMT


In article <1992Oct2.183025.18610@cbfsb.cb.att.com> bdr@cbnewsg.cb.att.com (brian.d.reed) writes:
>
>>Not only do we have to contend with the cardboard inserts and the
>>126 subscription cards that fall into our laps when we open a mag,
>
>But they're postage-paid!  Just collect them up and drop 'em in the box.
>Maybe if enough of us do it, and they get deluged with having to pay
>to get those **** things back, MAYBE they'll wise up!
>Do I really need 4 subscription forms in every one?  Wake up!
>

The variations on this theme are infinite and irritating. The
most humongously annoying at present is Byte, a 'zine which
I will probably cease reading sooner rather than later if they
keep it up. You see, I live in the UK, but even so, large 
chunks of Byte's soi-disant `postage paid' card inserts are
*only* valid is posted in the US! 

Another particularly irritating variant is New Scientist. It's
mailed in a transparent polythene wrapper -- nothing healthy
and biodegradable about it -- with an itsy-bitsy address label
*loose* in the bag so that when you tear the thing open and
remove the magazine it flutters off and comes in to a glide
landing on the floor under the table, among the various sparking
and sputtering computer PSU's I keep there. (Note to Merkin
readers: this is the UK, where mains electricity is _real_
electricity, thirteen amps at two-forty volts. That's electricity
on steroids, that is.) And then there are the loose inserts that
drip all over the carpet when you pick the magazine up by the
cover and shake it. Fine, but why should life insurance 
companies be targeting the audience of New Scientist, of all
places? I mean, _why_?  I could understand it if the inserts
were something to do with the latest model gas chromatography
systems, or do-it-yourself space shuttles, but life insurance
seems particularly, uh, non-scientific. (I mean, they aren't
exactly running features on the latest breakthroughs in 
arcturial tables in New Scientist, are they?)

Finally, there's the consequence of what happens if you ever 
answer a reader-reply card. Yep, for some reason I am deemed to
be an appropriate advertising target for that stunningly exciting
magazine, What's New in Industry. You, too, can groove to our
new hydraulic lifts! Now I'll happily concede that WNiI is quite
an entertaining read, but the chances of me purchasing a hydraulic
lift are quite limited -- I don't need one at home, and I don't
think it would help me to write better user manuals at work. I
mean, I _could_ try it -- shades of that ancient Greek philosopher
who lived in a barrel, you know, the technical author who can
only work when he's sitting on a hydraulic lift? -- but I 
don't think it would do enough for my performance to justify a rise.
Certainly, whatever prize buffoon is running their mailing
division deserves a medal for selecting me as the recipient of a
free subscription. A bit like giving the Pope a subscription to
Contraceptive News, or The Plain Truth for the Ayatollah Khamenei.

!Peeve: Whole Earth Review. Two pages of classified ads, and that's 
_it_. Mind-warping articles; always something worth following up.
And NO advertipeople(TM)!  If only all magazines were like that ...
(Not the content, just the lack of card inserts and advertipeople(TM))

-- 
Charlie Stross aka charless@scol.sco.com ..... UNIX oriented text mangler
WARNING: The opinions voiced in the preceding electronic document are the
product of a warped mind. Take two before meals. 
Newsgroups: alt.peeves