This post will be incredibly boring

I am going to wildly conjecture about the mindset behind, and the philosophy of email. Then I will complain about emails that I get from certain unnamed family members. And I will go on to complain some more. Then my explosive rage very high levels of annoyance will trickle off.

Here goes.

People send email for one of two very broad reasons.

Reason #1: "I have a question to ask you, or something to share with you."

Reason #2: "Here is something that someone else forwarded to me."

Note that I am appending the following to Reason #2. "I am not interested in hearing your thoughts on this matter. Once I've sent this to you, let's consider that the end of the conversation."

I got an email from a family member that was a forward of some article that talks about how Americans are not behind the war effort like they were during WWII, and how its because "Americans are at the mall", yada yada blah blah blah.

I responded to the email with the following, which I'm sharing with you here because this is my blog:

------
Very interesting article.

I think though that its a difficult comparison. World War II was
fought against the Empire of Japan, and Germany (and Italy too, some),
two nations which were spreading unchecked aggression across the
globe. The situation in Iraq is completely different. We are
fighting an unseen enemy in a nation that had nothing to do with our
original conflict. Choosing to go to war with Iraq was altogether
different than choosing to go to war with Germany or Japan. During
WWII, both had attacked, without provocation, their neighbors. Iraq's
claim to fame is simply that they had a dictator and alot of oil, and
that we fought a battle there a few years earlier, under George
Senior.

I think that it is true that during WWII there was vast public support
for the war. Again though, I think that this is because of the
differences in the wars. No one could reasonably argue that Germany
and Japan were not a threat to world peace, order and stability.
While there is much argument with regard to the need to even invade
Iraq. Its an unpopular war, that is more easily comparable to
Vietnam, a war that many people questioned the need for our
involvement in.

Thanks for the article, it makes ya think!
------

I'm not the smartest guy I know, or the most clever, but I think that I have a completely valid point. Anyway, I sent this because I was tired of people sending me email for the previously mentioned Reason #2. Fuck that shit. If you are sending something for me to read, and you have A PRETTY GOOD IDEA THAT I DON'T AGREE WITH IT, I will reply and share my thoughts on the subject with you. I will make every attempt to be polite, but if you're sending it to me, doesn't that mean that you want some opinion sharing? Oh - no - see the Note I appended earlier to Reason #2.

So today I get an email a forward from said family member, the contents of which are something about "people that think that the war in iraq is bankrupting us are so wrong, and just don't know anything, here are a bunch of bullet points with corroborating links", but that is prefaced with this:

"Ok, nobody get their panties in a wad over this because I did not check out any of the "statements" or their $ amount in cost. However, I just got out of the hospital after an 11 day stay for plain and simple sick as a dog!! [....trimmed 58 words, going on about hospital stay and pain and illness, that has very little to do with sending email forwards....] However, I lived and for that I am grateful. Soooooo, if you want to confirm any of this--go for it. Let me know the answers if you do. Love, [familymember]"

For fuck's sake. It makes me want to wring someone's neck. I don't know if this person is fucking with me to be malicious, or fucking with me because they don't give a shit, or what.

Sigh!

Edit: An afterthought.

I will not reply, though, except here, cause I can blow off a little steam here, and I'm not really that interested in cranking up any drama. So here is the reply that I'm not going to send.

"No, thanks, I won't bother checking out the links. In fact, I didn't even really read the contents of the email much, I just kinda skimmed it. Actually, of the ten or so emails you sent me today, this is the only one that I so much as glanced at. The rest will sit unread in my inbox for a few days, until I delete them. Its obvious that you could care less what I have to say, or think, so I could certainly care less what kind of junk bullshit you're going to forward to me.
Love,
Jeremy"

Gary Gygax

One of the men who is responsible for role playing games died today.

Nerds like me owe him a great deal of thanks for opening the door to all of the games that I love.

So long Gary, and thanks a bunch!

edit:


Two of the best tributes today:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=87901434&ft=1&f=1001


http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/03/04

Wanted for Questioning

Two snippets from a CNN article, about the recent US missile strike in Somalia:


"The FBI wants Nabhan, 28, for questioning in the 2002 suicide bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel and the unsuccessful attack on an Israeli charter jet in Mombasa, Kenya."

"The strike destroyed two houses -- killing three women and three children and wounding another 20 people, said Dhoobley's district commissioner, Ali Nur Ali Dherre."

Roundup

I've managed to catch a couple of movies recently - this weekend I saw In Bruges, which I though was very good. Previously, I caught Idiocracy, which I highly recommend.

This past weekend saw Dixie and the Ninjas, our Rock Band band, pick up our instruments again, after a few weeks of hiatus, and do some jamming.

Also this weekend, I saw Carol Plunk, and it was a FANTASTIC show! I went with pretty minimal expectations and was kinda blown away. Yay local talent! Here she is covering Sweet Child of Mine:





She also did a cover of Black Sabbath's Paranoid that totally rocked my socks, and she did a bunch of her own material that rocked as well.

Games and Music

So I've cranked up The Orange Box again, which is gamer-nerd speak for Half-Life 2 and Portal. I played and finished Portal again the other night, and it totally rocked the second time around. I'll end up going through and doing the advanced levels as well. Also started playing Half Life 2. I played it ages ago, but I'm going to go through the whole series again. Need to get back to some Rock Band action!

Saw Regina Spektor, finally, in Nashville. It was a fantastic show, and we had a good time wandering around the city a little as well.

New Pet Peeve

People who stand close to you while you're both working on or looking at something, and hum to themselves. Not especially quietly either. Like nearly at a speaking volume. And constantly. Like, if they're not talking, they're humming.

In News That Even I Don't Care About

So Blackberry devices were on the fritz recently. That's just the backdrop.

Then there's the CNN article with a bit about this guy:

(taken from CNN)
"I'm mad -- it's enough already," said a frustrated Stuart Gold, who said he gets 1,000 e-mails a day as director of field marketing for Web analytics company Omniture Inc.

Gold, who worked most of Monday on a laptop while traveling, plans to ask his company to buy him a backup smart phone from a rival like Palm Inc., which makes the Treo, in case BlackBerry service goes on the blink again.

"I don't know what happened, I don't care what happened. They need to save their excuses for someone who cares," Gold said.


Damn! Its this kind of guy who makes dealing with businesspeople a pain in the ass. These are the guys who make support staff grind their teeth, or cringe and cry. 1,000 emails in a day? I bet he feels mighty important, but I'd love to know he manages to read 1,000 emails in a day. I assume he means actual, valid emails, not Viagra spam, forwards from Betty in accounting, and those reports that he gets every day and never reads anyway. Reading that little bit just makes me want to throttle this asshole.

And that's it for completely random bullshit news for me today. Ciao!