a small rant

The Viennese certainly love their cheese. This photo
was taken in a local grocery store during our trip.


Happy New Year, everyone! We spent New Year's Eve at a small dinner party hosted by our friends Alison and Jeff with Parki, Craig and Taz (sp?). Much lobster and interesting conversation; it was a great way to end the year.

Hey, Sidewalk Rescue, my sister's newest book (she did the illustrations, story by Hazel Hutchins), is now available for pre-ordering on Amazon!

Still way behind in e-mail. This morning I received an unsolicited promotional message from a writer I don't know with a whopping 5 MB attachment (his manuscript in MS Word format). No explanation in the letter of why he was sending it to me, just a synopsis of the book:

"CONSERVATIVE, CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW OF HOW
HISTORY FORMED THE UNITED STATES EMPIRE AND
AMERICA'S MANIFEST DESTINY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY"

Since he was using my Market Watch e-mail address (ignoring my request NOT TO SEND MANUSCRIPTS), I assume he was hoping I can get him published somehow.

I can't help but wonder: what the heck (have I mentioned that ViaVoice actually censors swear words?) was going through this guy's head? Even if I was an editor looking for manuscripts, the writer should have sent a query first to find out if I was actually interested in seeing his book. I was bcc:ed on the message, so who knows how many others were also targeted.

I despise spam, but I especially despise BIG spam. Speaking of spam, I've been getting bounced messages indicating that someone is sending out spam using my e-mail address. GRRRRRRRRRRR. Any advice appreciated.

Saw Peter Pan last night with Allison and Jodi. Fun movie, and I (ahem) especially enjoyed all scenes with Jason Isaacs as Hook.

Diversions

Speaking of spam, here are the 10 most common spam topics, according to AOL.

Could you write, cast, shoot, score, and edit an entire movie in a day?.

January 2004 comments: Read | Post | LJ