Much to her credit, Norma wrote back to me.

I was going to apologize until I received your last e-mail. No, I am a long way from 85, I am just a decent human being that does not take our Lord God's name in vain. I do watch other movies but Disney is a lot more entertaining. You should try them sometime. Yes, I think I will apologize and thank you for letting me know I did have the wrong e-mail address. It feels a lot better being the bigger person.
Have a Blessed Day!
Norma

I probably would have let this go, I really would have...

But... "have a Blessed Day"? Oh no you didn't.

Grandma Norma, where do I begin?

You took the high road but still managed to try and get some pro-Christian digs into my heathen ass, didn't you?

Taking "our Lord God's name in vain"? Seriously? You people still have time to get upset about that kind of thing in-between burning copies of Slaughterhouse-Five and Harry Potter novels? You might want to keep in mind what Patti Smith once said: "Jesus died for somebody's sins ... but not mine." For all you know, I'm a rabbinical African-American Hindu. Or a Green-party Buddhist. Or a queer-as-folk Hare Krishna. (All groups less likely to throw their religion at me like a brick when they hear something they disagree with, by the way.)

If my reaction to your initial mistake was over the top, well, welcome to the Big Top of my crazy. Your piety doesn't get to outweigh the stupidity. My time is squandered enough each day deleting hundreds of spam messages in my work and personal emails... having you throw your inane missives my way doesn't help. I was more than kindly until you accused me of the "hessie fit." Now, apparently, you know what a true HISSY FIT looks like. (Though, seriously, thanks for that one, we'll be using it for laughs for weeks to come.)

FYI, a bit of online etiquette for you to chew on before you go back to lusting after Pat Robertson on the 700 Club: Just clicking forward on every cutesy message that comes your way is not really communicating. It's the online equivalent of eating nothing but sugar.

Still, to show what a good sport I am, I'll give you this link: www.cuteoverload.com. All the puppies and kittens you can stomach. No great church gags though, nor child porn (I refer here to your forwarded joke regarding the boy in the bath tub who looks at his "pee pee" and asks his mama if those are his brains. She replies: Not yet." Hi-LAR-ious, Sister Norma. ROTFLMAO.)

Best wishes for a beautiful Chanukah,

Eric G.

(Thanks to Joe and Lauren for the assist. Your snark-mojo is high.)

About a month ago, I started getting emails from someone named NormaWerts. They came into my Gmail account and were always of the cutesy kind that were endlessly fascinating back around 1996 when your grandma discovered e-mail. Lots of pictures of puppies and little kids, blond jokes, funny things kids say in church ("Lead us not into temptation," she prayed, "but deliver us from E-mail" — har har!) and safety precautions for the terminally stupid (including the suggestion, " As women, we are always trying to be sympathetic: STOP. It may get you raped, or killed.")

That last just to mix things up a little.

At the time, I emailed her and pointed out that she was sending stuff to the wrong Gmail account. The emails stopped for a while. Maybe Norma went on vacation with her (very safe) church group, because yesterday they her missives began again.

I dropped her the following short note, asking her to stop sending them to me:

Norma, please, assuming you are a real person -- for I can't think that a spambot would send me pictures of puppies -- please take the email address ________@gmail.com off your address book for sending "cute" stuff. I'm not your intended recipient.

Norma, it turns out, is indeed real. But apparently she didn't believe me:

The e-mail was sent to ________@gmail.com not @qmail.com. Must have been a mix up in the great world of all e-mails.

Of course, the address she referred to was still mine.

My (admittedly testy) reply:

Norma, it is not a mix up. My message didn't say Qmail. I just checked. (It may look like a Q when the lowercase G is underlined for a link, but it is not a Q.) It's a G. Gmail. G as in Griffith or Google or "Goddammit, the G and Q aren't even close to each other on the keyboard."

I am only making a federal case out of this because if I report your message as spam, its likely to be seen that way by anyone on the Gmail service, not just on my account. That could prevent you from sending your comedy missives to the real person you want to reach on Gmail.

To confirm, I'll point out that I also received your "Kids in Church" and "Missing a 710 blond joke" emails last night. Whoever you think you're reaching, you're not. those messages are coming to me, so you should call your intended recipient and confirm his or her address (If they say "________@Gmail.com" they are incorrect.)

Thanks for looking into it...

For the record, the "710" joke involved a blond thinking the OIL cap in her car said "710" because it was upside-down. Hi-LAR-ous!

Norma, however, was upset.

I am so sorry that receiving the wrong mail upset you so. You must have a hessie fit when you get the wrong US Mail. I will check with my friend (________@gmail.com) but we have been using this address for about four weeks now. Report to whom ever you wish. But keep in mind your bad language in your reply, which I am sure is not appropriate for GMail users. I hope this will be the last of our correspondence!!!

