E-Delivered Nastiness

Several years ago, a friend was complaining about the *forwards* her 'old coot' FIL used to bombard her with from his AOL account. After all, he had her work email address and....she was too freakin' busy to be bothered with his political/joke spam and clippings directly from the snopes.com FALSE file.

This young lady was tech-savvy, I'm talking 10 years ago, and told me how she *created a rule* for the email he sent her.

Fast forward to today...

Now I'm having some email issues. Quite frankly way too many worthless ones pour into my inboxes.

Worthless I can deal with, but I've about had it with people who send me NASTY emails. I've gotten to the point where upon the first iota of nastiness I detect, I hit the delete button. And I don't care who it's from!

I mean I'm busy as (poop), I don't need to be distracted or riled up by some wimp who wants to hurl invective at me from the safety afforded by distance.

Some people I've successfully cut off by ignoring them. But today I finally started creating filters in my inbox that will either instantly archive or delete emails I receive from certain unspecified individuals. Unfortunately Gmail does not have *bounce back* functionality which is too bad - because I would like the people I bounce to get the message.

What's your nasty-email policy?

See also - Doing The Nasty, Email.

Drowning In Email

I really look down upon those Morons who always have their head buried in their *smart* phones - at the park, in the library, on the train, AT THE BAR ON FRIDAY NIGHT, etc. If they are doing work it's one thing....but MyFace.com is another.

But unfortunately and reluctantly, I have recently joined their ranks.

My personal email inbox currently has 609 unread emails. And my CaptiousNut inbox is currently overflowing with 1208 unread messages.

So now when I'm away from my desk, taxiing my kids all over the place and whatnot, I've decided that I have to put down my books for a little while and stare at my Droid until I get my email under control.

Oh yeah, and even after some serious purging of blogs, I still have over 300 unread items in my Google Reader.

I kind of like the idea of mustering up the courage to declare email bankruptcy.

Essentially, you're supposed to simple delete everything in your inbox and perhaps even send out an email to everyone stating that you did just that! Any message that was THAT IMPORTANT in your inbox will in all likelihood be re-sent to you anyway - or so the theory goes.

Technology - A Homeschooling Parent's Ally

How amazing is it that I can now simply email the 5.75 year old Prince his assignments!!!???

This is what I sent him earlier tonight. Click to enlarge if necessary.

Click here to see his work.

The overriding goal all along has been to accelerate his path to adulthood. These days I am routinely emailing him interesting articles and websites that I come across. Often times I tell him to check out a link I sent him and then *forward* it to his uncle or his grandfather. Before you know it he'll be doing that AND initiating email conversations all on his own.

Last Friday night was surreal. While riding the train into NYC for 10 hours of boozing and gluttony....my phone kept buzzing. The Prince was sending me smart-a$$ emails with sad-face emoticons and whatnot. The little bugger was cracking himself up!

CaptiousNut Incognito!

Recall I just upgraded my 5.75 year old PC and boy is it nice to be out of the Dark Ages!

Everything is better: the speed at which it turns on and off, the Paint program, MS-Office that's NOT from 2002, etc.

My old PC, with the hard drive 83% filled, was on the fritz and hence didn't respond well to the barrage of updates that continually flew in: Windows, Java, virus software...so I couldn't really install the latest versions of everything, nor did I feel like I needed to.

But now that I'm back up to speed, there's one thing in particular that I'm enjoying - the Google Chrome Browser. It's a vast improvement from the version of Explorer I had been using, IMO. One aspect of it that I just discovered is the *Incognito* option.

When I first saw it, I partially inferred what it was. I could open an *Incognito* browser and it would be disjoint from my extant browser sessions. Right away I successfully opened my other Gmail account in it. You see before I could only be logged into one at a time and it was real annoying. If my wife wanted to come over and check her email I had to log out of not only my Gmail account but also Blogger, my Google Docs, and Google Reader. What a pain in the butt it was.

Then when I got the Droid phone, I'd do all my personal email on the tiny *smartphone* while I had my CaptiousNut account open on the PC. It was ridiculous how I used to forward personal stuff from my phone to my C-Nut account just so I could see it on the computer without logging out of everything!

But apparently the incognito browser does more than just permit simultaneous access to multiple Gmail accounts:

For times when you want to browse in stealth mode, for example, to plan surprises like gifts or birthdays, Google Chrome offers the incognito browsing mode. Here's how the incognito mode works:

Webpages that you open and files downloaded while you are incognito aren't recorded in your browsing and download histories.

