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Irregular Reporting of Societal IssuesSM |
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| "Get your news weakly"SM | 1 Year Anniversary Unsubscribe Messages |
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Internet Makes It Easy To Reduce Mail VolumeTrue to its billing, the Internet has made it far easier to do everything. In particular, one can subscribe to regular mailings with a simple click of the mouse. And unsubscribing is just as easy. As long as you do not actually think it will work.This special feature of Newsweakly tracks the many methods that subscribers to the email notification system can leverage to extricate themselves from the spiral of constant spam. Go ahead and try some, then let us know how that works out. These tidbits are provided only in chronological order, with the most recent first.
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Weak of: 2006/08/28should you find you are possessed by a need to rid yourself of this weakly email, simply read back through the previous unsubscribe disclaimers, pick one of the several perfectly clear methods, use it to write a screenplay for a documentary, hire michael moore to film it, have al gore star in it, get it shown at major first-run houses all across the country, becoming a cult hit for generations. at that point, your notoriety will be so unstoppable that people would do anything for you, except remove you from an internet distribution list, since having you on the list is so prestigious. sorry, but thanks for making a film about newsweakly. perhaps you should simplify?
Weak of: 2006/08/21if you would like to leave the distribution list, we are certain you would understand the need to handle the matter professionally, and, by professionally, we mean "using automated and very expensive software". therefore, to facilitate your removal from the list, simply email us a genuine $100 bill as seed money for our software upgrade to support automated list maintenance. keep sending those bills, as we will be using a government contractor to build the software and a government agency for project management, so who knows just how long the development will take and how much the final bill will be, but rest assured it will be significantly feature-rich. when the list management software is up and running, we will email you from our new corporate offices in a remote corner of south america to let you know that it is not working according to specifications (not that we actually have anything written down, mind you), but with a sufficient additional cash infusion, we should be able to expand the tiki bar to accommodate a few more developers. keep those emails coming; we will get you off the list as soon as we have the automated capability completed. your request is important to us.
Weak of: 2006/08/14do you suffer from ADD, resulting in the inability to remove irrelevant email? acquired deletion disability can be a serious problem; when not addressed in the early stages, it can lead to ADHD, where the patient suffers tantrums regarding unwanted email. but you need not succumb to accute deletion hyperactivity disorder and can stop ADD in its tracks. simply sign up for the ADD/ADHD support group. the group has its own email list to which you can subscribe. or you can simply enjoy the light entertainment this distribution provides and take a pill.
Weak of: 2006/08/07having yourself removed from this distro list simply requires hiring an agent, who will market your name to prospective distribution lists around the country, determing which are most appropriate for your interests, lobbying hard on your behalf, until you are successfully installed on several thousand lists for rolexes, african bank schemes, and prescription medications, creating such an overwhelming volume of chaff, that emails like this one will become completely invisible, making you long for simpler times, when you managed your own image on the internet, dropping your marketing manager, and going underground, staying in bed for several years.
Weak of: 2006/07/31to get off this list once and for all, simply select a primary care physician, schedule an appointment with him/her for the first available date, 9 to 12 months in the future, waiting impatiently for that day to arrive, being forced to take off work to make the eventual appointment, missing your daughter's school play since you are afraid of rescheduling, getting stuck in traffic, resulting in your arrival at least 30 minutes after the start of your appointment, at which point the surly receptionist lectures you about the value of your doctor's time and that you need to be more realistic about scheduling appointments and keeping them or they will be forced to charge you for a missed appointment, then asking you to be seated and wait for the nurse to call you, resulting an hour and a half wait in an empty waiting room, after which you get weighed, have several liters of blood drawn, and generally humiliated, finally meeting the actual doctor, who asks you how you feel, to which you respond that you feel antsy and stressed out, that you think your job and increased email traffic is driving you over the brink, causing him/her to quickly write you a prescription for prozac, ambien, adderall, nexium, zyrtec, diovan, cipro, and viagra (just in case), noting that "this should probably help you out", at which point, the stress of filling and taking these prescriptions may land you in an in-patient clinic with well-manicured lawns and no email connectivity. problem solved.
Weak of: 2006/07/24to defend your inbox from threats like this one, simply join several online dating services, spend every night at the gym and the supermarket, join a church (or temple) singles group, get engaged to the first likely candidate without an actual rap sheet, start procreating the instant the ink dries on the pre-nup, get married, pop out two (or possibly more) beautiful children in two or three years, get divorced, fight over custody, back-stab each other in front of the children (guaranteeing that psychotherapy will remain a growth industry as yet largely untapped by nasdaq), strike up completely inappropriate rebound relationships that even your children can tell are a bad idea in the hopes that this one is "the one", and keep up a fulfilling full-time career through it all. through all of this, you will be filtering your email for messages from potential dates, baby sitters, lawyers, and your mother (who is just writing to say that she doesn't know what went wrong with you two, you seemed like such a nice couple), so you probably will not even notice a little email or two like this one.
