Summer Cleaning

First things first, I guess... My humble apologies for my prolonged absence from SP-land. To all six of my readers (hee hee), I'll try to do better. Sometimes life just gets in the way of your best intentions, ya know?

Last week I decided I'd clean out my email. I have a generic Yahoo! account, and by their tabulations it was half full. Thinking that 3 Megs of email was probably a lot more than I had any interest in storing, I decided to clean house. Plus, I was really bored at work. So... I attacked my 1400 with a hearty zest. Now, you may be asking yourself - how the hell did you end up with 1400 emails? The answer is, like all good psychologists' answers, based on many factors. First of all, I'm a packrat. I shudder to think what my worldly posessions would include if I hadn't moved so damn many times since I was 18. As it is I know I still have just about every piece of correspondance I've ever received (including a Valentine received in 9th grade from a girl I'm not sure I'd call a friend), remote controls from stereo/tv/vcrs that I don't even own anymore, and an incredible tangled ball of cabling in a box that I'll occasionally be able to scavenge something useful from. In short, I don't throw things out. This applies to email especially well combined with factor #2... I'm lazy. Too lazy to click on the delete button after I've read a message. I'd like to blame that on web-based email, but before I switched over to Yahoo! I was still too lazy to hit the "D" key on my keyboard to delete messages in the venerable old "Pine" email program. And finally, as has been pointed out here before, I have a memory like a sieve... it's kinda nice to have the old messages around (not to mention graphical representation of whether or not I wrote the sender a reply or not) so that I can recall what I've done recently.

That said, 1400 messages meant I had trivial fluff from February lying around, and it was time to clean... what follows is a rundown of what I found amongst the rubble:

Quick note: Royce #F sent me the picture of Roy and Mr. Chimpinski (yes, that's the name of the monkey) some time ago. I'd deleted it at the time (yes, that qualifies as a miracle), but remembered he'd sent it. Fortunately, he had a copy left himself (ya damn packrat!) so that I could use it for this article. That's why it's not included in the following timeline, however...

Quick note part 2 - the sequel!: You might not want to view all the following links if you're in an environment where crude humor could cost you a job. There - you've been warned.

We'll go in reverse order, since that's how it's displayed in my account:

Today - 12:26 PM

From:  Wade Anderson
"i can't stop looking at this:"

Wade, Wade, Wade... good work! I can always rely on you for the good pictures...

Friday June 14th - 10:06AM

From:  My Mom!
Subject: Celebrities
"i just saw richie cunningham's mom and the beaver's mom in our breakroom!"

Ya see they were having the opening of the SPAM museum down in Austin, and... ahh forget it. I'll just let the comedy of that sentence stand on it's own. Thanks ma!

Monday, June 3rd - 10:34AM

From: Wade Anderson
Subject: Fwd:Enjoy!

No comment.

Thursday, March 21st - 7:39AM
I think it was Katie Marshall who sent this to me originally, so we'll give her props here:
Click here for link

I think I'll moo-ve... hee hee.

***I see that this link no longer works... I'll see if I can find a replacement.***

Tuesday, February 12th - 6:21PM

From: *deleted*
Subject: personal hygiene


Dear Students,

Every few years it seems that the Director of Graduate Studies needs
to remind graduate students who share offices and perform TA or RA
duties that reasonable standards of personal hygiene must be met.

This is _not_ an issue of adherence to a whimsically chosen cultural
standard, but rather is adherence to a standard that minimizes
discomfort for as many people as possible.

Please do pardon my continuing in detail which is needless for most of
you...

One should wash each day, brush teeth, probably use a deodorant, and
wear fresh clothes. (Wearing perfume to mask odors does not achieve
the desired result.)

That is, do _not_ wear the same shirt for two days (or more) without
washing the shirt with soap. And, before putting on a clean shirt,
_wash_ yourself with soap, and as extra insurance, use deodorant.

I hope that this message reaches the few who had overlooked this
issue.

Love that email... yes, it was actually sent out to a group of students at a University.

Monday, January 14th - 5:10PM

From: North

Get you some Flash if you can't view that. Ditto for the next one, come to think of it...

Monday, January 7th - 11:30AM

From: Steve Loomis

From my brother's daily weblog:

Today I am the victim of severe lower back pain. Not as severe as I've 
had in the past, mind you, as I am sitting up, but it's pretty goddamned 
bad. I have a couple theories on this. First theory is that I am overweight 
and don't excercise enough. That's not terribly likely. Second is that I 
have been favoring my left foot for the last week due to a broken toe. I 
feel this has caused undue stress on my left lower back, resulting in 
today's agony. Heather here at work gave me many Advil and it feels a little 
better, but I am still in pain. Why does Heather know my back hurts? Well, 
because I made this fact clear to all who would listen. Some would call me a 
whiner, or perhaps even a big baby. This is inaccurate. I let people know of my
personal discomfort as a public service. Let's say I were the patient 
zero of some unknown tropical horro disease. What if I die alone this 
weekend in a pool of my own peutrifying flesh and excreta, only to be found in 
three weeks? No one would know what happened, but the information my 
coworkers could provide to the medical examiners woulod be invaluable. "Well, I 
know right before he disappeared his back hurt, and a week before that his 
foot hurt" The medical community at large could then begin looking for 
people with foot and back pain and try to sequester them before the whole 
populace got whatever it is that killed me. I would be a posthumous hero. I want 
my monument in Aluminum and I would like the disease to be called 
"Religion", so when people speak of the dead they can say "everything was great for 
him, until he got Religion. Then his ass exploded in a horrid green torrent 
of blood infused shit and he died miserable and alone in front of the TV.
Springer was on when they found him" I think that would make it all worth it.

I think he may have a point...

Friday, December 7th, 2001 - 9:31AM

From: Jeff Wiggins
Subject: Haiku Error Messages

-----------------------
  Your file was so big.
  It might be very useful.
  But now it is gone.
  - -----------------------
The website you seek
Cannot be located, but
  Countless more exist.
- -----------------------
  Chaos reigns within.
  Reflect, repent and reboot.
Order shall return.
  --------------------
Aborted effort.
Close all that you have worked on.
You ask far too much.
  -----------------------
Windows NT crashed.
  I am the Blue Screen of Death.
  No-one hears your screams.
  -----------------------
  Yesterday it worked.
  Today it is not working.
  Windows is like that.
  - -----------------------
  Stay the patient course.
Of little worth is your ire.
The network is down.
  - -----------------------
  A crash reduces
  Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.
  - -----------------------
  Three things are certain:
Death, taxes and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.
  -----------------------
You step in the stream,
  But the water has moved on.
  This page is not here.
- -----------------------
Out of memory.
  We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.
- -----------------------
  Having been erased,
  The document you're seeking
Must now be retyped.
- -----------------------
  I ate your Web page.
Forgive me; it was tasty
And tart on my tongue 

You will feel my pain
Will this damn thing end today?
Monkeys throw their poop

And finally... in an effort to spare you from more haikus, I'll simply choose the best Mullet Haiku from the ones Dan Stedman sent me so long ago...

sammy sosa had
a fro-let when he was young
he sold out and shaved

That's all for today. Try your waitress, tip your veal. Or something. Hopefully more columns will be forthcoming... I think I'm finally untracked! Hah.