Tech Magazines

By M. Anger

I hate writing introductory paragraphs, so I’ll just say that here are
some reviews of some popular Magazines, Computer Shopper, Wired,
Maximum PC, and Blender. Hope you enjoy complaints!

First Impressions

I never paid any attention to Computer Shopper magazine. Unless this is
a computer parts catalog or buyers guide, they couldn’t have chosen a
worse name. Computer Shopper sounds like all I’m going to find inside
is a boring list of products and red or black circles with differing
degrees of filled-in-ment. Anything else would be
better: Computer Universe, Computer Reader, Computer Components,
Computer Hardware, Computer Digest, Computer Pocket Rocket, Computer
Light Fixture, Computer Aided Design, or even Computer Penguinfish.
Just because your magazine is boring doesn’t mean you should advertise
this in the title.

Penguinfish (Thayeria boehlkei)

Hands-On

After nearly completing my year-long subscription to Computer Shopper I
can honestly say that my first impressions were completely valid. This
magazine is exactly what its name implies: The world’s dullest and
driest buyers guide to computers, computer accessories, and other
electronic junk that people buy for use in office buildings. Yeah, I
know, it’s even dull reading this paragraph talking about it, but
imagine how I felt having to wade through 12 issues. Good god.

First Impressions

The first problem with WIRED is its forceful name. You needn’t shout
the title of your magazine at us, one capital letter at the beginning
of the word is sufficient, thank you very much. PUTTING THE ENTIRE WORD
IN CAPS SOUNDS MORE LIKE A NERD RANTING ON A NATURO FANFICTION
MESSAGE BOARD THAN ANYTHING ELSE. Unless this is what you’re trying to accomplish with
your title it is probably best to stick to the classical method of
capitalization. Also, in my head the title WIRED brings up a mental
image of a cover headline touting an exclusive interview with David
Duchovny on X-files the movie. I have no idea why. Was this an actual
article I once read in WIRED magazine? In any magazine? In any case, this has
tainted WIRED for me, and I haven’t read it anywhere except for in
Doctor’s or Dentist’s waiting rooms. Again, this only helps to
associate the magazine with whining drills, a horrifying antiseptic
bandage smell, and stainless steel gouging implements. Not exactly
pleasant images.

But I was not apprehensive about WIRED when I first picked up a copy.
Perhaps there is some soothing quality that David Duchovny’s pleasantly
bored face and droning voice possess, and these feelings are brought
out for me by association when I see a copy. In any case, I checked out
Wired’s website and was surprised to find that it sucked approximately
100 times less than Computer Shopper’s (which is to say that it sucks
only a little).

Hands-On
This magazine has a great design if you don’t mind your eyes being
seared out of your skull when you look at a page. Remember all
those “Hot” colors that they had for markers when you were a kid like
Hot Pink, Electric Blue, and Retina-Melting Orange? Well those are
pretty much the only colors they use in wired. Well those, and
Surface-of-the-Sun-During-a-Solar-Flare White.

This magazine also suffers from Rich Man Syndrome. What is this? I will
tell you, don’t get pushy! This means there too many articles and reviews
inside geared towards the 0.001% of the population who have a lot of
money to burn. It’s maddening to read article after article
about charming billionaires who flush more money down the drain trying
to get to the moon in a day than some poor single welfare mother of 5 would
make in 500,000 lifetimes. Or maybe some rich jerk who decided to build
the world’s fastest sailboat after becoming bored with screaming at the illegal immigrants who mow his lawn and
swimming around in his building-sized vault filled with gold coins or something. Whatever.

Mmm. Smack smack smack. *sizzle* *Snarf* Ahh…

They also include reviews of inordinately expensive and useless
gadgets. I realize that these are probably there to say: “Hey look how
neat this is” but to me it sounds more like “Hey check out all this
awesome stuff you will never be able to afford to waste your money on
and not only that, but if you could it probably wouldn’t mean anything
to you and it would most likely break in a few days and you still
wouldn’t care because you could just order 3 more from The Sharper
Image catalog and pay 95 dollars for one day shipping. Ha-Ha-Ha oh god
don’t you wish you were wealthy?!!”

Then there’s the undercurrent of “look how cool and smart we are” which
runs through much of the magazine. Things like the WIRED, TIRED,
EXPIRED list try to sound all-knowing but it usually just come off
sounding like they were written by elitist asses who are also
completely out of touch with reality. Oh really, Halo 3 Mountain Dew is
rated “Expired” now? I guess I’d better throw away the 50 cases of it I
bought because you rated it as “Wired” a month ago. Jesus.

They also have music and film reviews; the most pointless music and
film reviews ever to exist. The “reviewer” gives each film or CD a 2
word review and then some orange circles (More = Better). With so few
words you may as well not write anything at all, or maybe you should
just
write GOOD or BAD. What a waste of time.