All new cookies are deleted after you close all incognito windows that you've opened.

Hmmmm.....let me see.

ALL browsing history, download history, and cookies are expunged...

If you believe this were designed for hiding *surprise birthday parties*, then you my friend, are a Moron.

BTW, there are a whole bunch of other innovations that I am enjoying on updated PC like Sticky Notes, Chess Titans (for my son), the scribble pad, the improved Movie Maker, and no doubt plenty more things I've yet to discover.

It's kind of exciting to deny yourself all the latest and greatest in some areas because it makes the eventual upgrading all the more fun - like a time-warp into the present.

Now I'm going back to planning my wife's *surprise birthday party*. Her special day was actually last week, but it's going to take me a full year (of browsing) to plan next year's soirée...

Living With The MIL Chronicles 2 - Off-The-Hook Phone Ringing

Obviously, whenever you move into someone else's house, there are going to be novel things for you to deal with.

The kitchen won't be arranged the way you're used to; there may be different *thermostat* policies; and so on.

One thing here at my MIL's house that's driving me a little bit bananas is her phones - which are throughout the house, ringing all day long.

It's telemarketers, charitable organizations, political fundraisers, et al. There are distant relatives that call and, of course, all the people that normally keep in touch with or do business with my MIL.

Except that the phone rings, literally, off the hook! There are a stupendous *41 missed calls* on the Caller ID at the moment.  Have you ever seen such a number?  I hadn't.

The other night the phone rang at 10:30 pm when we were sleeping.

There was one phone in my room, next to my bed that just had to go. My personal policy was to NOT AT ALL answer the phone. And why would I? It'd would never be for me. I'm not an answering service or a secretary - especially not when it rings that often. I really wanted to remove this phone - THAT RANG ALL THE TIME - from my nightstand but hesitated at first. After all, this wasn't my house and often times my MIL would be outside, hear her phone ring and run in and grab the closest phone which happened to be the one next to my pillow!

But I had to get finally get rid of it. A week ago, the phone rang and woke me up at 5:12 am. It may have been a wrong number, but still. Enough was enough.

That's the beauty of cell phones. Remember before them when you had to answer OTHER PEOPLE'S personal calls? Remember the small talk you had to endure with your buddy's parents or sister before getting a hold of them?

My own parents' phone seems to ring quite a bit as well.  Generally, the longer you've been somewhere, I think the more your number will be dialed.

But with my MIL, not only has she had the same number for decades, she also donates money to numerous organizations.  And once you're on their lists as *generous*, they're going to solicit you out the wazoo!

Of course just about everything, including the solicitation, can be done over email these days.  My own cell minutes are now down to around only 150 minutes per month - as all the small talk has permanently migrated over to email and text messaging.

I've just about gotten to the point where I loathe everything about phones...

See also - Living With MIL Chronicles 1.

Doing The Nasty, Email

Ever get a *nasty email* from somebody?

Believe it or not, I actually receive perhaps 3-5 per year!

I almost don't know what to do with them. It's one thing for someone, perhaps having a *bad day* or *bad year*, to snap at you verbally. But it's quite another when someone takes the time to articulate their rage via electronic mail. And, furthermore, the nastiness is punctuated if you know the sender to be a deliberate, two-finger typer!

Though it's well within my capabilities, I don't bother to even respond. For example, about a year ago a guy I golfed with a few times sent me this weird nasty email. He was way out of line but I didn't even feel obligated to point that out. He was done - never to witness my soaring 325 yard drives in person again. The guy was a freakin' mere acquaintance for crying out loud - yet he took a tone like he was my undivorceable brother or something.

My policy is firm - DON'T ever respond to nasty emails. Fifth grade is thankfully over!

(BTW, *nasty* blog comments are another matter. Fire away. I generally have good fun with them. I'm particularly amused by those haters who can't stand me, yet read religiously. In five years of blogging, I've ONLY deleted *spam* from my comment threads.)

A back-in-the-day blast for West Coast Tom:



What a terrible song, even for back then.

Wash My Mouth Out With Soap?

Now I'm going to post a link to something here that is very crass.

Attention - All you women out there....DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK. That goes especially for my female relatives. But it also applies to anyone who esteems me higher than a creep, an a$$hole, a Moron, a hypocrite, a loser, a pervert, etc.

I was searching for a forehead sweat pic for a post earlier today when I came across the crass image that I'll link to below.

