EMAIL FACTS OF LIFE
1. Big companies don't do business via chain letter. Bill Gates is not
giving you $1000, and Disney is not giving you a free vacation.
2. There is no baby food company issuing class-action checks. You can
relax;
there is no need to pass it on "just in case it's true." Furthermore, just
because someone said in the message, four generations back, that "we checked
it out and it's legit," does not actually make it true.
3. There is no kidney theft ring in New Orleans. No one is waking up in a
bathtub full of ice, even if a friend of a friend swears it happened to
their cousin. If you are insistent on believing the kidney-theft ring
stories, please see: http://urbanlegends.tqn.com/library/weekly/aa062997.htm
And I quote: "The National Kidney Foundation has repeatedly issued requests
for actual victims of organ thieves to come forward & tell their stories.
None have. That's "none," as in "ZERO". Not even your friend's cousin.
4. Neiman Marcus doesn't really sell a $200 cookie recipe. And even if they
do, we all have it. And even if you don't, you can get a copy at:
http://www.bl.net/forwards/cookie.html Then, if you make the recipe, decide
the cookies are that awesome, feel free to pass the recipe on. (But I hear
they stink.)
5. We all know all 500 ways to drive your roommates crazy, irritate CO-
workers, gross-out bathroom stall neighbors, and creep out people on an
elevator. We also know exactly how many engineers, college students, Usenet
posters, and people from each and every world ethnicity it takes to change a
light bulb.
6. Even if the latest NASA rocket disaster(s) DID contain plutonium that
went to particulate over the eastern seaboard, do you REALLY think this
information would reach the public via an AOL chain-letter?
7. There is no "Good Times" virus. In fact, you should never, ever, ever
forward any email containing any virus warning unless you first confirm it
at an actual site of an actual company that actually deals with virii. Try:
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html And even then, don't forward it.
We don't care.
8. If your CC: list is regularly longer than the actual content of your
message, you're probably going to be punished eternally. (Ever heard of
BCC:?)
9. If you're using Outlook, IE, or Netscape to write email, turn off "HTML
encoding." Those of us on Unix shells can't read it, and don't care enough
to save the attachment and then view it with a web browser, since you're
probably forwarding us a copy of the Neiman-Marcus Cookie Recipe anyway.
10. If you still absolutely MUST forward that 10th-generation message from a
friend, at least have the decency to trim the eight miles of headers showing
everyone else who's received it over the last 6 months. It sure wouldn't
hurt to get rid of all the ">" that begin each line. Besides, if it has gone
around that many times, we've probably already seen it.
11. Craig Shergold in England is not dying of cancer or anything else at
this time and would like everyone to stop sending him their business cards.
He apparently is also no longer a "little boy" either.
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