Updates from December, 2005 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Danny Dawson 5:15 pm on Friday, December 2, 2005 Permalink | Reply  

    A plea for email etiquette 

    To: Myself
    BCC: A whole lot of people
    Subject: [Fwd: Fwd: Re: Slow Dance]
    Body:

    For an expose on this hoax, read here:

    http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/s/slowdance.htm

    If you would like to call Dr. Shields directly and ask him if he had anything to do with this email, please find his contact information available here:
    http://www.aecom.yu.edu/dmb/shields.htm
    If you don’t feel like clicking that, here’s his office number 718-430-2653, ext 3281.

    Forwarding an email without editing it for concision and deleting the list of past recipients exposes the email addresses of past recipients to everyone to whom you send the email, as well as anyone to whom the email may be forwarded in the future.

    If you truly insist on passing along a nice story, poem, joke, or some information you feel is important, please keep in mind the following three recommendations:
    1. Don’t expose the email addresses of others to other people. Delete unnecessary addresses from the body of the email, and use the BCC field whenever the email that you’re sending doesn’t require people to “Reply-All”. In case anyone is reading this is wondering how I got your email address – someone else you know forgot this step. You can’t find your address below? That’s because I deleted it.
    2. If “factual” claims are made in the body of the email you’re sending along, try searching Google for “hoax” along with a couple keywords from the body of the message. For instance: search Google for “Dennis Shields hoax” and you’ll find 51,800 results debunking the content of this email.
    3. Keep emails concise. If you just want to pass along a poem or joke, delete everything but the poem or joke. You already read the email when it was sent to you, and you know what parts of it are interesting and what parts aren’t. Delete the garbage out of courtesy to others.

    I’m sorry if you feel that I’ve wasted your time with this email. I’m sorry if you were merely an “innocent recipient” on the list and you already follow similar guidelines that you set for yourself, and thus you feel you have no need to have read this.

    But at the same time, someone you know doesn’t already have similar “guidelines of email etiquette” that they follow, and remaining quiet about it won’t change the situation. Someone else is taking liberties with your contact information, passing it off to others, likely without your permission.

    I, for one, can’t stay quiet about that forever, and I feel it’s inappropriate to complain about what I feel to be “a lack of manners” if I passively let every indiscretion slide. Here’s my attempt to do something about it.

    If you agree with me and would like to share these words with other people you know, in order to spread awareness of email etiquette and save a lot of word-weary email users some time in the long run, please do. (I’ll be posting it on my weblog at http://quasistoic.org as well.)

    But delete my email address from the body before you hit send.

    Thanks,
    -Danny Dawson

    PostScript – I love you, Mom.
    Post-PostScript – Racedrvr: My sincerest apologies to you. I did see the Snopes link you passed along about the email hoax, which I’ll include here for the sake of others:
    http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/medical/slowdance.asp

    On 12/2/05, My Mom wrote:
    >
    >
    > This poem was written by a terminally ill young girl in a New York Hospital .
    > It was sent by a medical doctor – Make sure to read what is in the closing statement AFTER THE POEM.
    >
    > SLOW DANCE
    >
    > Have you ever watched kids
    > On a merry-go-round?
    > Or listened to the rain
    > Slapping on the ground?
    > Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?
    > Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
    > You better slow down.
    > Don’t dance so fast.
    > Time is short.
    > The music won’t last.
    >
    > Do you run through each day
    > On the fly?
    > When you ask How are you?
    > Do you hear the reply?
    > When the day is done
    > Do you lie in your bed
    > With the next hundred chores
    > Running through your head?
    > You’d better slow down
    > Don’t dance so fast.
    > Time is short.
    > The music won’t last.
    >
    > Ever told your child,
    > We’ll do it tomorrow?
    > And in your haste,
    > Not see his sorrow?
    > Ever lost touch,
    > Let a good friendship die
    > Cause you never had time
    > To call and say,”Hi”
    > You’d better slow down.
    > Don’t dance so fast.
    > Time is short.
    > The music won’t last .
    > When you run so fast to get somewhere
    > You miss half the fun of getting there.
    > When you worry and hurry through your day,
    > It is like an unopened gift….
    > Thrown away.
    > Life is not a race.
    > Do take it slower
    > Hear the music
    > Before the song is over.
    >
    > ——————–
    >
    > FORWARDED
    >
    > E-MAILS ARE TRACKED TO OBTAIN THE TOTAL COUNT.
    >
    > Dear All:
    >
    > PLEASE pass this mail on to everyone you know -
    > even to those you don’t know!
    > It is the request of a special girl who
    > will soon leave this world due to cancer.
    > This young girl has 6 months left to live, and as her dying wish,
    > She wanted to send a letter telling everyone to live
    > their life to the fullest, since she never will.
    > She’ll never make it to prom, graduate from high
    > school, or get married and have a family of her own.
    > By you sending this to as many people as possible,
    > you can give her and her family a little hope,
    > because with every name that this is sent to,
    > The American Cancer Society
    > will donate 3 cents per name to her treatment and recovery plan.
    > One guy sent this to 500 people! So I know that we can
    > at least send it to 5 or 6 —
    > (just think ,it could be you one day).
    > It’s not even your money, just your time!
    >
    > PLEASE PASS ON AS A LAST REQUEST
    >
    > Dr. Dennis Shields, Professor
    > Department of Developmental and Molecular Biology
    > 1300 Morris Park Avenue
    > Bronx , New York 10461
    >

    –
    Danny Dawson
    http://quasistoic.org

     

    • claudine 5:34 pm on Friday, December 2, 2005 Permalink

      Awww. My dad sends me these, too. I’ll send him some of your recommendations. :)

    • kathey benoit 9:55 pm on Friday, September 4, 2009 Permalink

      the earliest I’ve found is November of 1999–it’s ten this year..I just hope the girl with 6 months to live, lives as long as this message goes around. if in fact she exists.

