Pay It Forward

I imagine that everyone gets annoyed with forwarded emails from time to time. There are definitely individual members of each of our circles of family and friends that are the worst. These are my particular complaints:

1) Most forwarded emails in general. The utmost discretion should be exercised when forwarding emails. Emails probably should only be forwarded if they are ridiculously funny or are very moving. Also, emails should not be forwarded to 200 people. This makes it look completely impersonal.

2) The 'if you don't forward this on to ten friends you will (insert ridiculous claim here)' emails. The ridiculous claims usually include not finding your true love or having bad luck for a certain period of time. I recently heard the worst of all: that you will go to hell if you do not forward the email. How desperate are people? Really.

3) When you get added to an email chain that you don't want to be on, with regular reply-all-ers. This situation is crappy because you can't be a dick and ask to be removed. So you have to sit there are suffer through each and every response as a new message.

One of the most important things that I suggest when forwarding an email is making it seem like it is not forwarded. That means deleting all of the previous garbage that attaches to email chains - addresses and comments. This at least makes it look like it is your own find rather than something that has been passed along forever.

In other news, my cable input device on my TV no longer works. This means no cable (most importantly no DVR) and no Super Nintendo. Accordingly I will be in the market for a new TV. If you have any suggestions, recommendations or complaints I would appreciate it.