Define IRONY: I receive a spam e-Mail this morning, from a sender calling themselves "SPAMIS (Strategic Partnership Against Microsoft Illegal Spams)," bemoaning spam in general and Microsoft's use of it in particular.

Thanks for doing your part to fix the problem, bonehead.

I've said this elsewhere, but I'll say it again: the world was a better place before every moron with opposable thumbs and free time was able to operate a computer.

I remember those days fondly. Those of us who were able to tame the digital beast were looked upon as gods. Men wanted to be us, and women wrote their phone numbers down on the backs of punch cards or on shards of discarded green-bar printer paper, in the hopes that we might choose them to carry forth our superior genes to the next generation.

(Okay, not really, but it was a Standard Geek Fantasy for a lot of years.)

Knowledge is a good thing, though, and as computers became easier to understand, more people learned to use them. Naturally, even stupid people jumped on the bandwagon, and decided that computers were a great avenue by which to annoy the shit out of the rest of us. Rather than being forced to confine their irritating blatherings to close family and loyal/equally stupid friends, this particular subsection of jerk-offs were given -- in the form of computers and, ultimately, the Internet -- a means to carry their useless message to the masses.

I have to ask: Who decides that a great way to earn a living is to send the same e-Mail to thousands of people, asking if they need cheap drugs, a quick and easy mortage re-financing, or a longer penis?

You think that when you step onto a global stage, you'd have something interesting or at least entertaining to say, right?

Hell no.

Case in point: Look back at what you've just read.