Job Update:
Day 8: Feeling great. Desk is still the same size, no bigger or smaller. Now have chicken ornament and photos of nephew on desk. Have met people in my department. Learned some new gossip and found decaf tea. Overall, good day.
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REAL TRUTH
Reader's Digest. I have spent a considerable amount of time maligning Reader's Digest, a small magazine that is published in 48 editions and 19 languages and is sold in more than 60 countries. The reason why I hated it was because of the way that they digest fiction and spit out a shortened easy-to-read version of novels, stories, etc. For that matter, they digest everything and spit it out into tiny little pieces that middle America can stomach. Seriously: why read the NY Times when you can just read a two-sentence version of an article? Isn't that enough? Well, I started feeling badly about making so much fun of this magazine, especially since I hadn't read it in many, many years. So I actually read a copy. OK, two copies. And it wasn't bad. Seriously. What I liked about it was, YES, it is easy-to-read, but most importantly, I think that many people can identify with the substance of the magazine. Yes, the messages and news are filtered and digested into easy to read pieces. Yes there is a bit of revisionist history in its articles. But essentially, people identify with the people highlighted in the articles. The silly stories that people submit for $300 a pop are stories that anyone can identify with. Or it could be said that I am getting older and my perspective has changed. So many people in this world don't read at all -- at least they are reading something when they are reading RD. Or it could be said that I am getting soft in the head and can't digest real articles. Hmmm....I don't know. Too many sentences.
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This week's horoscopes are dedicated to:
>> Lynn Kim, who deserves more than basic cable andthe $250m powerball lotto
>> Carey Meyers, who should have warned me about the lethal post-Italian sub onion breath
>> Sally Davis, who gave me the chicken, which proudly sits at my humungo desk at work
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