For kicks, I emailed it out to the LCD of my contact list. When I tell you that I got a 100% rapid-fire response from all of them, I'm not exaggerating a little bit.

I haven't received such insta-feedback since I sent out that crazy pic of my wife's pregnant belly some 5.5 years ago. Of course, that pic of my son's foot in utero traveled the world in light-speed - making him famous even before he was a five year old blogging and mastering algebra.

I don't know what potential this link has in that regard. Perhaps it's just fodder for the LCD and my GutterBuddies.

THE LINK....that I'm not morally responsible for in any way, shape, or form.

Surprise, surprise, WestCoastTom asked me where he could buy a couple dozen.

Again, anyone who clicks on that link and chastises me for posting it will then be targeted for personal Marginalization (and that means you, beloved MIL, you know darn well how much content I'm sitting on!).

Better Bundlers....Get Paid

Check out these two screenshots:





They are from *unofficial* blogs of Jim Roger and Peter Schiff. In fact I follow both of them in my Google Reader.

What they do, particularly with a far-flung guy like Rogers, is simply collate and bundle his public commentary - videos and quotes. This is an almost effortless task with Google email search alerts and whatnot.

As you can see, the sites are littered with *ads* and they both show up HIGH atop the search results for these market mavens. So the site-owners are probably making some nice change - especially given the ease of their actual work.

I'd say that's not a bad business plan at all!

See also - Submit Thyself To Google.

Just What We Need - Another FORWARDER!

So my father, a 66 year old 'old coot', JUST finally got *on email*.

Sure enough, at least one of his friends is bombarding him with *forwards*. I mean BOMBARDING....5 per day or so. I counted 8 so far tonight!

I just had to do a sift through. Some of them were good (like the above), but others might be a little too much of a shock for a man of his years.

We all have them, email buddies that can be counted on to send the *DO NOT OPEN AT WORK* variey of email.

And we all have, or should have(!), a systematic approach to handling electronic mail: do we look at them quickly(?), or save them(?), and the calculus of whom in our inbox might they get forwarded to.

The opposite of a Moron, I would never send anything to anyone at a work address that was even political or personal, never mind inappropriate. I can't tell you how many peers I have that complain about an uncle or inlaw sending them inappropriate forwards (almost a redundancy!) to their work addresses. Don't even get my wife started on forwards!

And I have my people mentally organized. Some I'll send chauvinistic junk to; others, like my MIL, will get the 'old coot' humor; there's a remnant whom I'll send religiously themed content.

Obviously, it'd take my father more time than he has left to develop a *system* and master email etiquette.

He's a genuine two-finger-typing luddite so I don't expect him to become problematic. But still, if I could I'd go into his account right now and disable the FORWARD button...

OR, at least I'd make it so that he can only BCC people.

OldCoot@AOL.com

Remember these? They used to keep showing up in our mailboxes:



And guess what....it's up to AOL 12.0 now!

Actually, it could be higher; at least that's the version I saw running on my MIL's computer over Christmas. I submit that as far as technology is concerned, one should never utilize ANYTHING that's in it's 12th iteration.

It is somewhat incredible, that no surer *age test* exists at the moment. If someone has an AOL email address....then they are most certainly over the age of 60!

Because, of course, if they change to gmail or yahoo....their friends will NEVER, EVER be able to find them with the latest forward from the *FALSE* file at snopes.com.

So my cousin was valiantly trying to de-clutter her mother's (my aunt's) house a couple of years ago.

Cousin - Did you know my mom has piles of *100 Free Hours* AOL disks that came in the mail? She was saving them for years, thinking they must have been worth something - I guess.

That reminds me, I haven't heard from my dear aunt in quite some time. Either her computer is acting up (again!) on account of viruses, spam, and cheapness....or, perhaps she just hasn't made it to the public library. Because, as y'all know, the 'olds', both 'coots' and 'bags', go there to *check email*.

Cracking Myself Up

Remember this, from prior post - Gratuitous Eco-Evangelism:



???

Well I've finally gotten around to setting up my own email signature/footer:

Print at will - Please THINK before you consider the environment.

Which reminds me, I do need to order some more toner cartridges...

C-Nut Ventures Back To The Future

I feel like I've just been time-warped to the future; though I've probably only arrived at the recent past.

All thanks to the successful initialization of that iPod Touch thingy!

Now it did take me a week - see last Sunday's post - and a couple of headaches but it's working now.

First, I couldn't get iTunes to load on either my old PC or my newish Sony laptop. Eventually it came through on the latter, albeit after 2 hours of agony. (Even though I have little interest in putting music on it, the iTouch won't configure without iTunes and a PC. I think.)

