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My favorite magazines

My taste in magazines has changed with age, and it’s still changing.

When I was younger and still back in China, I had no discernible taste in magazines – I read whatever I could get my hands on. I must confess though tabloid style magazines became my preferred choice toward my late teen years. Couple of magazines that I really enjoyed right before I left China for the US were the Reader magazine and Young People’s Digest. Both were a collection of stories from other magazines, very much like Reader’s Digest, and I enjoyed the human dramas portrayed in them which was rare for Chinese magazines at the time.

When I first came to the US, I spent the first few years learning English, and I mostly used newspapers as a way to understand the language and cultural context of things.

I spent a big chunk of my high school years here in the US participating in math, science and computing competitions. My taste in magazines turned to science and technology. My favorite magazines by the end of my high school years were Popular Science and
Popular Mechanics. They were fascinating in that they convey the wonder of science and engineering while making them applicable to the everyday life.

I then went to Singapore to work for an international bank. While there, I enjoyed reading a couple of weekly entertainment magazines in Chinese. They were fine as a popular diversion. Then I discovered FHM. It was imported from the US, and I was instantly pulled in by the glossy prints, the beautiful ladies and the interesting stories, and the overall life-style portrayed in it.

After I came back to the US in 1999, I subscribed to FHM. After I finally got tired of it, I subscribed to Maxim, which was also a man’s magazine targeting similar demographics. I actually enjoyed FHM a bit more because the writing was better, however, I essentially got tired of both of them because the shallowness of their coverage.

By now, since I went through so many magazines, I thought I’d do some targeted search. I wanted a news magazine that has up-to-date information, is unbiased, and can be read quickly. I went through the usual suspects, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, and TIME. None of them suited my needs. Then I found The Week, which meets all three criteria and more. It’s succinct, unbiased, funny, informative, and a quick read. After subscribing to it for almost a year, I must say it’s worthy investment of my money and time.

I also enjoy reading The Economist, especially during my visit to my optometrist. It’s a great magazine with good cover of world economies. It was a bit dry for my taste though.

Recently, the company I worked for participated in a New Yorker cartoon caption contest, and as part of the contest, we all got a free copy of the latest The New Yorker. Now I must confess I’m a huge fan of Malcolm Gladwell’s. I found his writing insightful and intriguing. So naturally the first thing I did was to flip to his article, which was one about how a group of people are trying to use neural-networking to predict the box-office performance of movies. It was written with the his usual subtle brilliance. After reading it, I decided to check out the other stories, and found a number of them equally interesting and insightful. Wow, it’d be difficult to have a couple of great pieces in one magazine, and there were at least 5 or 6 just in this issue of the New Yorker. I’m seriously considering subscribing to it. The only things stopping me right now is that I don’t have much time to read magazines. I have to either give up reading some books or The Week, neither is a good option in my mind.

I’m also searching for a good magazine in finance and business. Again, my problem is with time. I just found out from my public library that I have access to all the Harvard Business Review articles online. That will help me with part of my problem. I’m also trying to decided between Smart Money,
Forbes, Fortune, and Barron’s. Again, my selection criteria would be that it’s:

  • Succinct, so I can read through the relevant information within couple of hours
  • Beneficial, so I can translate the advice directly into action
  • Insightful, so I’m constant intrigued by the unusual angle or recommendations based on solid research

Which ones do you think will work better for me?

What’s your favorite magazine and why? Please leave them in the comments area.

Until next time.

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My China trip with Lauren Part 3

So now Lauren and I have our boarding pass. My mom brought Lauren to the bathroom, trying to get her to go poop before boarding. The care-taker we hired for Lauren first introduced the practice to us. Basically, the process goes like this. I hold her legs with my hands and let part of her left butt-cheek rest on my my left leg over the toilet bowl. Then I basically make funny noises like grunting to get her to poop. I understand it’s been practiced in China for quite awhile because they didn’t have paper diapers so regular pooping is a necessity.

Anyway, Lauren is used to being held to have her bowel movement, and she’s quite regular on the timing. You probably wonder why I brought this up, and you’ll see later.

The next hurdle is the actual security check-point. It was difficult even for me to go through the security check-point, much less with Lauren. I brought Lauren to the security-checkpoint, and everyone said teary good-byes.

I dutifully put all Lauren’s food inside a quart-size plastic bag as instructed. The first problem when I approached the check-point was that they officer told me to put the stroller through the X-ray machine as well. The stroller I have can not be folded with only one hand. After looking around, I had no choice but put Lauren next to me on the floor, she’s actually sitting quite well, so that’s not a worry. She just sat there and looked around while I folded the stroller. I carried Lauren through the metal detector with no problems. Well, I then needed to put Lauren back into her stroller, and I really didn’t want to leave her on the floor again. Just when I was trying to figure out my options, a lady behind me kindly offered to hold Lauren while I unfold the stroller. With a sigh of relief, I did exactly that. I came to realize that I needed to depend on the kindness of strangers on this journey, which was a completely new experience for me.

I pushed the stroller and my carry-on luggage with me to the gate, which is one level down, so I had to find the elevator. I then waited in line at the gate counter trying to find out how the gate-checking of stroller works. It turned to another 30 minutes wait in line because there was only one lady behind the counter and about 40 people in line.

The CSR lady turned out to be real nice. She explained to me the gate-check process, and actually got the gentleman who can actually does the gate-check to give me the forms to fill out.

To be continued.