Email Rules

This is far too long, but nevertheless an important message to all of you.





ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION RULES OF PRACTICE

INTRODUCTION.

If you would like to engage in electronic communication with me via email or instant message, you need to know The Rules. If you don't like them, never write me again. If you agree to be completely bound by them, I will continue to correspond with you. If you break a rule, you are dead to me.

RULES

1. LAUGHING.

Do not laugh at yourself in an email. If you say something funny, just say it. If it's funny, I will know it is a joke, so I do not need the indicator "LOL" to signal a joke has just been made. If you make a statement and follow it by LOL, it's a clear sign that what you said is not funny. Also, you are insecure about whether or not you are funny, which makes your attempted joke even less funny, or not funny at all even if it were funny. You are an attention seeking fool if you do this. If you feel the need to do this with your other email buddies, I suggest writing "I WANT ATTENTION BECAUSE MY MOMMY DOESN'T LOVE ME" instead of LOL.

1a. Laughing really hard

I will never give you permission to "LMAO" (Laugh My As Off) or ROTFL ("Rolling On The Floor Laughing"), or any other such big laugh that is above and beyond just plain old LOL. Never. If you claim to be doing any of the above, you have borderline personality disorder. Drink a gallon of Drano before you email another person. Also, check your medication.

2. FORWARDING

Forwarding is perhaps the trickiest of all e-mail or IM talents, and can only be mastered after you have been spanked a few times on the knuckles with an electronic ruler and made a fool of. Sure, when you first got e-mail, you were giddy as a school girl, and EVERYTHING you received, you had to forward, to show you were in "the game" and had e-mail material. Little did you know that the joke/magic trick/picture/porn site you received had been around the world over 1 kazilllion times before you joined the internet community.

2a. Scams

100% of all forwarded non-joke emails are a scam. You are just too fucking stupid to recognize it. Here's a simple rule for you: if you are tempted to send me an email that has "FW:" in the subject line, read it, send the sender your credit card and social security numbers, and delete my name from your address book. Start up the chipmunks that run on the wheel powering your pea-sized brain for just an instant and think: Could there possibly be a way that forwarding e-mail purporting to be part of some sort of Microsoft tracking system really result in ALL of the people you sent it to getting money? Think, you dirty rotten sonofabitch! Cavemen didn't fall for these.

2b. Forwarding Virus Hoaxes

99.9999999% of all e-mail messages regarding computer viruses are hoaxes. If there really is a computer virus hoax spreading, you will find out about it in one of three ways: (1) your computer stops working (easiest way); (2) your office IT person sends an e-mail about a virus; or, (3) a credible news service will report the virus. Here is a helpful link to distract you from bothering me with this shit: http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html Try not to be such a fucking chump.

2c. Forwarding Urban Legends

If you send these, you have the mentality of a seventh grader, and not a smart one, but one in the "slow" class who goes to the zoo a lot and licks the short bus window. Another helpful link so that I don't get more messages about missing kids, canceling Sesame Street, spider eggs, gerbils, Evian water being filtered with cow's blood, etc.:
http://www.snopes.com

2d. Forwarding your jokes

Many times, jokes are forwarded, and it is clear that the sender never read the fucking thing themselves. This is one of the worst e-crimes, and will certainly get you hated by all recipients. Ask yourself, "Is this joke 'funny'???"

Webster's defines "funny" as: 1 a : affording light mirth and laughter : AMUSING b : seeking or intended to amuse : FACETIOUS. Does the thing you are sending meet this definition? If not, don't fucking send it to me. On second thought, just don't sent it to me. LOL at yourself.

2e. Forwarding my jokes

I am funny and would give you permission to forward my jokes, but you are too stupid to remove my name from the header. Since you cannot remove my name from your forwarded emails, and I don't want every one of your dickhead friends to CC me when they get email they
think are funny, you do not have my permission to forward my jokes.

