I've done it. I have joined the hordes of folks who do not get the newspaper delivered anymore. Actually, my subscription expired over a month ago, but I wanted to see if it would take before telling you, oh reader of the Internet.

Let me begin by saying we always had a newspaper in the home. I can remember having the Kansas City Star and the Clovis News-Journal lying on the table. I would read some of it, you know, sometimes. In college, we had The Daily Lobo and NuCity. These were the free papers easily available around my town. A free paper is a wonderful thing. We also had two daily newspapers to choose from: The Albuquerque Journal in the morning and The Albuquerque Tribune in the afternoon. In a town of about half a million people or less, this was amazing.

As a grown up guy out of college, I settled on reading The Albuquerque Tribune and The Weekly Alibi, which NuCity became after some other paper sued them for using the same name as them. Pathetic.

I even wrote stories about rock bands as a freelancer for The Albuquerque Tribune for a little while. My brother Matt worked there as a layout guy and got me the gig. I was a freelance writer for a while, but I was pretty much a freelance everything at the time. I also did a lot of little stories for a free bi-weekly newspaper called Crosswinds. I wrote stories about artists, musicians, writers, theatre and a whole lot of film reviews. I was supposed to get $35 a film review, which seemed a fair price for me going out, watching a movie (good or bad) and pounding out 500 words about said feature film. I thought that would be a good side job. They just had a problem paying me and tried to make me feel guilty about asking for payment. Pathetic.

I gave up the freelance writing thing for newspapers, but I always continued to read. Especially The Albuquerque Tribune. It was my kind of paper. It came after work (one of the few fresh things I received at the end of the day). It had cool photography, simple basic stories with a slight liberal stance, and a pretty cheap price. It was so cheap, I never questioned paying it. Crosswinds closed down because it couldn't pay people. The Alibi continued to be my weekly reader because they wrote about theatre & rock n' roll & movies & food, and I was into those things, man.

Then reality happened. It dawned on the powers that be that there was no need for two daily newspapers in a town the size of Albuquerque, a mere half million people. This is true, but it still sucked. The smaller Tribune disappeared, and we were left with The Albuquerque Journal.

I never liked the Journal. It came too early in the morning, it had a slight conservative stance, and it cost more. Without another choice, I succumbed to the only daily in town. And I read it.

It was all right but never great. The comics were all right but not like the Tribune. The sports was less fun with less cool local pictures. The news of the day was busy but factual. Bottom line, I could deal with dropping a hundred bucks on it a year. Well, actually, my brother Matt and I split the cost and passed the paper between each other. In this economy, we even have to share our newspaper.

Along came February, and the cost of The Albuquerque Journal subscription jumped from $105 to $171. That's a 61 percent increase, for a paper I never really preferred over the cheaper better one. My brother and I both cried "Outrage!" Well, not really, but in our heads, you know. And we decided not to renew our subscription.

We got a few papers after the deadline and then nothing, accept a note on the final newspaper saying we owed them money for the papers we got after the deadline. It was not paid. Pathetic.

The Journal had unenthusiastic people calling me up to see if I wanted to subscribe again. They offered no deals. They didn't seem to know what they were calling about at all. Pathetic.

So here's Chris Jungle's new way of reading the daily newspaper: on those days (usually in the cab) when I'm bored, or the headlines look intriguing at the coffee shop, or a big sporting event occurs, or if someone gives me their leftover readings, I might give the newspaper a once over.

Other than that, the newspaper has just lost itself another believer.

Chris Jungle still reads The Weekly Alibi, you know, sometimes, or whenever.