In My Not So Humble Opinion

April 1st is my second-favorite “holiday”, and my third-favorite day of the year. I’ve been playing silly tricks on people for nigh on 40 years. They’re always juvenile and transparent. I like the “victim” to laugh along with me.

This year, I sent out an April Fools email, hoping people would “get” it, and catch me in the prank. Sadly, less than 4% of my friends clicked the link, and even fewer got the joke, which ended up with me backpedaling about 100 times.

Worst April Fools Day joke, ever.

Here’s the over-the-top, pompous, self-promotional email I sent:

Anyone who’s been on the internet for any length of time would know what they’d get when they click the link. But not my trusting friends. Not the people who believe in me. The people I totally betrayed with a simple joke that they didn’t get.

I’m such a jerk.

So then, to all the people who sent congratulations without clicking the link, and all the others who responded to tell me the link went to the wrong video, and not mine, I sent another email:

LOL! Happy April 1st. You’ve been Rickrolled. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickrolling

Nobody; not a single person replied with “Ha ha, you got me.” Obviously, I’m the most hated person in my social circle right now.

Wait just a minute… I’m not a jerk.

How big is the rock all these people have been living under ??? That Rick Astley video has over 31 MILLION views. I’m not the only one doing a bit of rickrolling. Are my friends the only people on earth who have never been rickrolled? For crying out loud, even the Mets and Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade were rickrolled. If this meme has gone on so long that things as All-American as Parades and Baseball have been rickrolled, how have these people never heard of it?

I am boggled. Absolutely boggled.

Of course, husband (Mr. Voice of Reason) said not to do the Rickroll. Naturally, I didn’t listen to him, which means he has a whole wad of “I told you so’s” he’s waiting to drop on me.

Fine.

I was making fun of Google for giving away the punch line too early in this years’ April Fools joke, and as it turns out, mine didn’t even have a punch line.

To my friends, and family, feel free to borrow my pick and shovel to get yourself out from under that rock, so you can join the rest of the world. Don’t say I never gave you anything. Besides chicken pox.

My good friend Christopher is one of the funniest people I know. We’ve never met face-to-face, and never talked on the phone, but we met on Twitter, and clicked. One of the many reasons I love twitter: I’ve met some totally awesome people who I consider friends, who live in parts of the world I have no plans to visit. Don’t judge me. I can make friends IRL, too. Twitter just cuts through the crap, and doesn’t require me to clean my house on a regular basis on the outside chance someone might stop by for tea and cookies.

Mmmm… tea and cookies. BRB.

Christopher’s website JackassLetters.com is a total hoot. He composes strange, silly, and unexpected letters to famous people and businesses, and then posts their responses. Don’t click the link until you’ve read the letters below to get a hint of what you’re in for.

Letter to SmartyKat:

I can’t believe they didn’t write back. Since my cat loves SmartyKat and Whisker Lickin’s, I was really hoping for some answers.

To show you what a cat lover he is, he said I could share Letter #2, to Scoop Away, another product we use in our house. And, as a mom, I think his idea is bordering on brilliant. Or insanity.

Either way, enjoy:

Okay, now go to His Website. If you don’t laugh your ass off, I don’t know you at all.

Then, do this for me, and everyone who cherishes the written word: If you have 5 bucks (or more) laying around, buy yourself some good karma and send it to Christopher so he can keep me, and all his fans, in stitches.

Springtime in Colorado is fabulous. Sunshine, warm breeze, flowers popping their little heads out of the ground. Many people (Hi Dad!) think all of Colorado is under an eternal ice cap with occasional glimpses of sun, but it’s quite the opposite. I live in the burbs of Denver, where we get 300 days of sunshine, or so the Chamber of Commerce (who would never exaggerate, right?) says.

Some people hate our weather because it’s so unpredictable. It can be 75 degrees one day, and 35 the next. We’ll have a day that’s so windy, Antie Em would be calling frantically for Dorothy, followed by a dumping of snow, and then a day of shorts and sandals. I lived far too long in the Midwest with its predictable weather; snow starts falling in September, and stays on the ground until the last of the permafrost melts in June. I’ll take the fickle weather, since it brings with it the ability to see the actual ground more days than not.

So, today, I’m out driving my VW Passat with the sunroof open, enjoying the sunshine and wind in my hair, being a big girl and resisting the urge to put my hands out the top to wave at passersby. I was feeling as sassy as a cat on a window sill, and pitied all the poor folks with solid metal over their heads. As I pulled up to the light, all smug and happy, a pretty blue Corvette convertible pulled alongside me in the next lane. The driver smiled at me with sun on his face. And I still had plenty of metal above my head.

Well played, Mr. Corvette. Well played.

Over the past 8 years, I have posted a variety of “No Solicitors” and “No Soliciting” signs on my front door. Husband and I work odd hours, and work from home, so the interruptions happen at the worst of times. The signs haven’t been very successful in stopping people from knocking or ringing the bell, so I’ve now created a handout to give to each of these people when they ignore the sign and disturb my peace and quiet. Feel free to print a copies of this and hand them out to the people who disturb the tranquility of your domicile.