2f. Forwarding chain letters

Are you so desperate and weak-willed that the suggestion in an e-mail that you MUST forward a chain letter to X number of people immediately sends you into a frenzy, upon fear that if you do not send the message, so ill fate will befall you? If you send chain letters, not only will you be blocked, but you will be reported to your e-mail service provider as a nuisance, and also as a jerkoff.

2g. Forwarding pleas for charitable help

I do not give a shit about your Church, your neighbor who is out of work, your wife's niece who can't pay for her books this semester, your daughter's Girl Scout Cookies, or your son's baseball trip. I hope your neighbor never gets a job. Girl Scout cookies are overpriced and suck. Baseball-playing boys grow up to be limp-dicked car salesmen. I will never send them a fucking dime. If you feel like sending me one of these, 1) Don't, 2) get a second job, and 3) send them your own goddamn money.

2h. Forwarding Apologies

Let's say you commit one of the idiotic missteps listed above. DO NOT then compound your idiocy with an apology e-mail, or a retraction. These read like, "Woops, sorry guys, believe it or not, forwarding that last e-mail to everyone in my address book will not get my dick sucked. Please excuse the intrusion."

3. REPLYING

3a. Replying at all

You ask yourself, "When should I reply to e-mail?" Some simple start-up rules: You should NEVER reply to jokes. The sender, even though a jackass much like you, just wants you to have the joke- they don't want your review of it. If you have nothing to say, do not just reply to let people know their e-mail was received. No one cares. You should never reply to mass e-mails. Obviously, you weren't important enough to get your own e-mail, so surely no one wants your opinion on anything.

3b: Reply TO All

A button whose existence should be limited only to those with proven internet and e-mail savvy, the "Reply to All" button had been known to ruin marriages, friendships, and cause war (in the case of North Korea only). There appears to be a great deal of confusion and split among the circuits concerning the use of the "Reply to All" e-mail reply option. Thus, please take a moment to review the below-listed rules for determining whether your reply is, in fact, worthy of sending to "ALL":

1. Is your reply meant only for the original sender of the message? If so, a "Reply to All" containing confidential or "For Your Eyes Only" information would be wholly inappropriate. The bothersome need for sending of apology-flowers have resulted from such indiscretions.

2. Do you know virtually everyone on the e-mail list? And do they know you?

3. Is your reply "witty"? (see "funny" above, it's like witty, only less funny). If the answer to these questions is "No," it is likely that your reply will be appreciated by few, and bother and disturb many.

So in the future, please take a second to stop and review your [*ed. note: fixed thanks for the comment] selection of (a) Reply or (b) Reply to All. To quote the illustrious and amazing Jackson 5: the love you save may be your own.

4. EXECUTABLE FILES

I know your Computer Support people have told you a million times not to open "*.exe" files. You have no idea what that means, do you? Here's a short lesson. (I'll assume you know what an attachment is.)

If you get a file attachment to an email , the file has a name. It might be something like "letter.pdf" There is only ONE thing you should never open- an insidious file called "*.exe." Only if the filename is an an asterisk followed by a period and then followed by exe should you not open it.

Otherwise, first, delete me from your address book, and then open any attachment you like. The files that end in ".exe" are the best.

5. USAGE

5a. Grammar and Punctuation

Are you one of those people who thinks, "Upper and lower case writing is for suckers and old ladies."? If so, do not write me. Contrary to what you believe, the Internet is not an alternate universe where the rules of grammar and punctuation have ceased to apply. In between a capital letter and a period, exclamation point, or question mark exists a single and hopefully coherent thought. When there is no indication of where a thought begins and ends, I feel like I'm talking to a lobotomized, genetically spliced James Joyce/e.e. cummings. Please. To the extent you understand them, obey the rules of grammar and punctuation. You are not a rebel if you ignore the rules. You are a shithead.

5b. Abbreviations

I know it's a lot of effort to type "On the other hand" and "By the Way" and that's why you type OTOH and BTW. You lazy, fucking, wideload, ass-spreading, french fry eating, fad-dieting, selfish pig! Burn the fucking calories it takes to write it out instead of assuming everyone knows what your stupid abbreviations stand for. I do not have ESP, and if I did, I would NEVER use it to interpret your stupid abbreviations.

