Saved From The River Styx -- Spin Magazine

The ol' Grim Reaper had been waiting quite a while for Spin to do a Kurt Cobain and play its last grunge chord. Owners Spin/Vibe Ventures were practically having a fire sale for taking this once-mighty by now outmoded music magazine.

But snatched from my grasp last week, Spin was bought for half a million bucks and a few million dollars of debt by Hartle Media, a San Francisco-based rep company.

Shucks! I was looking forward to hearing some more Jimmy Eat World and Hawthorne Heights as the hellfires burned down here. Perhaps I can settle for that father-exploiting slime Dave Itzkoff? I'll set up a "hot seat" for him to write his new science fiction column for the New York Times.

Newly-installed Spin editor-in-chief Andy Pemberton, founding editor of Blender, comes right out and says they want to be a "younger Rolling Stone."

If that's the case, I'm not giving up hope on a permanent underground vacation for Spin yet.

SURVIVAL ODDS: 20%