Then, I had problems with it retrieving email. I scoured help and discussion forums all over the web to no avail. What eventually worked, was me turning off my router's wireless security. So I still haven't tried it on the *outside*, but let me just say that so far it has been a boon even within these walls.

Basically, the iTouch is going to give me a big, much-needed efficiency boost.

For example, yesterday while my wife commandeered my PC, I laid on the bed and was able to not only rest my back and share the computer, I was able to reduce my email inbox by 65 messages or so!

I got all geeked up and my wife mocked me,

Yes, in 2009 it is possible to get EMAIL on a handheld...

I don't get much computer time during the weekdays on account of my kids, but most of the time when I do run over, I've recently realized that it was just to check my email - to see blog comments coming in, to see what my wife wants for dinner, to see what train she's coming home on, etc.

But now I no longer have to drop what I'm doing, or kick a kid off the computer, to find out!

In fact, yesterday I put the iTouch on my nightstand and checked my email a couple of times in the middle of the night. Remember, I'm essentially an 'old coot' with my sleep habits - sleeping 4 hours or so, getting up all night long to go to the bathroom, investigate noises, empty rodent traps, etc.

I still have to check the WiFi connectivity of it at my local haunts: the playgrounds, libraries, community centers, the bar, etc. Hopefully, I'll get some reception.

Though now I'm thinking....if just the pedestrian iTouch can help me so much....then maybe I should just go get that Verizon Droid thingy with the complete data package?

We'll see how this goes first. I rather doubt that I could substantially blog more given a handheld Droid or Blackberry. When I'm writing, I use both monitors, am looking through big pic folders, have my notes with me, prefer solitude, and usually have about 10 browser tabs open at once. I really do try to think hard about what I write - even if the readership can't always tell.

Email Profiling

The other day, I espied a new *mom* at the park; I approached her; made time with her; and left with her email address.

Okay, that's not quite the whole story.

My wife had told me that if I ever ran into a woman with 3 kids, who had a boy our son's age named X,...she told me to get her phone number because our children played really well together. And this way they could try to meet up in the future.

But the actual email address put second thoughts in my wife's head.

This park *mom* had a NETZERO email account!

What, is this 1999 or something?

Furthermore, she disclosed to me that it was a joint husband-and-wife account. And I won't even talk about the childish reference to a favorite sports team that constituted the account name.

In summary, anyone with such an antiquated, Luddite, cheapskate email address ought to be horribly embarrassed - which she was upon revealing it to me.

I pretty much feel the same way about hotmail email users. That is sooooo 1990s!

'Old coots' and 'old bags'....we can forgive them for sticking with AOL.

People that use their local internet provider, e.g. Comcast, Charter, Time Warner, Cablevision,...., they are a bit suspect as well. They don't understand that if they move out of the region, that they'll lose those email accounts.

I do have a near fifty-year old SIL that still has Earthlink....



But probably the only thing worse than *Netzero* would be, I don't know,

....having a Compuserve email address???

Don't ask me why I found the following funny.



Maybe the funniest part of it (besides the credit card company being *next door*) was that this idiot took the time and effort to make the video!

Gratuitous Eco-Evangelism

I just got an email from somebody which had the following *footer*:



For the record, I almost never print anything out. When I look up driving directions, I go so far as to grab a scrap of paper and transcribe the map. Those pricey toners just go too fast.

So I certainly don't need anyone invoking *the environment* as a reason not to print out an email ON MY PRINTER.

How about I create my own preachy email footer?

Follow Jesus or you'll burn in hell!

I seriously doubt many people would enjoy seeing that admonition every single time I write them.

My wife informs me that at her company, that same message is now appended to every corporate email. This I can sort of understand because the aggregate toner and paper wage slaves probably waste.

And she also informs me that she STILL just prints whatever the heck she wants!

*Saving trees* is in neither her job description nor our religion.

Atta girl!

Watermarks Of The Jurassic

Nice pic of my kids, huh?

My mother just emailed it over. Oh, did some of you guess that?

Yeah, the *burned-in date* is a dead giveaway, right?

Tell me something, why, WHY DO THEY ALL DO THAT?

Why do fossils all, for some reason, rig their cameras to ruin EVERY pic with fluorescent, DOS-like fonted *dates*???

It's just got to be because....when they go through their albums today, they can't remember anything about the old photos they have. They don't know when or where pictures were taken; and they often can't even tell you which baby/toddler is which!