5c. Spelling

You can't spell. Nowadays, every single email program has a spellchecker. Use it or keep your mysterious "sa;kgj vnwaliu and fgnwl;" to yourself.

6. EMOTICONS: Smileys, Winks, etc.

Tragically, someone discovered that you can make tiny little annoying sideways pictures with some of the characters on your keyboard. These "emoticons," as they have been dubbed, are used to show physical gestures, many of which people never make in real life. How many times do you wink after you make a joke or witty comment? If you do, you're an idiot, and your friends probably call you "Winky" behind your back. How many times do you stick your tongue out after a comment? Also, the entire purpose of communicating by e-mail is that I don't have to see your face. These little emoticons, which represent your stinking face, ruin the arrangement. Please, keep your face to yourself.

****************************************
A Public Service provided by John Adams and Mike S.

New Tribe Found

Maybe you heard the news story that some dudes in a helicopter recently found a tribe of people who have had no contact with civilization. Here's the picture from the chopper.

With a nod to Clay Davis, bulllll-sheeeeeeeeee-it. Like there's a difference between these orange and black Brazilian fuckers and a few Pennsyltucky Flyers fans.

Fun with Nyms

Having written the most important and famous Dictionary of the English Language (sorry OED), I continue to be fascinated by this quirky language. From time to time, friends, I feel compelled to stretch my lexicographic wings and point out some - hopefully - interesting things about the language. This is one of those times. Everyone has heard of synonyms, antonyms, acronyms, and homonyms, but I bet you didn't know how many other cool "nym" words there were out there. Here is a sampling.

Miranym: A miranym is a word half way between opposites, e.g., the miranym of convex and concave is flat.

Capitonym: A capitonym is a word that changes its meaning (and often its pronunciation) when it is capitalized, e.g., Polish and polish.

Heteronym:Heteronyms are words that have identical spellings, but different pronunciations and meanings, e.g., desert and desert.

Eponym: An eponym is a word from which something else is named, e.g., sandwich (as in the Earl) or in business, Xerox.

Contranym: A contranym is a word that can take opposite meanings, e.g., overlook.

I welcome other examples and end with a question (of which I do not know the answer). Anyone know the "nym" for a word derived from its function, e.g., elevator or escalator or driver (as in the golf club)?

Sam Johnson

Weezer's Pork and Beans

Weezer's cool. I suspect that they aren't the D&D playing geeks they appear but I like them anyways.

Their new video for Pork and Beans is a tribute to Youtube viral vids.

I don't recognize all the vids though.

There's the Dancing evolution guy.



There are the Mentos-mixed-with-Diet-Coke people.



The "leave Britney alone" "guy."



Ms. Teen South Carolina's infamous speech makes an appearance.



All your base.



Shoes.



What are some of the others?

Brought to you in full jusification by John Adams.

Customer Dis-Service

Just the way I wanted to start my week, stuck on my credit card company's customer "service" system for 45 minutes. Simply to inquire about a bogus late-charge on my bill, I endured two calls, 35 minutes of automated menus punctuated with 10 minutes of sales pitches from a guy in Bombay pretending to be named "John Smith," I kid you not.

Nothing makes me crazier than the big lie that these automated customer service platforms are for our convenience. Who are they kidding? These systems are set up for "convenience" all right - the convenience of the companies who want to cut the cost of live operators wherever they can.

My call began with the ever annoying request to hit "1" if I speak English and to hit numero dos if I speak espanol. Since when is Spanish an official language in this country? Since never.

Then I was asked to enter my account number. Sounds reasonable. Only there is absolutely no purpose to that request as the eventual live person at the end of the rainbow asks you to repeat it anyway - as "John Smith" did at the end of my call. So why do they do they ask you for the number you ask? Two reasons. Reason 1: They want to extend the call hoping that you'll eventually give up and hang up. Reason 2 is described best by James Gleick in the chapter of his book "Faster" dealing with the elevators and the "door close" button. You see, in 90-plus percent of all elevators, the "door close" button is not designed to do anything, but exists so that we think we think we have control over our environment and to help create the illusion that time is passing more quickly (by giving us something to do).

