🚀 go-pugleaf

On Mon, 16 Dec 1996 InfiNet@oolong.memphis.edu wrote:

> Take five minutes to read this and it WILL change your life.
> ........
> 		TRY IT AND YOU'LL BE HAPPY !!!!!!!!!!

    The screen froze at the end of Infinet's statement, and shrunk to
one-quarter size, revealing a "newsdesk" display.  From her seat behind
the desk, a ridiculously cute little redhead looked at the camera with an
earnest expression.

    "Hi there.  I'm Nene Romanova," she said, adjusting her nametag, which
for some strange reason had the number '20' on it after her name, "from
the technical support division of Narnian Enterprises.  Matt actually
wanted to do this broadcast himself, but he's currently locked behind that
door--"

    The redhead gestured at a 10-foot high set of double steel doors with
a 3-inch lockbar across them.

    "--until he produces Risk #3.  So, I'm here to give you this important
public service message."

    The quarter-screen unfroze, Infinet smiling as he completed his
message, looking around curiously, waiting for a response, and for some
reason being met with stone silence.

    "Sending a message to thousands of newsgroups at a time is informally
referred to as 'spamming,'" Nene explained, as the screen seemed to darken
around Infinet, except for the immediate area around him, leaving him in a
spotlight in the center.

    "It's a violation of the etiquette of the Internet, and particularly
so when you spam not just to newsgroups, but, as Infinet here has done, to
mailing lists, through their bit.listserv.* newsgroup gates.  See, people
receive these lists in their private mailboxes, and a lot of them don't
appreciate receiving the equivalent of electronic mail addressed to
'Occupant.'"

    On the quarter-screen, a sixteen-ton can of Spam fell from the sky and
landed on Infinet, crushing him into the ground.

    "There are a lot of very good reasons not to spam.  It's impolite,
like I just said.  It also has very real consequences for the monetary and
computing resources of the companies and universities that have to pay to
send your ad all over the planet several thousand times over."

    On the quarter-screen, a crane lifted the can of Spam off of the (now
rather flat) Infinet.

    "It makes the Internet generally less useful and less fun to use,
because you have to wade through all the advertisements to get to the
information you're looking for."

    On the quarter-screen, a herd of Narns from _Babylon 5_, wielding
baseball bats, descended on Infinet's remains and began beating them into
a fine, even pulp.

    "And it annoys the heck out of the people who receive it.  I mean,
really, *really* annoys.  You couldn't possibly come up with a less
effective advertisement.  People's general response when they receive a
spam is a desire to strangle the nimrod who sent it, not to buy his
products."

    On the quarter-screen, the Narns gathered the pulp into a neat little
ball, dropping it into a container and tossing it through a dimensional
portal.  It came out in the Star Trek universe, where it bounced off the
_Voyager's_ warp core, which immediately breached, scattering the atoms of
the starship (and of Infinet) throughout that entire general area of
space.

    "Many system administrators will delete your account if they catch you
spamming.  Even more users will happily report you *to* your system
adminstrator so he can."

    On the quarter-screen, a passing Green Lantern gathered the subatomic
remnants of Infinet and formed them into an entity capable of hearing.

    "And most importantly for poor Infinet here, here on the Superguy
superhero fiction mailing list, the nigh-omnipotent and
nowhere-near-nigh-sane Authors who control the universe have an automatic
system in place to deal with this sort of thing."

    On the quarter-screen, the Lantern dropped the new,
not-exactly-improved Infinet into the 417LOSTINSPACEGONEHORRIBLYWRONG
altiverse, where he was forced to hear nothing but a tragically broken
Robot endlessly repeating "DANGER, WILL ROBINSON" for eons after eons,
until, mercifully, the universe collapsed in on itself in the next Marvel
Comics mega-crossover.

    Nene turned from the quarter-screen as it faded out, shuddering
slightly.  She looked at the camera with an earnest, almost pleading
expression.

    "Please.  Don't let this happen to you."

    The broadcast faded to black.

***
This has been a Narnian Enterprises Technical Support production. Nene
Romanova, Babylon 5, the Narns, Star Trek, Voyager, Green Lantern, Lost
In Space and Marvel Comics are trademarks and registered trademarks of
their respective owners; their use here is intended as parody. Standard
Superguy Subtopic copyright notices apply.


--
Matthew Gerber
mgerber@ao.net (preferred)
mbg84022@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu