March 16, 2000

I get a lot of junk mail. Some of it is from people who use fake email addresses @WhatTheHeck.com to avoid the all-to-present spam, and naturally, a lot of it finds its way to me. Case in point:

From: "AOL Instant Messenger"
Subject: AOL Instant Messenger Confirmation
To: <snurfoops@whattheheck.com>

Thank you for registering for AOL Instant Messenger(TM)!

Your registration for screen name snurfoops has been received.

Who registered "snurfoops?" Your guess is as good as mine. Actually, my guess is a bit better, because I went to aim.aol.com and said, "Hey, I'm 'snurfoops.'I lost my password. Mind emailing it to me?" And of course, they did. (No, I won't give you the password.) Don't bother IMing me on that screen name. I don't use it. Maybe I will for a few days, just because of this column. Yeah. I will. IM to your heart's content. (This is no longer true-- this is an archived column) But I digress.

I still don't want all the junkmail. Like most people, it is preferable to get mail of substance. Take for example the deluge of email, more than I thought humanly possible, telling me that I deleted all links to the new eBay auctions. I not only neglected to add new auctions, but I never archived the ones from Tuesday. So here's what I'm going to do:

From here on out, all auctions will remain on this page, in bullet form, for one week. Then they will be classified and archived in the archives, never again to grace the front page of this site. Second, I'll try and keep the newest ones at the top of the list. Finally, all auctions on this page will have the date posted next to them.

If you don't see an auction your remember, check the archives. Use the "Find" feature on your browser if you are looking for a specific auction-- none of us have the time to retroactively date all the old auctions.

Besides, we are still trying to figure out what a "snurfoops" is.

Dan