R.I.P. Maxim Magazine

I am a big fan of streaks.

Hitting streaks, unbeaten streaks, games with a touchdown or defenses holding teams without a touchdown, I really dig stringing together unbroken runs.

When I had more time, I'd keep track of unofficial blog streaks - number of days with one post per day, number of days with 20 or more hits - so I tend to pay attention to that sort of thing.

Since college, I've subscribed to every Maxim Magazine that's been available. While I missed the first two or three, a friend at the newspaper I was working at tipped me off when Maxim ran a feature on the 100 greatest guy movies and those of us in the house took it as an unofficial challenge.

Keep in mind, these were the pre-Netflix days, so you really had to hunt down titles as you worked to complete the list. It kept us busy all summer.

Since then (and this year in particular) the magazine has really fallen off the table to shockingly low levels of quality when you look back at the first few years of issues.

The first step to mediocrity was when they became more of a softcore porn magazine as opposed to a guy's magazine. This might seem like a subtle distinction but what was once a magazine focusing on music, movies, video games, cars, grilling and fashion with sexy women splashed on top, Maxim has switched the formula of late to invert the ratios.

Adding insult to injury, while you used to get fairly meaty (hot dog meaty, not steak meaty) features on adventure stories and football/baseball previews, those have gone bye-bye as well.

This year's football preview was barely noticeable after 30 pages of half-naked cheerleaders. Wait, why am I arguing against Maxim again? Oh, yeah, the actual football portion of the football preview was two or three pages at best.

The features and reviews that used to pretty right on are now simple sentences strung together with fewer words than the average barfly can muster after a night of heavy drinking. In short, a magazine that used to be entertaining, well-written and locked in to our generation's tastes is now just a cheap excuse to show someone in their underwear.

Gone are features and tech articles that, while light reading, were actually worthwhile.

I used to defend Maxim to those who would dismiss it as the frat version of Playboy I won't be doing that any more. I guess the phrase "It's like a male Cosmo," can now be striken from my vocabulary. While Playboy has maintained its edge as a smart and well-done publication Maxim has lost its way and this subscriber.

It's always such a shame to see a streak come to an end. Then again, there's no shortage of frat boys to take my place on their list.