I can tell she was mad because of her multiple exclamation points. Talk about a "hessie fit."

So, unable to let anything just end, here we go...

Check away, dear heart!

Sorry to offend your delicate sensibilities with the "GD" word. I should have known better considering you forward pictures of puppies and not pictures of puppies at satanic rituals. My bad. (Maybe I'll go have a "hessie fit" over it. Seriously, what are you, 85 years old? A mormon? Do you only watch G rated Disney movies?)

That I went out of the way to email you about your continuing email faux pas was for your benefit so you wouldn't be labeled a spammer by the Gmail system. All it did for me was waste my time. No, actually, it wasn't wholly without entertainment value, if I was able to piss off a complete stranger.

My work here is done!

Best, Eric G.

PS: I expect your apology the instant you find out ________@GMAIL.com is not your friends address. Right? RIGHT??

PPS: Yeah, I don't really expect that.

If she has the old-lady balls to write back again without apologizing, I will be sharing with her that my bi-polar meds are on backorder and that I hope she'll make me a sandwich. Oh, and that I get 300 spams per day and don't need a bunch more, even from kindly little old ladies. That should garner me some sympathy...

(A song from the point of view of my Labrador, Caper, sung to the tune of The Great Pretender)

Oh-oh, yes, I'm the great poop-hanger (oo-oo)
Pretending, poop doesn't hang, from my butt. (oo-oo)
I eat so much grass/turds dangle, from my ass
I'd be embarrased, but I'm just a mutt.

"Blogging the logging."

Let it sink in.

(Thanks to PVP!)

Sometimes I really am a god-damn nob.

I was under the impression, after talking to both DirecTV and the local affiliate for The CW network in Syracuse a couple of weeks ago that this new network, an amalgamation of the old UPN and WB networks, would not be available to me on my DirecTV account. Which pissed me off royal, as I was looking forward to not having to download Veronica Mars anymore, and if I don't get my weekly dose of Gilmore Girls, I'm just such a prissy bitch.

So I sent a long note to DirecTV customer service on 9/13 spelling out the problem. They wrote back and said, "I'm sorry that we don't carry the CW Network channel in your area right now" and that I should keep an eye on my local listings to see if they added it.

That wasn't good enough for me, so I wrote back and said I'd like to know who and where and what was requested so I could follow up with someone in a decision making position.

A different person wrote back to me and said, "Upon research of your concern, I found that WSTQ affiliate available on channel 14 in Syracuse NY. For a complete list of local channels that we carry on your area, please visit DIRECTV.com/LOCALS."

(In my future defense, I did go to that site and check that day and they didn't say anything different...)

I wrote back and told my new correspondent that I didn't think he'd checked the whole thread of the conversation, and tried to spell it out again. The third reply -- again, a different person -- tried to explain to me about the UPN and WB merger (as if I didn't know) and then told me my WB network was becoming CW on channel 14. Which is not true. My WB network became the "MyNetwork" affliate. I didn't get channel 14 on DirecTV. His confusion in what the local networks where for me previously only served to make me think they were clueless. My reply to them was, " Seriously, this is starting to be funny. Or maybe just sad." I bullet pointed all the highlights of why they were morons and sent it off.

Fourth reply (again, a fourth correspondent): "Be advised your area carries...the CW channel...on channel 14."

I was by now fed up. I wrote: "Okay, I guess it's obvious you people are just messing with me now. I'd find it funny if I weren't so POed. Three times in a row, you've answered my messages with NON-answers to direct questions...." etc.

Smash-cut to last night. I have setup a Wishlist on my DirecTiVo that brings up a listing of just the season premieres of the new shows. Scrolling through it, I almost dropped the remote when I saw Gilmore Girls. AND Veronica Mars. And they were listed on... channel 14.

The crushing weight of my own stupidity hit me like an ocean wave. I had my TV and other satellite reciever set up to show me only my "favorite" stations, which I program in, so I don't have to surf through stuff I never watch like ESPN(S) or those icky, nasty porno stations. When I went into the overall list, there it was: WSTQ Channel 14, also known in my area as The CW network.

So, this morning, I sent the following to DirecTV customer service:

Dear DirecTV Customer Service:

I am a moron. A fool. A blockhead. A dimwit. A muttonheaded halfwitted dullard.

I've been trading emails with you for a week as your customer service people --including Bryan, Marivic, Jim, and Shanna -- all tried to tell me that I do indeed get the CW network on my local stations. I was convinced that wasn't the case because I didn't see it listed... but last night realized that's because I didn't program it into my "favorite" stations line up.

My apologies for saying "you people are just messing with me" as I can see you were not, and I apologize as well for all the nasty things I said about you offline. Mea culpa.

Keep up the fine work, even if some of your customers are too stupid to appreciate it.

