I have a question to those who subscribe to magazines through the mail.

What condition do they arrive in?

For the past six months or so, every copy of Spin I've received in the mail looks like its been run over by a lawn mower: edges and corners tattered, chunks torn out of the cover, whole pages missing from the back.

This isn't a problem with the other magazines I get, like Premiere, Playboy, Wired, and Maxim. Okay, Playboy and Wired come in plastic bags -- bless'em -- but Premiere, Maxim and the others I get always look nice. Spin looks like it was chewed up by rats.

Had a similar problem with a subscription to Entertainment Weekly a few years back (it was a gift, actually) -- the magazine would actually arrive in pieces. Once I got nothing but a front and back cover.

It would be easy to blame the post office, but it only seems to happen consistently with certain magazines. I also notice a similar trend with catalogs -- certain catalogs I get always arrive in mutilated condition, whereas other don't.

What are your experiences?

My wife gets a lot of magazines and they almost always arrive in very good condition (Cosmo, Good House Keeping, Shape, Real Simple, a few other health related ones). We also get Reader's Digest but that comes in a bag.

I used to get PC Mag and Computer Gaming World, but I let those expire. I also get the Weekly Standard (political weekly) and all usually arrive in excellent condition. Lately, my weekly magazine has been haveing very erratic delivery times though. I'm getting issues 2-3 weeks late, or they arrive in bunches.

But only the occassional damaged issue.

You might want to try contacting their subscription department. And if you ever see him, maybe you should ask your mailman for suggestions. Or buy him a gift subscription so he'll stop reading yorus!

I've had the same problem with GEAR Magazine. All my other subscriptions come fine though.

I remember for a long time my Time magazine would reak of cigar smoke.