Subscription to the past

You wouldn’t believe how tempted I am right now to just list the first ten thousand digits of pi. It would be simultaneously cool, dorky, and a horrible waste of internet resources. But I don’t think I could remember that many anymore. And it is incredibly dorky. But still, what type of world would we live in if we couldn’t celebrate our favorite irrational number?

Also, I would like to give a very warm thank you to the U.S. Post Office this evening as they finally decided to deliver my copy of Sports Illustrated from two weeks ago. This is the second time this year that a magazine that I have received every Thursday for more than two decades has been late by more than a week. Add to that the fact that I had to go to the post office to pick up my package from Amazon (even though it would have fit in the mailbox) and I have to admit that the Post Office is quickly becoming the most cost effective delivery method ever. In a “we’ll just stop delivering your mail and when we do get it we’ll make you pick it up yourself” sort of way. It’s just insane. (And not in the membrane.)

(Great, now I’m going to be singing “Insane in the membrane, insane in the brain” for the rest of the night.)

Yes, I am still a Sports Illustrated subscriber. I’m not sure exactly why, other than I may possibly have signed up on a lifetime subscription plan a few years ago and now cannot cancel my subscription. I’ve been reading it (and officially subscribing to it) since I was nine years old. At the time, my older brothers thought that it would be really funny if they listed my name on the form, since I was just a little kid who was also a sports addict. When I then received mail from Playboy where they offered me a subscription as well as a key to the Playboy Club, it went from funny to the most awesome thing ever.

(I’m not making that up. Right before they closed the Playboy Club in Chicago I was offered the chance to be the youngest member ever. Somehow I think my life would be much different if I could have convinced my mom that that would be a good thing.)

Anyway, there really isn’t much of a purpose to reading SI anymore. I know the scores and highlights of every game from ESPN. I get in depth analysis from the web and all of the funny stories I need from Deadspin. SI is really anachronistic. You don’t need to read about games that happened a week ago or previews for games a few days away. But I still haven’t gotten rid of the subscription and, to be honest, I’m not planning on it.

And I think that it is mainly nostalgia. I read SI because I read it as a kid and it has always been a constant in my life. Every Thursday (post office stupidity notwithstanding) I could sit down and read about sports. Some good articles, some funny articles but always something to hold my attention for a few minutes. Now I read it less for the information and more for the connection to my past. That reading it will always allow me to remember the kid who had a stack of issues next to his bed. And a couple bucks a year seems to be a perfectly fine price for that.