Spamalot Lately?

This morning my friend Peggy sent out an e-mail informing a small number of friends about Dish Up Literacy. This is a very cool program that encourages people to eat out at participating area restaurants this Thursday. The restaurants then donate 20 percent of their receipts that day towards an effort to buy more books for our schools.

What I found interesting was the fact that Peggy prefaced her e-mail by explaining that she was sending it out because it's for a good cause but we don't have to worry she will start spamming us. She had received the e-mail from another friend who also explained that she wasn't trying to spam anyone.

I hadn't really thought of this e-mail as spam and so I found the disclaimers curious. I can only guess that someone out there had received one too many e-mails about worthy causes and declared war on them.

The Mirriam-Webster's Online Dictionary describes spam as "unsolicited usually commercial e-mail sent to a large number of addresses." I just describe it as delicious, especially fried and slapped between two slices of white bread. Sorry, couldn't help myself.

For the record, I welcome any e-mails from my friends regarding good causes. I also welcome jokes that are particularly raunchy, family photos and any personal updates. What I don't care to receive are e-mails containing the following:

• Offers to enlarge my penis or make me fabulously wealthy by assisting some Nigerian prince
• Any dire warnings about Internet viruses, diseases or upcoming gang initiations that have not been checked for accuracy. Really, is Snopes THAT hard to use?
• Sentimental, heartwarming messages about (friendship, kittens, angels, old people who say profound things, etc.) that come with instructions to send it to seven friends.
• Anything that has been forwarded so many times I have to keep opening new messages to get to the original message. If a message isn't important enough for you to copy and paste into a new e-mail, it's probably not something I need to read.

And now for some humor! Recently I DID send an unsolicited video link to a friend of mine because I knew she would find it funny. Now I share it (unsolicited) with you! And the subject is religion! I can do this because it's my blog, but, no matter what your religious beliefs may be, please tell me if this video doesn't have you rolling on the floor with tears in your eyes.