The Curse of Oprah

We've all had the experience of getting - somehow - on e-mailing lists that deliver information in which we have absolutely no interest. These messages may not necessarily be spam, but they are nuisances we didn't ask for and don't care about.

Oprah Winfrey and I are on a collision course over this issue.

About a year ago, an e-mail from "O, The Oprah Winfrey Magazine" turned up in my mailbox. "How on earth did I get on Oprah Winfrey's mailing list?", I asked myself as I selected the message and clicked delete without reading it. Oprah may be a nice lady, but my interest in anything she has to say is less than zero ... and, for the record, I have never, ever, read a single issue of her magazine, in print or on line.

The next day, I had another message from Oprah. I deleted this one, too.

This went on for a week or so, with one (and sometimes two or more) messages from Oprah arriving each day, each one offering weight reduction products*, print magazine subscriptions, the latest  Oprah Winfrey-endorsed products, etc, etc, etc.

About six months ago I finally got tired of the whole select message, delete Kabuki dance and opened one of the messages** in search of an unsubscribe option. All the way at the bottom of the message, in .00000769-point type, was a link for "O, The Oprah Magazine E-Mail Preferences." Clicking on this link brought me to a page that allowed me to opt out of a long list of various categories of e-mails from Oprah*** ... one at a time. There was no option to "select all." I duly unchecked each box, supposedly telling an Oprahdrone somewhere**** that I no longer desired to receive that category of e-mails from Ms Winfrey. Upon reaching the end of the list, I found a small notice in even smaller type, telling me that it might take several weeks for the e-mails to stop, and that I would continue to receive such information by snail mail.

Oy.

As it happens, I continue to receive e-mails from Oprah with the same level of frequency and variety of content as before. All of the categories of e-mails I'd indicated I no longer wish to receive have been magically reinstated on the e-mail preferences website.

I am suffering from The Curse of Oprah, and I think there's only one way to cure it without hiring a specialist from e-curseremoval.com - the same way that Oprah evidently has ...

So in the meantime, if you would like me to forward you Oprah's latest offers on weight reduction, TV schedules, magazine subscriptions, hair and makeup, fashions, or whatever, let me know and I'll forward you all the information you could ever want. And more.

Have a good day. Don't have it with Oprah if you can help it.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* I'm stouter than I used to be in high school and college, but come on, now ...

** Not something one should normally do, as it sends a magic message to the sender telling him/her that some clueless chump actually opened the message.

*** All of them pre-checked to indicate that I wanted to receive this critical information.

**** Probably India, Bangladesh, or some such outsourced place.