Pet Peeve!

Agh! Three times this past week I have been sent an e-mail. My e-mail address is included in the header with every other e-mail address the person sending me the e-mail has in his/her address book. First of all, that is pay dirt for spammers. Secondly, do you really think Bill Gates and AOL are going to pay you for forwarding an e-mail? Did you not learn in elementary school, "If it sounds too good to be true, it is!?"

So for those of you who are prone to forwarding e-mail JUNK, please take note of the following Netiquette (net etiquette)

• If you are thinking about forwarding anything to your entire address book, DON'T DO IT. You have just become a spammer if you do.
• If you are thinking about forwarding anything to more than one person in your address book, make sure they want it. Then, if you still decide to send it, use the Bcc: option to send (i.e. don't put all those addresses in the To: box, use the Bcc: box - Blind Carbon Copy). Nobody really wants to read through 100 e-mail addresses just to get to the subject of the e-mail, and most of those people don't want to share their e-mail address with everyone else in your address book.
• And finally...my pet peeve...please make sure whatever you are passing on is not an URBAN LEGEND! An urban legend is an UNTRUE story...like the Bill Gates/AOL giving you money for every person you forward an e-mail to. No matter how incredible or touching the story sounds, check it out before you pass it along!

For those of you who don't know how to do this, I'm going to give you a 30 second lesson that will keep you from embarrassing yourself passing along false information and will keep you from irritating people like me. Ready? Go to www.snopes.com and look for the story you received. If it was forwarded to you via e-mail, chances are the story will be found here. People have taken the time to research the story, so take just a moment to go to their site and check it out. For Pete's sake (no, for MY sake), bookmark the page for future reference.

Now, as I calmly step off my soapbox and take a deep breath, let me share something good that came of my annoying e-mails today. I already knew the story I was forwarded was an urban legend, but it caused me to go to Snopes just to see what other annoying stories are circulating right now. I found one story that was researched and proven to be true. Check out the story here, and then check out the videos here and here. This is incredible...I guarantee it is worth your time. This guy has 16,000 Christmas (not holiday) lights on his house and he has them synchronized to music. You can check out the guy's web page with all the details here. Absolutely incredible.

So, thank you for letting me get that off my chest. Be sure to check out the video...it is incredible!

- Rob