Two things that really annoy me about the Internet:

(a) The "hi, I'm a newbie" post on mailing lists. You know the drill. Someone sends a message saying "Hi, I'm a newbie and figured I should introduce myself, and I've been reading these books since 1997, and I just loooove X character and I think so-and-so should die, well, hi!"

For one thing, I tend to think that The Newbie Post is a useless waste of time. Why can't you just read the messages and post on what people said and let people "get to know you" THAT way? The Internet isn't like walking into a room at a party and having to introduce yourself to everyone before you can do anything else. Just say something useful, man! Go with it!

And for another, it's one thing to do The Newbie Post on a message board, because you can either ignore the new thread they started on the board (most people seem to completely ignore those welcome wagon/FAQ sections, especially the ones that say "READ ME FIRST BEFORE POSTING!!!!!") or ignore the thread-for-newbies if you so desire.

But on e-mail mailing lists, you're stuck dealing with the inevitable 15 new messages in your box saying nothing but, "Hi, newbie! Welcome to the list!" Pretty damn dull for EVERYONE OTHER THAN THE NEWBIE to read, so why does this have to go out to EVERYONE? ALL THE DAMN TIME?

*groan*

(b) The inevitable Casting Call thread on mailing lists. I am on two sci-fi series book mailing lists, and BOTH right now are frantically creating many new posts on the inevitable, always-returning topic of "Who would play all of the characters in the book in the movie?" So far, this has been going on for oh, the entire MONTH. Seventy-five e-mails on both lists per day about this, yammering on about the various merits of actors.

This annoys me not only because it's an infinite topic that can go on for-fucking-EVER, it's bloody pointless, because last I checked, NONE of these books were being made into movies, nor does it seem remotely likely that any WILL be made into movies any time soon. One series would be good movie-wise but isn't popular enough, the other is getting popular but has the goriest crime scenes ever. So what's the point of going on about this obsessively?

Okay, there might be a point with a casting thread should any of these actually get optioned to have a movie made (as Stef pointed out, imagine what the Anne Rice fans went through), but even then, it's not like anyone's going to listen to any of y'all as to who to cast. Even the author doesn't get much choice in the matter. So why go on about this obsessively?

Since I didn't get to doing this earlier, I'd just like to say that Stef should be thoroughly encouraged in this idea of hers.

Incidentally, nobody at work has noticed the hair so far. Eh, whatever.

So, my new Palm, the one with Internet access, came yesterday, and I spent pretty much all night messing with it, installing stuff on it, lots of syncing, etc.

Here's the new features I've got:

(a) AvantGo, which downloads certain Web pages for you to read whenever the hell you want. This works lovely.

(b) MultiMail, where I can now check my Palm e-mail. (If you are REALLY bored, you can now e-mail [email protected], presumably a very short message.) I now have so many e-mail addresses that I have officially lost track- fortunately most of them are forwards. So far, it's working.

(c) Palm Internet, which links you to a bunch of very small pages or lets you look at URL's. This also works well. I can even view the weblog on it, especially since I made a PDA version of it. I'm a geek.

(d) AIM. Now here's the problem. The rest pretty much works no matter how bad the wireless reception is, but AIM, oh nooooo, it has to have a few bars of reception first. Only I live in this town, where most buildings just don't get reception or don't get it very well. So I get between half a bar to maybe two bars for a few seconds most of the time. Outdoors, I get 4-5, on the bus it's 1-3, but in a building? Grr. Argh.

Then there's this thing called "radio" on it, which I guess is how you "turn the wireless on," so to speak. I managed to find a spot in the apartment that got decent enough reception for me to use AIM (my bed), and was happily chatting to Dave and testing if I could do more than one thing at a time online on it, when at one point I kinda drifted off, and the Palm turned itself off.

It probably took, oh, 20 minutes for me to get "radio" connection again to AIM. Meanwhile, it left AIM logged on for me, so anyone could have messaged me and I wouldn't have been able to do squat about it, and "radio" just sat there trying to connect and not letting me do anything else but wait for it to connect... ARGH!

Well, I guess the whole point of the wireless Palm was for me to mess with things when I am not home anyway, right?

Like spygirl's Tucker, it should be Birthday Week for me. However, that never really works in practice for me much. For one thing, I've gotten 90% of my presents already (perhaps it was Birthday Month?) because Mom kept insisting on having me pick out stuff and then she bought it and handed it to me right there. The gifts are appreciated, but I wouldn't have minded getting them at least on the actual day, you know?

Really, the presents I'm probably getting this week are the ones I gave to myself. The Palm (above) and my new ordered sign language book, which just came today. And Dave coming to visit- the one advantage of him being out of work again. At least, we hope the visit comes off (see below). Otherwise, I'm not doing much "week" stuff.

Meanwhile, it is now debateable as to if I will have ANYONE to spend my birthday with. Yesterday, Mom started e-mailing me to ask if I'd mind terribly if she bailed out so she could go to bed early, then went back and forth all day, and has decided this morning to come after all. I fully expect more vacillation tomorrow. As for Dave, he just found out that his child molester uncle-by-marriage that everyone hates (last I heard, his wife was spending all of her money so she couldn't be forced to pay his medical bills) had to pick now to die and the funeral is scheduled for Friday morning. He's saying that "if I can't go, then your mom will flake and you'll have no one," and well, my odds are that that's true! It won't kill me, at least.

There was also more fun today when Dave realized that he'd lost his wallet. He figured it was somewhere at his grandmother's during Easter dinner, but we were panicked all day that he wouldn't have ID any more, he could be getting robbed, etc. Finally found it at the end, so at least he could come Friday if nothing else.

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