Today's notes...

When I got home today and picked up the mail, here's what I found:

1 package from a Babies 'R' Us, for Jane's baby shower next month (I assume - I'll let her open it).

Issues of IEEE Spectrum, Network World, Infoworld, and Reason.

The Martha's Vineyard Gazette. One can fantasize...

Catalogs from some curtain company and LL Bean. And a card for Jane from some friend of hers.

Credit card bills from Amex and a Mastercard we have. Looks like we've been well-behaved in the last month. The Mastercard bill included "courtesy checks", just in case we wanted cash easy. How thoughtful.

A privacy notice from GMAC. Like they aren't going to just give my name away to all comers. Sheesh.

A solicitation from Capital One for a loan to pay off debt. Oops, other than the aforementioned car and our house we have none.

Three separate solicitations, otherwise identical, for MBNA pre-approved credit cards. The dumbasses don't even realize that we're already customers - I love what crappy CRM software can do for a company.

Basically, we get so much snail-mail spam that I was half scared to carry it all upstairs over the last month while I was restricted from heavy lifting. It's amazing. And you can't just throw away all the solicitations and credit-card checks - identity theft is easy enough without making it easier. Last year we bought a nice cross-cut shredder - all the credit card checks go through it, along with anything overly identifying in a solicitation.

I do something better with the rest of it, though. All the MBNA mail (and anything we get like it) gets identifying information torn out and shredded. Then I carefully tear up the rest of it, along with any extra inserts, and I put it back in the postage-paid envelope and send it off to the junk mailer.

I figure it's a win-win. I only spend a couple of minutes a day, and I get to vent my junkmail rage. The USPS, which has fallen on hard times recently, gets much-needed mail revenue from the junk mailer. And my actions cost the junk mailer money. And to quote Diamond Dallas Page: "That's not a bad thing - that's a Good Thing".

First day golfing tomorrow afternoon. Yippee!