DISCLAIMER: I just showed this letter to husband. He said that a crumpled piece of paper on our lawn would be the least of our worries.  Mr. “Voice of Reason” (aka: Killjoy) said it could potentially piss off a solicitor enough for them to key our car or do something else equally evil. Further evidence as to why I don’t want solicitors on my property. All that repressed anger from everyone shutting the door in their face has to come out somewhere. So, another great idea hits the trash bin. Just like my plans for renting out the dog to dig up gardens in the spring. She digs up our backyard for free. It’s about time she earns her keep.

So, on his advice, I’m not handing out the letter. If you decide to do so, you’re on your own. (Download PDF copy)

Thank you so much for disturbing me while I was doing something more interesting and important than answering my door to find you standing there, ignoring my “No Solicitors” sign. I’m guessing you either don’t know what “Soliciting” means, or think the word doesn’t apply to you. It does.

People who solicit, or engage in soliciting, are Solicitors. That’s you.

Soliciting:

To seek orders for trade, as for a business, or to ask for or offer something in exchange for something else, as in conducting surveys, witnessing, etc. If you do this, you are a Solicitor. Please take another look at the sign on the door.

Examples:

1.   You want to ask me some questions about my roof/siding/windows/paint job/gutters/address lettering/lawn, etc. You’re asking these questions with the motive of selling me roof/siding/windows/paint job/gutters/address lettering/lawn care, etc. You are Soliciting!

2.   You want to talk to me about my soul/heaven/hell/the afterlife/living well/being a world citizen, etc. You’re doing so because you want to sell me on your religion/church/synagogue/spiritual path/holy writings, etc.  This is Soliciting!

3.   You have a simple survey you’d like me complete about politics/religion/hate crimes/drugs/war/taxes, etc. You’re conducting the survey because you want to influence my opinions about politics/religion/crime in general /drugs/war/taxes, etc. That’s a Solicitation!

I hope you have found this enlightening, and that you will take this home, or back to the office, to share with your friends/spouse/family/children/boss/co-workers/pastor/life partner, etc. so all of you will reach the level of enlightenment that is achieved by not bothering people who have “No Soliciting” signs.

Please do not crumple this and throw it on my lawn, or I’ll have to explain “Littering” and “Vandalism.”

On behalf of everyone with a “No Solicitors” sign, I thank you for reading, and look forward to having you pass by my home in the future.

With the white hot fury of a thousand suns, I hate spammers with every fiber of my being.

I do everything I can to keep spam out of my inbox. I have anti-spam resources on my server. I regularly blacklist domains that are used to send spam. I keep my private email account private. Because not everyone who has my email address can be trusted to treat it as respectfully as I do theirs, my email address ends up on spammer lists when they  “Send to all my contacts” the latest chain mail, or put my email address in the TO: field to set out a cat picture to everyone they’ve spoken to in their entire life, or they add my contact information to an online database because they get Points.

Normally, I just quietly blacklist the latest offender, but when I got the following email from Maria Bartell at NetProspex, it made me a more than a little crazy.

They want to send me emails to introduce me to special offers, industry events, or invite me to participate in customer surveys, but, “before we begin sending you emails,” they say, “I want to be certain that our emails are welcome. If you do not want to receive these types of emails in the future, click here:”

In other words, they’re going to send spam, and claim I opted in, because I didn’t opt-out. Gaaaahhhhh.

I’ve added them to my blacklist, so I won’t hear any more from them. However, I have a little message for them:

I shouldn’t have to opt-out of your spam. You should request people to opt-in. Of course, you’d do that, if you weren’t a spammer.

But, as a spammer, you don’t care what I think. Or what any of us really want.

A slow, lingering death that starts with searing pain like a hot poker in your most private parts and radiates to the ends of your toenails, as your hair falls out in fiery patches, taking with it your rotting  flesh bit by mouldering bit, until there’s nothing left but your maggot-ridden remains as you lie in a gutter, praying for the final exit as buzzards peck at your skull, and rats tear away at any damp bits left inside of you, is too good an end for spammers like you.

Should I receive another email from you, I will take it as a personal challenge to call upon all the dark forces of the earth and beyond to make your life on earth more dreadful than Hell itself.

Die, spammer, die.

—

Update 03/01/11: It appears I’m not alone in my hatred of spammers. Since writing this post, I’ve discovered many other blog posts on this same theme. Here are three. Enjoy.

http://onemansblog.com/2009/05/01/i-still-hate-spammers-die-spammers-die/ – Explains why spam is such an expensive problem

http://www.soft.tahionic.com/download-die_spammer_die/anti-spam.html – Love their anti-spam tool!

http://highscalability.com/scaling-spam-eradication-using-purposeful-games-die-spammer-die

Spam is big business, and it costs all of us more money in hosting fees, management fees, and even internet connection fees because of the extreme load spam places on all servers. Spammers are the lowest of the low. They steal from us all.