Best,
Eric G.

Blue Sky, Setting Sun
Cherry Pie, Bubble Gum
Lullabyes to be Sung
Blue skies for everyone.
-- Bob Schneider - http://www.bobschneidermusic.com/

Notice, of course, the all important satellite dish mounted on the house.

There's three girls that haunt me from my college days. Not for the reasons you'd probably expect. Only because they were beautiful, attempted to make some sort of connection with me (I think), and I blew them off (or worse).

Some worse than others.

The first was a red-head who asked me to dance at a mixer during college orientation, the summer before freshman year even started. I told her no, because I was holding out to dance with TGIWOW^TM (she went to the same college as me, just to add fuel to the inferno of my crazy). I would pass the red-head occasionally on campus for the next four years and hang my head, avoiding eye contact.

The next was a blond named Carrie, but I don't think it was spelled that way. She was in my first Personal Essay class. She was a total knockout and a dancer -- I remember that vividly from some of the personal essays (naturally) she read in class. At the end of the semester, I was downtown and she was standing around with a bunch of older people, I assume her family, as it was moving out week. She waved in my direction. I did not wave back. I did not believe for one nanosecond that she was waving at me, not at all, even though we'd spoken a few times in class. It seemed impossible to contemplate... but contemplate it I did for a long time after. I think she left the college, as I never saw her again.

Worse, in my Me-centric universe, I tossed out all the essays from class-mates in my classes, but kept all my work from 17 years ago, which uniformly sucks ass. So I can go back and look at my suckage, but can't figure out who she was since I tossed her essays.

The same thing happened with the third girl, I also tossed all copies I had of her work. Except I never forgot her name: Gail Mutterperl.

She was in my Introduction to Scriptwriting class, one of my first truly creative classes (long overdue after the drudgery of freshman classes like "Academic Writing.") It was the first class I took in the newly constructed communications school building and in it were some of my friends at the time, including my roommate, Andy.

Andy was the most diehard believer in his own skills I'd ever met, so much so that it bordered on paranoid when others didn't go along with him in plans for himself or them.

Our language of choice in those days: sarcasm.

Gail was older by a year or two, earnest and perhaps a bit self-righteous in her beliefs. It was admirable, albeit sometimes annoying, especially when it was your work she picked apart in class. She became the primo sarcasm subject of Andy and friends. And me. Maybe I didn't drink or smoke or urinate in public, but to the peer pressure of sarcasm I was not immune.

At the end of the semester as we were reading aloud our final scripts, with each student reading a part. Mine was some god-awful bit about castles and knights. Pure dreck. Perhaps I will reprint it here later for your reading displeasure.

Gail wrote a very human look at a young male protagonist with a stutter. I wish I could remember the details of it. What I do remember is this: when it came time to read the script, Gail requested that I perform the lead.

I was, to be honest, confounded and startled and even...touched. She felt very strongly about this script --as she seemed to feel about most things --and for her to entrust this to my reading, even in this little 202 level class with a temporary professor, spoke volumes.

I gazed at Andy at the time and his look said it all: "Crush her."

I don't know that I made a conscious decision one way or the other, until the first giggles. Laughter is fuel to a clown, and thus my stutter increased and got completely out of hand with each new line. I think the professor might even have asked me to tone it down. By then it was too late. What I recall as a pretty forthright and touching piece was marred by my playing the part entirely for laughs.

I think it may also have been the last day of class and the last time I saw Gail Mutterperl.

It's the silliest, stupidest kind of guilt to carry for years. I've done far worse in my day to people I know better. But still that memory would crop up every few years and stick in my head and make my face grow hot with shame.

Always, always, always the memory was accompanied by a stray thought that someday perhaps I would see Gail again and I would be able to apologize to her. She'd say she'd forgotten all about it, and we'd laugh. Or she'd look at me with disgust and yell, "That was you?" and throw a drink (or worse) in my face. Or...

It doesn't matter. Last week, I got the Ithaca College Quarterly and did what I always do: I turned to the "Class Notes" to see if anyone I knew in college has done anything. Nothing.

I skipped to the obits.

Gail Mutterperl died in December 31, 2005 (the Quarterly isn't exactly a timely publication). They don't say how, I can only gather that it was sudden and surprising. I found another, similar obituary for her in the New York Times online. Otherwise, there isn't much.

Gail --under the stage name Alison Gale -- has an IMDB page, with her few movie credits (I will be renting Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion sometime soon just to look for her.) I wish there was more, part of me even wishes I had info on her family to write to them and say I'm sorry for their loss, but I suppose that would be weird and strange to hear at this time, especially from someone who didn't even know her. It's more about my loss than theirs at that point. I lost a chance to apologize and assuage my own guilt. And for that, of course, I'm very sorry. I hope Gail found nicer people than me out in the real world.

