R.I.P.: Reston: The Magazine

Pour one out, as the kids reliably haven't said in at least a decade, for everyone's favorite glossy magazine covering our plastic fantastic planned community: Reston: The Magazine is no more.

People complained about Reston: The Magazine constantly, arguing that a, whazzitcalled, homeowners association shouldn't be publishing a fancypants magazine like it was Conde Nast (or, in the RA's case, Conde Nasty Color Palettes). The magazine was supposedly self-sustaining because of that sweet sweet advertising cash, but judging by the dramatic decline in our own ad revenues for the WHOS YOUR BABY'S DADDY banner ads on this filthy "web log" that prompted us to cancel our planned trophy office building lease, we should have guessed that advertising alone would no longer carry the freight.

Now uniformed federal agents will instead be delivering an "RA Activities Guide" to our homes four times a year. That was the excuse for having a magazine in the first place, but let's look back and see how Reston: The Magazine was So. Much. More.

Launched at the beginning of what was then a shiny new decade, Reston: The Magazine covered a lot of ground. They told us to pan for gold in the creek out back! They announced the biggest news since Bob Simon pulled out a map of Fairfax County! There was the time it profiled a mauvescraper that Reston officially opposed! It went the prog rock route with its photos (a move we applaud). And it offered this priceless, stock photo-festooned listicle of What To Do When Your Neighbor Paints The Party Wall Purple:

And, as we all have had to in recent years, Reston: The Magazine got with the program. But above all, we'll miss the part of Reston: The Magazine that truly got what it was like to live in a planned suburban community in an era of aggressive late-stage capitalism: the word finds.

Farewell, Reston: The Magazine. We can only hope that this other new publication, available just a bit further down the Toll road, has room for word finds among its centerfolds profiles of "the Burn's" X-rated parks and whatnot, the end.