Next, I was forced to listen to a menu of about a half-dozen categories of possible things I might be calling about. Mercifully, this time, my question appeared to fall within the "billing" category, so number 3 I pressed, and off to the billing menu I went. Of course, when I got to billing, I was asked again to enter my account number and the machine proceeded to tell my card balance, minimum payment due, available credit line, etc., and then, promptly, the machine hung up on me. Perfect.

Call two began the same way, only instead of making any selection, I stayed on the line and got the wonderful message that they are encountering a higher than normal call volumes and that they appreciate my patience. Another lie. They don't appreciate my patience, they hope and expect that I would hear this message, not want to waste any more time, and hang up - which is probably what I should have done.

After enduring what seemed like an eternity listening to muzak (let me digress for just a second here - anyone here know that muzak is what's known in the world of patents as a proprietary eponym - like Kleenex, Xerox, Band Aid, Frisbee, Scotch Tape, Wite Out, Q-Tip, etc. - named for Muzak Holdings, LLC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muzak_Holdings? Ask Mr. Adams if you have any questions re. things patent/trademark. In addition to being a Founding Father and former President, he knows a things or two about IP), I made my way to a live person the aforementioned "John Smith," whose real name is more like Jugdesh Gupta and whose first four languages are more like Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati, and Sanskrit - they are certainly not English. Anyway, after "John" asked me again for my account number, we got down to business - my late charge. After a bit of back and forth (now 35 minutes into my call), I somehow convinced "John" to waive the fee.

Undaunted, however, once my issue was resolved, "John" changed from his customer "service" hat into his "sales" hat. Now I don't know when this practice started, but I know when it should end - yesterday. It is one thing to fire 99 percent of your American call center staff and replace it with an automated, menu-driven system and a handfull of Indian call reps. It is another to force us to endure all of that AND then make us listen as "John" reads a sales pitch du jour for the latest and greatest unnecessary product or service of the day - this day's being credit card protection of some kind. Since when did it become acceptable to end every customer service call with an unsolicited sales pitch? Since never. We just deal with it because we - unlike the companies with whom we deal - don't want to be rude. And perversely, the same company who saved millions by switching to an automated call system and off-shore call-center personnel, probably makes a profit from its "customer service" system, by selling a few tired rubes something else they don't need.

Customer dis-service at its best.

Why do parents torture their kids?

I just got back to Philly from Pittsburgh. Yes, it's OK: Feel sorry for me. Not only was I stuck in Pissburgh for the weekend, I had to drive there and back. If you've never made that drive, imagine you're strapped to a bed of nails with your eyes held open by toothpicks and you can't do anything but stare at the ceiling and drink Starbucks every 40 minutes. For 6 hours. And I'm jealous of you.

I made the drive with Abigail and Nabby--my six year old daughter. When we arrived in Pissburgh, Abigail's Aunt Hetta asked, "What did Nabby do on the drive?" An honest answer to this seemingly innocuous question opens a viper's nest of nasty retorts. Sometimes I just say, "She's great in the car" to evade. This time I answered honestly, "Nabby watched movies on a portable DVD player most of the way."

I watched Aunt Hetta's face. I've read articles about how if you watch a face when someone is being dishonest, it will usually momentarily reflect its true feelings. Aunt Hetta's face, between beaming smiles, had a half-second where she looked like she was chewing a toad's wart.


"Oh really?" She said. "My kids barely watched TV and when we took long trips, they loved singing songs and playing games."

My ass.

Here's a recipe.

• To a car, add sweet six year old.
• And two happy parents.
• Over a six hour period, sing 100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, Old MacDonald, play letter hunting, 20 Questions, the memory game, rhyming, Simon Says, etc.

I call this: Recipe for Divorce, Therapy, and Road Rage.

So fuck off Aunt Hetta with your bullshit "memory" of your fulfilling movie-less 6-hour trips. Until Nabby can read chapter books, she can watch all the movies she wants.