Last week my wife was playing with my (at the time) 9 week old grandson, Jonah. He’s just starting to respond to his environment. He’s too young yet to know that funny faces, or tickles are things to respond to. But my wife had him standing on her lap while she held his hand and it was a cute pose so I took out my camera phone and lined up a shot when seemingly out of nowhere he broke out in a huge laugh; his “first” laugh; and I was lucky enough to be able to record this momentous “first”. It is a “first” that I’m sure will be repeated many times in Jonah’s life.

This was an instance where a “first” was not simply a “first”. It was magic!

Jonah's first laugh at about 9 weeks

So yesterday I received a notice that my first digital copy of PC Mag was available through a service called Zinio and I signed up, went to the site and took a look. Zinio seems like a finely crafted product for diseminating magazines online but as I was browsing through the online version

IT HIT ME LIKE A TON OF BRICKS

(Ladies you can close your ears now). I do most of my magazine reading on the John, the can, the toilet and if we go totally digital what am I going to do? Sit there with a laptop? Squint at a small screen? Ah crap, it just isn’t the same as having a magazine in hand. I’ve always though that magazines were made for this purpose! Content specifically customized to the length of your stay - some short - some longer. What could be more perfect.

So Zinio and PC Magazine - count me out! I canceled my digital description and since there’s no non digital option I’m just going to have to rely more on Maximum PC and PC World to get me through my time on the seat. Don’t get me wrong. I do support and believe in digital publishing but for magazines - NOT! Well at least not until toilets come with internet connected screens - hey that’s an idea! Hmmmmmmmmmm………