What kills me is that these 'old coots' and 'old bags' can't do ANYTHING technological. Heck, their VCRs all still flash 12:00 and their car clocks are off by an hour for half the year. But, by some fluke, they unanimously figured out how to ruin digital photos with unnecessary data.

AND, they all have their cameras set on ridiculously high pixel counts.

Then they try to attach like 10 of them in a single email....which invariably gets bounced back because of excessive size. Then jurassic techno-frustration rears its head....

And they call one of us thinking they have a *virus* - which many of them do get because they click on tantalizing *win $1,000* pop up ads and the like!

The clincher is that high resolution shots are only needed if someone is planning on printing out the photo.

But who really wants a framed picture with the date burned in?!

Funny, Like Dad

So a couple of weeks ago, while I was primping or something my son hollered out to me, "Dad, how do you spell 'barf'?"

The next thing I know, he and his sister are in my bedroom, at the computer, laughing their little hinies off.

Prince C-Nut was doing google image searches of *barf* and *puke*. It was pretty darn funny if I do say so myself.

Then, since my son, as part of his ongoing homeschool curriculum, has been sending out emails regularly, I saw a teachable moment.

I showed him how to attach a file/pic to his correspondences. So he sent the above *barfs* to an uncle and an aunt.

Believe me, the kid is going to be funny. He's literally the only one on the planet, including my wife, that NEVER falls for my sarcasm. He always knows whether I am serious or not - and he's merely 4.5 years young.

Our Pols - Humorless Liars And Idiots

White House Watermelon Email From California Mayor Dean Grose Inspires Outrage

The mayor of Los Alamitos is coming under fire for an e-mail he sent out that depicts the White House lawn planted with watermelons, under the title "No Easter egg hunt this year."

Local businesswoman and city volunteer Keyanus Price, who is black, said Tuesday she received the e-mail from Mayor Dean Grose's personal account on Sunday and wants a public apology.
Grose confirmed to the AP that he sent the e-mail to Price and said he didn't mean to offend her. He said he was unaware of the racial stereotype that black people like watermelons.

He said he and Price are friends and serve together on a community youth board.

"Bottom line is, we laugh at things and I didn't see this in the same light that she did," Grose told the AP. "I'm sorry. It wasn't sent to offend her personally - or anyone - from the standpoint of the African-American race."

Grose, who became mayor in December, said he sent an apology e-mail to Price and her boss and also left her a voicemail apology.

Regardless, Price said it will be difficult for the two to work together.

"Now I am like - wow, is this really how he feels?" Price said.

He didn't know the *stereotype*?

If anyone believes that....they are so stupid they deserve to be lied to!

Furthermore, I fail to see how the propensity to eat watermelon is an offensive stereotype. It's a harmless fact.

Look, 'old coots' crave bland meat-and-potatoes, Latinos only eat at Taco Bell, Indians have their curry, Asians eat a lot of Ramen and canine, Bostonians like to eat crap, and blacks have a natural hankering for one particular fruit.

(And one particular beer, one particular boned meat, one particular vegetable, one particular evaporated drink, and one particular soft drink.)

So what's the big deal? Where's the *offense*?



Man, was the Fuzzy Zoeller/Tiger Woods incident really 12 years ago now?

Submit Thyself to Google

I use Google for email now. Why use an email account that's dependent on me keeping the same ISP like Comcast, RCN, Verizon, or Time Warner?

Google will also store your "docs and spreadsheets". So I uploaded all my important files to my gmail account. These are for the most part dynamic files so I will only update them through the web now. No longer do I have to worry about a fire or water damage in my house. No longer do I have to worry about my hard drive blowing. No longer do I have to periodically write my files to a cd - and store them. (I tried to do it every two months.)

Of course my blogs are hosted by Google.

My videos are housed on youtube, owned by Google.

Also, I started using Google Alerts to research commodities. Since I know very little about them, I created alerts like "cotton trading", "sugar trading", etc. and my inbox is getting inundated with news stories and blog posts that I would otherwise not so easily find. In just a few weeks I have learned a ton about my new hobby/investment. I would recommend using alerts for any subject one is interested or invested in.

I also have an alert for "captiousnut" so I can stay on top of what the Lilliputians are saying about me.

Google, in a sense, is just like the Microsoft Windows of yesteryear. They keep adding so much functionality that it's a veritable chore to keep abreast of it - never mind utilize it all.



Be not afraid, submit thyself to Google.

It's free!