HERE LIES TEN MINUTES OF MY TIME.
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11:08 a.m. 2006-10-19
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Putting the Hottie down


Undergrad was getting close to finished. I still didn�t have a cell phone. Everybody else was doing it. I signed up for hotmail. I have asked people out, received bad news, helped Nigerian Lawyers, and found myself on the receiving end of countless newsletters. That account sent out the letters that preceded this dairy. Hotmail traveled with me from Middle America to South East Asia, and has been checked in Internet Caf�s from Barcelona to Montigo Bay. It was the gateway to my first instant messaging, and the closest thing that I�ve had to a permanent address since college. Since I signed up for hotmail, I have moved at least thirteen times, held 6 different jobs, had 4 cell phone numbers, and three different license plates. It has taken me from having to shave twice a week to every morning. It has helped me argue with Koreans, flirt with Uzbekis, and find old friends.
But it is about time to put the old hotmail account down. Somewhere, someday, somebody might try to reach me through it. Some old and honest friend might reach across the electron bridge to tell me about their good news. But I�m afraid I can�t wait for them to find me. Because right now, it is just spammers that are reaching out, indestructible, inescapable mailing lists and offers I don�t even glance at long enough to consider rejecting.
Once upon a time it was full, and I had to go through and discard a dozen memories to free space for new email. Once upon a time, it simply could not send the files that I needed it to send, attachment size was to limiting. Gmail came along and solve those problems. I signed on, and I�ve stayed on. It is smoother, organized, with less offensive commercial tie ins. It has
Built in adds that never bother me, simple texts keyword related to what I�m reading. It doesn�t pile on picture and flashes. It does a decent job filtering out the bad stuff, although I have noticed a steady increase in the number of discount mortgage spammings since I spurned a real estate agent.
Those old messages that might have kept me around are cleared out. Pictures were to big to keep. Old documents are lost to retired hard drives. Instant communications around the world don�t really resonate across time the way a folio of letters would. So many emails saying so very little.
The diaryland address has been redirected. I might not do a great job of keeping this up, but I�ve got just enough narcissism to not want to let these collected ramblings go. Of course, nothing drives away friends on diaryland like inactivity. To bad that doesn�t drive the junkmailers away from email addresses. It would be easier if putting my hotmail account to sleep only meant hibernation.

My old hotmail isn�t quite dead yet, but it isn�t long of this world.

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