You know, I've found recently that "SPAM" is now one of those words that gets bandied about so much that you forget what it means. For the sake of this discussion, here are a couple of definitions:

1. To send unsolicited e-mail to.
2. To send (a message) indiscriminately to multiple mailing lists, individuals, or newsgroups.
3. To post irrelevant or inappropriate messages to one or more Usenet Newgroups, mailing lists, or other messaging system in deliberate or accidental violation of netigquette.
4. To indiscriminately send large amounts of unsolicitede-mail meant to promote a
   product or service. Spam in this sense is sort of like the electronic equivalent of junk mail sent to "Occupant".

Of all of these, I like number three the best.

Why do I mention this? Because, for the fifth time this week and the 50th time this year it seems, I received the following email:

Just give it some thought


This was originally sent by a retired Coca Cola executive It came
from one of his engineer buddies
who retired from Halliburton. It's worth your consideration.

Join the resistance!!!! I hear we are going to hit close to $ 4.00 a
gallon by next summer and it might
go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down? We need to take some
intelligent, united action.

Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea. This makes MUCH MORE SENSE
than the "don't buy gas on a
certain day" campaign that was going around last April or May! The
oil companies just laughed at that.
BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can
really work. Please read on and join with us!

By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $1.50 is
super cheap. Me too! It is currently
$2.79 for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the oil companies
and the OPEC nations have
conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at
$1.50 - $1.75, we need to take
aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the
marketplace..not sellers. With the price of
gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action.
The only way we're going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook
by not purchasing their gas! And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. How? We CAN have
an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY
gasoline from the two biggest companies
(which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are not selling any
gas, they will be inclined to reduce
their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will
have to follow suit. But to have an
impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas
buyers. It's really simple to do! Now, don't wimp out on me at this point...keep reading and I'll explain
how simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us send it to at
least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) .. and
those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000)...and so
on, by the time the message reaches
the sixth group of people, we will have reached overTHREE MILLION
consumers.

If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends
each, then 30 million people will have
been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it.....
THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all! (If
you don't understand how we can reach
300 million and all you have to do is send this to 10 people....
Well, let's face it, you just aren't a
mathematician. But I am . so trust me on this one.) How long would
all that take? If each of us sends
this e-mail out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300
MILLION people could conceivably be
contacted within the next 8 days!!! I'll bet you didn't think you and
I had that much potential, did you!
Acting together we can make a difference.

If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. I suggest
that we not buy from EXXON/MOBIL UNTIL
THEY LOWER THEIR PRICE TOTHE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN
REALLY WORK.

First of all, what are this idiot's credentials? I can spout all kinds of nonsense about simple math and multi-level marketing, but this is about global economics and the geo-political state of things in the middle east. But somehow an email from someone I used to work with is going to force me and 299,999,999 folks into action?

Please.

Secondly, I am in IT. The simple fact is that this type of message wastes the time of nearly every employee every day and thus, is effectively stealing money from the company. The folks in my office (and every other office in the world) don't need to waste time filtering thru this electronic refuse, just like they don't need prayer chains for kids no one knows that are collecting post cards. They also don't need to waste time wondering if Bill Gates is going to give them a pc. He's not. I could go on and on with examples, but I shall not.

The other thing these messages do is waste bandwidth on the internet and in offices around the world. Further, they waste server space and server efficiency. How? Because those things are dealing with this garbage instead of putting work-related stuff first.

And lastly, the part that is far more personal. I can't stand these because 99.9999% of the time that I get them, they come from folks that employ no forwarding etiquette whatsoever. If you are forwarding me spam (or even a joke that I would like), please do five things:

1) Tidy up the "Subject" line. There's no way I'm reading one that comes to me like this; "FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: re: GAS." If you clean that up, I may, MAY read the message.
2) Delete all the rows of >>>>>>>>>>>> that are in the message.
3) Copy the text of the forwarded message into your forward. Don't make me open 14 attachments to see the message just because the 13 AOL idiots before you didn't do it right. Be a part of the solution, not part of the problem.
4) Consider your audience. As I said, I'm in IT and have been for over 13 years. If it's new to you and you don't work in IT, chances are I saw it about 12-18 months ago.
5) This relates more to jokes than spam, but I have to throw this in here. Do not, under any circumstances, send something back to me that I sent to you. See, I send funny things out occasionally, only to have them returned to me because my name is in someone's "HUMOR" distribution list. Really, I know it was funny. I sent it. Care enough to see who sent it to you and delete their name from the outgoing e-mail.

Sorry. I got distracted there.

Since someone said this better than I did, I will close with an informational e-mail that, while it may technically be referred to as SPAM, I consider it a public service announcement. This is exactly how I got it and I saved it to forward to folks that send me SPAM (Thanks Cathy):

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. 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.

2. 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 hell-bent on believing the kidney-theft
ring stories, please see:

http://urbanlegends.tqn.com/library/week...

And I quote: "The National Kidney Foundation has repeatedly issued
requests for actual victims of organ thieves to come forward and tell
their stories. None have." That's "none" as in "zero". Not even your
friend's cousin.

3. 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.

4. 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 lightbulb

5. 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?

6. 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.norton.com

And even then, don't forward it. We don't care.

7. If your CC: list is regularly longer than the actual content of your
message, you're probably going to Hell.

8. If you're using Outlook, IE, or Netscape to write email, turn off the
"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.

9. 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.

OR BETTER YET, BLIND CC (bcc) everyone!

10.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.

Have a good day everybody.

and finally, a P.S. Don't type in CAPS. Remember, that's like yelling at someone. It's annoying and it's rude.

Have a great humpday everyone!!