Today is the day many of us have dreaded these past nine and a half weeks.

Found a newspaper plopped down outside my door upon awakening. But it was the wrong one.

When this happened in the past, I could call a voice-mail tree system to get the paper I actually wanted.

But I can’t do that anymore.

I can only accept the large-print, smugly conservative rag aimed at the suburban white elderly market.

Or I can quit it.

As I’d expected, the new Seattlepi.com is no substitute for the P-I paper and website that were. Its “front page” photo today is a cute puppy. The long list of local headlines on its still-cluttered home page links mostly to wire copy, short police-beat briefs, and stories on other sites.

But that’s what Hearst apparently wanted all along during this tragedy—to keep the P-I brand alive as cheaply as possible, while breaking both the Joint Operating Agreement and the Newspaper Guild.

The new Seattlepi (and we might as well call it that, instead of the beloved two-initial nickname of its already mourned predecessor) has nowhere to go but up.

How much better can it become, and how quickly?

Specifically, can it get its online-only act together before one of the proposed indie post-P-I sites gets going? (If any of them do get going, that is.)