Two of my nephews started school this week. One is bored (he knows all his colors already, enough so that he identifies violet and puce as different from purple) and the other is not liking the regimented world of eating when told and coming inside when told (enough so that he and a new friend fled the playground and hid rather than end recess).

Good times.

I don't remember my own nursery school days (that's what the called it at the Hornell BOCES, that year of school that comes before the Kindergarten starts truly taking the starch out of a child). I recall Karen Hovorka chasing me around on a tricycle, trying to kiss me. I remember performing for the parents to the "Little Brown Jug" song. That's about it.

My mom told me her favorite story of me in nursery school: our teacher, Mrs. Kenifeck (SP?) was trying to teach me to use my "inside voice." (All that know me personally know she failed.) I told her I was using my inside voice -- I was inside the building, wasn't I? She disagreed and I got put into the 1974 equivalent of a time out, where I had to go sit in the bathroom off the classroom.

After a few minutes, I knocked on the door and stuck my head out, and she asked, "Are you ready to start using your inside voice now?"

And I said, "No, I'm going to go to the bathroom, and I wanted you to know so you don't walk in."

(Cute and adorable... would have been a funnier story if I'd said, "I'm taking a dump, so stay out!" Maybe I can teach that to one of my nephews....)

yummy. and that's not a real leaf, just fancy stuff in the creamy froth on top.

William Ziff, tech media pioneer, dies at 76 | CNET News.com

Publishing magnate William B. Ziff Jr., the former leader of the Ziff-Davis publishing empire and a technology media pioneer, died Saturday at age 76.

He died of the same prostate cancer that he fought off in the 1980's just before he became the big-time master of all technology publishing. And then, he hired me and it all went to shit.

Actually, he had nothing to do with hiring me and I only ever passed him in a hallway once and saw him standing on a cane outside of the location of the first company picnic I ever went to in 1993. I dunno if he was cool or an ass, but I do know that the company was never the same after he sold it. He knew what he was doing.

I totally called this a year ago. Well, not the NBC part. I thought it would take longer and would end up on HBO. I'm still betting on Denzel, though.

Lee returns to 'NoLa' with NBC

Spike Lee will follow his documentary on Hurricane Katrina with a scripted drama for NBC set in New Orleans.

There's nothing more joyous than compressed colorful chemicals spewing forth.

NOTHING.

I'm glad I live in a day and age where if I miss a TV show, I can download it and watch it on the computer. Because, once again, my TV providers may have put me in the sitch where its unavoidable if I want to stay current with "my programs" (as my great-grandmother used to call her soaps, as if she wrote them).

As long time readers of this blog -- all three of you! -- will recall, when I moved to this podunk burg in 2002, I was furious because there was no UPN affliate station on the local channels when I got cable (I started with  DirecTV satellite so I could have TiVo, but they didn't offer local channels at the time, and it was dumb to have that and cable; eventually I went with just cable alone.) This meant potentially missing most of the last season of one of the greatest TV programs of all time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I can't even remember how I watched it now, but somehow, I did, without waiting for the DVDs.

Eventually, the local channels were made available available on DirecTV and I went back to satellite and the glorious TiVo interface. Still no UPN. With Buffy off the air after 2003, I didn't care.

Then, we discovered the program Veronica Mars. Watched the first season on DVD, and got so hooked I used BitTorrent to download the entire second season as it came out. Yes, it is that good, people.

This summer, UPN and the WB networks decided to fold into one overall network called by the dumb-ass name The CW. I don't care what they called themselves, all that mattered to me is that  my former WB channel would now be a CW affliate carrying Veronica Mars! And, that show would be paired up with that other bit of television heaven loved by beer-drinking NASCAR-watching he-men everywhere, Gilmore Girls! Glorious!

Glorious in thought.

Last night, I skipped around my channels and found my WB station on the satellite, which I thought would be the CW as of Sept. 18, had already changed. It is now a "My Network" affliate. That's the networking of craptacular prime-time soaps with stars like Morgan Fairchild and Bo Derek that is taking up space usually on former UPN stations.

An so far, it appears, The CW, while there is an affiliate in Syracuse, won't be on my tier of local stations. DirecTV doesn't seem to have a clue whether that will happen or not. I left a message at the WSTQ station in Syracuse, but don't really expect an answer to the question of whether their station will magically appear on my satellite on Sept. 18.

Thus, I will go from downloading just one show (VMars) to probably three (Gilmore Girls and maybe Smallville). At least I'll do it without an ounce of guilt.

Okay, I'd have done it without guilt anyway. Now though, I'll do it with some glee at screwing over 'the man' for not giving me what I pay for.

Seriously, why couldn't this have happened to CBS? I barely watch anything they have. Dammit.

This is so much better than the other Episode 3.