Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Today state employees are celebrating Evacuation Day, the day when on March 26, 1776, the British fleet left Boston. So this state employee is home thinking the government paycheck might be lousy but you can't beat these little perks. How fortuitous that Evacuation Day just happens to also fall on St. Patrick's Day. Certainly works out great for all of those 50-something white-Boston-Irish-Catholic-male legislators who recently voted to write discrimination into the constitution by banning gay marriage. Cheers. And speaking of beer...
Three people within a span of a month have told that me I should remove them from my email distribution list. The latest wrote, "Please remove me from your distribution list. Recently our company has been heavily attacked by viruses, worms, IP-spoofing and so on and security measures have increased. E-Mails are scanned and marked as spam, partly destroyed. I´d be very pleased to receive a few personal words here and then."
Another request I received came from a good acquaintance. There was no greeting or salutation. Just: "Please remove me from your spam list."
You know the world is just becoming not a very fun place to live in these days when you can't even send a few dumb email jokes or political commentary to friends and family without 'security issues' or fuddy-duddy recipients spoiling the gesture. In the first instance, a few unscrupulous hackers are just plain wrecking things for those who don't mind a dumb joke or funny link now and again but who feel they have to opt out of distribution lists because of potential viruses and worms. As to the fuddy-duddy's who are simply too busy and self-absorbed to have patience for double-clicking on a dumb joke or a link, well I just feel sorry for them is all. Is it really so awful having an email from someone you know in your Inbox every couple of days that may or may not be funny? I think it's actually rather pleasant to be pinged. Firstly, it's always nice to know that someone is thinking of you (no matter how indirectly). And secondly I must say that some of these emails can lead to rich, revealing, and raucus conversations well worth the nuisance of the 80% that end up in the Trash box. All you have to do is click Reply to All and weigh in... But if you're not into 'spam' (I like to call it lighthearted enlightenment), how about just not opening the damn email rather than offending the sender with a terse request to be removed from the distribution list? Shutting someone down like that means there will be just one less person sending you dumb jokes or interesting links/articles when you're old, lonely, and decrepit. Which is sad because judging by the conversations I have with the old, lonely, and decrepit constituents who call our office, they would be all too happy to receive a dumb-joke email. From anybody.
Speaking of age, I absolutely love Andy Rooney's response to Bill O'Reilly. O'Reilly was amongst the 30,000 or so who voiced their mostly negative opinion of Rooney's recent 60 Minutes commentary on Mel Gibson's Passion of Christ. Said O'Reilly, “I THINK ROONEY IS AT THE END OF THE ROAD.”
Responded Rooney, "That wasn’t nice, Bill. I didn’t get old on purpose, it just happened. If you’re lucky, it could happen to you."
Three people within a span of a month have told that me I should remove them from my email distribution list. The latest wrote, "Please remove me from your distribution list. Recently our company has been heavily attacked by viruses, worms, IP-spoofing and so on and security measures have increased. E-Mails are scanned and marked as spam, partly destroyed. I´d be very pleased to receive a few personal words here and then."
Another request I received came from a good acquaintance. There was no greeting or salutation. Just: "Please remove me from your spam list."
You know the world is just becoming not a very fun place to live in these days when you can't even send a few dumb email jokes or political commentary to friends and family without 'security issues' or fuddy-duddy recipients spoiling the gesture. In the first instance, a few unscrupulous hackers are just plain wrecking things for those who don't mind a dumb joke or funny link now and again but who feel they have to opt out of distribution lists because of potential viruses and worms. As to the fuddy-duddy's who are simply too busy and self-absorbed to have patience for double-clicking on a dumb joke or a link, well I just feel sorry for them is all. Is it really so awful having an email from someone you know in your Inbox every couple of days that may or may not be funny? I think it's actually rather pleasant to be pinged. Firstly, it's always nice to know that someone is thinking of you (no matter how indirectly). And secondly I must say that some of these emails can lead to rich, revealing, and raucus conversations well worth the nuisance of the 80% that end up in the Trash box. All you have to do is click Reply to All and weigh in... But if you're not into 'spam' (I like to call it lighthearted enlightenment), how about just not opening the damn email rather than offending the sender with a terse request to be removed from the distribution list? Shutting someone down like that means there will be just one less person sending you dumb jokes or interesting links/articles when you're old, lonely, and decrepit. Which is sad because judging by the conversations I have with the old, lonely, and decrepit constituents who call our office, they would be all too happy to receive a dumb-joke email. From anybody.
Speaking of age, I absolutely love Andy Rooney's response to Bill O'Reilly. O'Reilly was amongst the 30,000 or so who voiced their mostly negative opinion of Rooney's recent 60 Minutes commentary on Mel Gibson's Passion of Christ. Said O'Reilly, “I THINK ROONEY IS AT THE END OF THE ROAD.”
Responded Rooney, "That wasn’t nice, Bill. I didn’t get old on purpose, it just happened. If you’re lucky, it could happen to you."
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