    • long island magicians kids birthday parties 9:19 am on Thursday, December 1, 2011 Permalink

      Hey man I only wanted to take a moment to say I really like reading your blog.

  • Danny Dawson 3:58 pm on Tuesday, June 29, 2004 Permalink | Reply  

    Hallelujah! It’s raining mail! 

    Matt Mullenweg, the WordPress guru, is in the process of answering my prayers. I don’t know if he read my previous post on the subject, but his timing is impeccable.

    He’s in the process of developing what seems to be Open Source GMail. Based on Procmail, Spam Assassin, PHP, and MySQL…hell, just read his words:

    Imagine instant Gmail-type searching using FULLTEXT or LIKE. Imagine instant email backup using MySQL replication. Think email RSS feeds, keyed on searches or senders or anything. Don’t forget the interesting metrics that can be extracted from this as well.

    And to top it all off, he’s entertaining suggestions.

    I hope he comes up with a catchy name. I’m not worried about the product itself. He’s already proven himself to me.

     

    • Dinaz Sheriff 6:55 am on Friday, July 9, 2004 Permalink

      hown about @tastytoejam.com for a catchy name? ;P

  • Danny Dawson 2:25 am on Thursday, January 29, 2004 Permalink | Reply  

    Do I Feel Not Wanted? 

    Last night I had another dream about Casper (henceforth I will call her Casper here so that some semblance of anonymity will be saved). Every moment I spend awake, I forget more details of the dream. At this point, I remember only that she may have broken up with me, and that I felt regret about the situation.

    It seems somewhat that this is an ongoing theme in my dreams. She wants to have used me and be rid of me, and I continue to think of her and want more with her for times afterward. Is this how things really are? (Space Space) (Backspace backspace) (Period Period Period) (Backspace Backspace Backspace) (Indecision…)

     

    • jared 2:02 pm on Thursday, January 29, 2004 Permalink

      dude, jason dated a girl we used to call casper.

  • Danny Dawson 2:22 pm on Saturday, December 27, 2003 Permalink | Reply  

    Dreamed I Killed God…Oh God. 

    Last night I dreamt about the future. Everyone had a microchip implanted in their right bicep. Unmanned heli-vehicles monitored the highways for speeders and criminals. I was a marked man. Not marked for a crime I’d committed, but marked for death nonetheless.

    I was attending a convention of some sort in a commercial plaza. The bartab was covered by the hosts, as well as a certain amount of food in a pizzeria there (I want to say it was West Coast Pizza). While there, a government mandate was issued that everyone was to report to a doctor to have their microchips analyzed. There was a doctor in the plaza, so I stopped in while everyone was drinking it up.

    I sat down on the examining table across from another patient doing the same (so much for privacy at the doctor’s). The doctor came over to me and stuck me with a short needle (it reminded me of an immunization needle) in my left bicep. I reacted pretty strongly and demanded to know why he wasn’t checking the chip in my right bicep. Had I been duped by the government? What else were they doing to me that I didn’t know about? He told me to relax; it was a routine test for HIV always performed before microchip evaluations.

    I looked at my right bicep and saw a huge red welt. “Doctor, does this mean I have HIV?”

    Looking frightened, he replied: “A lot of it.” He was pale. I had been infected for a long time, but I never knew. I didn’t have too much longer left.

    I asked to use the restroom, which was in another part of the plaza. I had a hard time finding it, and on the way, I ran into an attractive older black woman I had been flirting with earlier. She looked at me with a smile, taking in my bleached-blonde and dark brown hair, my gray Gap Stretch t-shirt, my baggy blue jeans, and she asked “What was Danny thinking when he decided to be who he is?”

    “This was a Danny dying.”

    I used the restroom and came back out. She was waiting for me. “Where are you going?”

    “This is Danny dying.” She didn’t follow me for a few seconds, then came running up to catch me. My stride was quick and purposeful. “Wait! I can’t let you do this! I won’t-”

    “That’s not what I meant.” I woke from the dream wearing my gray Gap Stretch t-shirt.

     

  • Danny Dawson 12:20 pm on Monday, December 22, 2003 Permalink  

    Dreaming of not feeling 

    I had a dream last night about making love to my ex-girlfriend…the one to whom I never did. We were both competing in a debate tournament, and it took place after the first round, while waiting for the results to be posted. The classroom we were alone in conveniently had a bed. I remember looking into her eyes the entire time. It was slow, gentle, and beautiful.

    Afterwards, I didn’t bother looking at the results for the first round, or the postings for the second. I didn’t care anymore. She did. She had won, and was going on the the next round. I stood by while she practiced her opening speech over and over, but she didn’t pay me any attention. She was absorbed in her studying. She went to the appropriate room when it was time. I remember the walk to my car, wondering when she would notice that I had left…when she would notice how much she cared that I had left…if she cared.

    I felt used, but I didn’t let it show. I crawled back into my stoic shell and went on, like I always do. I let it roll off my back, like I always do. I only let it hurt down deep, like I always do. I woke up before noon, like I never do.

     

c
compose new post
j
next post/next comment
k
previous post/previous comment
r
reply
e
edit
o
show/hide comments
t
go to top
l
go to login
h
show/hide help
shift + esc
cancel