GOOD

First Impressions

I don’t have any first impressions of Maximum PC because I’ve been a
subscriber to it for approximately four thousand years (for some
reason).

Hands-On

I can say one thing about this magazine: It (like WIRED) has a the Rich
Man syndrome too. Well, maybe not so much Rich Man, but at least
Needlessly Wasteful Man Who Throws His Coffee Table in the Dumpster
Because It Got A Little Scratched. Seriously, it’s ridiculous! I can’t count the
number of times this magazine has referred to an item as being “budget”
only to nearly choke myself to death with laughter upon reading the
price. Some of their worst offenses have been in the computer monitor
category. The staff of this magazine apparently consider 400-500 dollar
widescreen LCD monitors “Budget Monitors”. You have GOT to be kidding
me! Are these people so completely out of it that they think casual
consumers are purchasing 500 dollar monitors for their computers?
Intelligent people who would consider themselves average income gamers
are rarely going to spend 500 dollars on a monitor, it’s ridiculous!

How much would you pay for this man in a fedora?

HOW MUCH WOULD YOU PAY DAMMIT

Great, you’ve just bought an LCD monitor with a resolution of 
150000 X 122000. Don’t forget to buy the 900 dollar video card that
will allow you to run games at a playable framerate along with it! Oh,
and also don’t forget to repurchase an additional 900 dollar video card
every 4 months so that you can continue to run your games at that
ridiculously high resolution because your game runs at 12 frames per
second even with all the settings turned all the way down. Yeah, sure sounds like
something a “budget” pc user would want to be doing. Get a grip Maximum
PC, I realize that you guys love using all the cool stuff you get to
play with FOR FREE in your office, but you should try to remember that
regular people are actually going to have to pay for these things after
you recommend them, not conjure them out of thin air.

First Impressions

Blender is an appropriate name from what I can tell; because it appears
that the creators of this magazine have put Maxim in a “Blender” with a
few extra music reviews, and called it Blender magazine! Shazam! Take
that Blender! But seriously, it appears to be the exact same magazine
as Maxim, except with a different title on the cover.

Blender seems to understand that they can’t possibly hold a candle to
the rock-stupid idiocy and desperate lowest-common-denominator
pandering of SYNC magazine, but they give it their best shot. If they
are seriously hoping to compete with SYNC, they are going to have to
add more “mushmouthed glassy-eyed gutshot rappers smash low quality
cellular phones with bats” articles (Source: 50 Cent’s Gadget Beatdown,
SYNC Magazine; seriously).

Oh stop pouting.

To its credit though, Blender does have a lot of top-something lists.
These are extremely popular with people who enjoy seeing products or
ideas places in arbitrarily ordered lists by no-name pop culture
magazine editors. They include approximately 32 Top-Fifty Lists per
issue, as well as a bonus “Top Fifty Top Fifty Lists” where the editors
present the fifty greatest top fifty lists from the previous issue in
list format. I checked out the magazine’s website and found an example
list entitled: “The Top 50 Worst Things To Happen To Music.” Various
clever jabs at pop culture icons were included in the list, and one of
the items was was ‘Kids Today’. Oh Blender! I can’t believe you went
there! All of you aspiring journalists out there to take note of
Blender’s technique here: Take a phrase commonly associated with
shriveled and dismissive curmudgeons and use it to try and prove that
you’ve got better taste than a stereotyped group of nonexistent
“teenyboppers”. Well done.

I’ve composed a “Top 5 List” containing a few more items for Blender to add to its “Things Which Are Ruining Music” list too:

1. News update which breaks in during the ending theme of Golden Girls

2. Those whippersnappers in short-pants clacking their sticks too loudly
   on the wheels they push down the thoroughfare during the church hymn

3. Loud backfiring of the horseless carriage which drowns out the waltz playing on your Victrola
4. Warden who breaks into the office while you attempt to play opera
   music over the intercom for the rest of the inmates, pulling the needle
   off the record and giving you 2 weeks in the hole. After you’re
   released Heywood asks, “Couldn’t you have played something good, you
   know, like some Hank Williams or something?” You do not reply, but continue to eat your dinner.
5. Blender Magazine

Christopher Walken?

It’s also interesting what they also failed to include in the list of
what ruined music. What about: MTV, VH1, ClearChannel, the RIAA? I guess they must have gotten pushed aside
to make room for the timely and original Michael Bolton bashing
section. That’s what I call edgy humor! I hear Michael Bolton is pretty
popular with “Kids Today”.

Hands-On

You’re crazy if you think I’m even going to buy one issue of this magazine. 

That’s the end of this article for now, but I think I will do a video
game magazine version of this too. So both of the people who read this,
keep a look out for that, I’m sure it’ll be a real piece of crap too.