Am I right, or am I right? Using a perfectly good bookstore gift card to buy magazines goes against everything that's good in the world...

-- Anonymous, March 04, 2001

Answers

Well, most magazines, sure. It's pretty wrong to use a gift card for Newsweek, or the Economist, or Alternative Press. But for expensive periodicals that some bookstores carry (the Computer Music Journal I read sometimes is $15 an issue, and some of the math and economics publications I read are even more expensive -- fortunately, most are only published quarterly or so), I could definitely understand using a gift card for those. Granted, I wouldn't -- I mostly use gift cards to buy things I wouldn't otherwise -- but in that case it's not quite as wrong. Yay for massively non-trivial magazine purchases.

-- Anonymous, March 04, 2001

Well lets see... I got a borders gift card for christmas and was able to buy myself a WHOLE lot of magazines... Runner's World, Maxim, Track and Field News, Writer's Journal, Men's Health, Entertainment Weekly... Sigh... nothing like using a gift card for magazines... Of course I chucked them all after a week.... but it's was good reading...

-- Anonymous, March 04, 2001

magazines are prohibitively expensive for how quickly they read. gr.

-- Anonymous, March 05, 2001

Sorry, Katie, I have to side with young Mr. Egolf on this one. I mean, hey, it's his gift card now; if he wants to buy magazines with it, it's his choice. Hell, he could've used it all on Godiva bars and frappucinos...

-- Anonymous, March 05, 2001

Hey, I'm not saying you can't do what you want with your own gift card. I'm just saying you're a sick fuck if you do use it to buy magazines. :)

-- Anonymous, March 05, 2001

This is a clear cut case : He should have bought books. Or those cute little plush toys for the car that you always find at the counter, conviniently by the cash registar. Either way, he should now apologise profusely and kiss the ground. Or something like that, ah ha ha ha ha, ahem.

-- Anonymous, March 05, 2001

It all depends, Katie...were they intellectual magazines, or porn? :-)

-- Anonymous, March 06, 2001

It was intellectual porn... pictures of Harvard professors with their academic robes pulled up, stuff like that.

-- Anonymous, March 07, 2001

Intellectual porn! I love that.

I don't think it's necessarily wrong to use a gift card for magazines, but I do think it's on the other side of "acceptable use". I for one tend to use mine for books I wouldn't buy myself (like ones I've already read but don't own) or blank books to write random things down in.

-- Anonymous, March 11, 2001

I don't understand the point of blank books. It's like, you spend $20 on a book that, if you're like me, you'll use for a journal or something for about a week and then never touch again. That's what notebooks are for.

Of course, when you decide to just use a notebook for a journal, you end up sticking with it and eventually the notebook starts falling apart.

I can never win.

-- Anonymous, March 11, 2001

man you need help. is it ok to use a mcdonalds gift cert. on just fries and a ice cream cone, or is it only acceptable to buy a dirreha inducing fish burger meal? plus its a lot easier to read porn than war and peace with a retarded slutty pmsing bitch of a boat anchor telling him what to buy with HIS money!

-- Anonymous, May 07, 2001

dude, maybe you need to calm the fuck down.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2001

Yeah... apparently some people don't understand sarcasm...

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2001