Back when we succumbed to the iPhones several years ago, we cut our subscription to the daily New York Times as a way to help pay for the increased monthly cell phone bill. We still get the Sunday edition of the paper of record, but the familiar blue plastic bag stopped showing up at Blog Central in the wee hours of Monday through Saturday.

We don't miss it all that much. A lot of the dailies that used to pile up never got opened during the busy times of year -- which were most of them -- and of course, we read a lot of Times stories on the intertubes hours before they're printed on dead trees in Tacoma and flown down to Portlandia.

But the other day, we were in a downtown hotel where they had stacks of newspapers sitting out for the taking by guests, and we snagged one for later perusal. Last night we cracked it open over a solitary supper to see if there was anything in there to capture our attention.

As it turns out, there were quite a few engrossing stories to consume, particularly in the business section. Has the government any business stopping Google from slanting search results in favor of its own products? Is the Barnes & Noble Nook headed the way of the Betamax? And these were immediately followed by the sports section: These days Tark the Shark can hardly walk, and Greg Popovich didn't send his starters home on his return visit to the Big Apple. Could we have read these stories on line? Sure. But on paper, the old gray lady was positively captivating.

Does this mean that we're going to re-up our daily subscription? Heck, no. But the next time we're in that hotel, we'll definitely have our eyes peeled for that freebie pile.