Weak of: 2006/07/17to finally get off this email list, go to a top-ranked college (preferrably the US airforce academy), earn top honors with a double major in physics and engineering, becoming a top-gun pilot of high-performance jets, enrolling in the space program, taking years of grueling training, being put on a waiting list of men and women who want nothing more than to soar above the earth for few days, finally being selected, put on the shuttle countdown, taken off the landing pad for bad weather, again for bad weather, again for bad weather, once or twice for strange / inexplicable malfunctions, and finally hurtling heavenward. upon return, your perspective so thoroughly changed by the experience, you will hardly be concerned with the extra mail, even when it pokes fun at the shuttle program, to which you have dedicated your life.
Weak of: 2006/07/10to terminate the delivery of this email, simply spend several hours a day sleeping, get up mainly to eat, but interspersing an occaisional absent-minded laceration of an heirloom couch or expensive drapery with your improbably long and sharp fingernails, staring at everyone with unconcealed disdain, engaging others only for the comfort they can provide you. having, through this process, become either very much like or actually a cat, you will still be able to read the email that floods your box, but will be completely unconcerned about it (or anything else, for that matter). thus, by sleight of hand, your inbox has shifted from the metaphorical to the literal: it is now just a litter box. they are supposed to stink, after all.
Weak of: 2006/07/03to stop receiving this email, simply sign up for every job board you can find, using multiple search criteria, give your resume to several search firms, headhunters, and friends, go to frequent interviews, develop a working relationship with a few hiring managers, sitting back and being shocked when one offers you a job, completely out of the blue, leading to that fateful moment, when, sitting at your new desk, in your new office, you are forced to log into your computer, where you find emails awaiting you in the official office software... your very own copy of lotus notes. at that point, reading pointless emails like this one will make you treasure the non-lotus notes experience so much, you will sign-up for daily emails from viagra salesmen on tuvalu, who can also get you cial?s, a nice rolecks, and want to share their inheritance, if you just give them your bank account number.
Weak of: 2006/06/26to stop receiving this email, simply become one of the two or three richest people in the world, form your own foundation to solve pressing health and education issues that governments worldwide have neglected to address, boldly establishing plans that would be unthinkable for a popularly elected government awash in special interest agendas, attracting the attention of other insanely rich donors, swelling your coffers to unforseen and historic proportions, allowing you to take on problems long thought insoluble, and, naturally, becoming an international paraiah for your self-centered determinination to do good and help people without asking a cadre of weak-kneed liberals whether or not the way you spend your money is ok with them. by then you should be fed up enough with humanity that newsweakly will make sense and you will be happy to read it.
Weak of: 2006/06/18to terminate this email, simply place your computer in a wetland, acquire several cubic yards of fill dirt from the local sewage treatment plant and spread it liberally over the entire wetland. not only will you be showing your support for the supreme court's ability to see the downside to environmental regulation, but you will receive no more email on that computer. unless of course, the bacteria in the reclaimed sludge combine with the microprocessor of your computer, self-organizing into a thinking cyborg of immensely deadly force, rising, phoenix-like from the fill dirt, dragging its completely non-degradable components inexorably down the street to your house, where it will pound ominously on your door step announcing in vader-like tones, through undead lips... "you've got mail".
Weak of: 2006/06/12to terminate emails of this kind, simply occupy the servers of a major ISP and begin precision bombing of their disk drives, hoping to hit the specific sector that contains the offending distribution list, eventually bringing down the ecommerce web sites of several fortune 500 companies, alienating the entire US business community and all consumers wishing to purchase products on the web, but at long last blasting the email list after years of missed opportunities, finally allowing a backup copy of the list to be moved into production, continuing the spam uninterrupted.
Weak of: 2006/06/05to prevent receipt of these emails in the future, fall passionately in love with your soul-mate, who happens to be of the same gender (self-identified or otherwise) as yourself, attempt to enroll your love-child (formed with genetic material donated by an overweight rock star) in the boy scouts, initiate a court battle for your rights, which will escalate all the way to the supreme court, who will then decline to hear your case on the grounds that you have no standing. at that point, newsweakly will seem light reading and you will not mind getting the emails.
Weak of: 2006/05/29if you would like to prevent these emails from arriving at your inbox, simply move to a primitive adobe hut in mostly unregulated BLM land in arizona or utah, where your only connection with the outside world is through smoke signals. that way, when you finally come back to town and visit an internet cafe, your inbox will be out of space, having been filled with several years worth of cialis and rolex advertisements and a smattering of newsweakly announcements.
Weak of: 2006/05/22oh for goodness sake. if you do not want the emails anymore, just ask and i can see that you get added to the blog notifications. http://newsweakly.blogspot.com/ ok, i know, over the top. but what else would you expect?
Weak of: 2006/05/15to remove unwanted email from your life, you must begin with a cleansing ceremony; then take up a daily regimen of at least 30 minutes of silent meditation; add crystal amulets on a sterling silver chain around your neck to help purify your aura; and attend workshops in an effort to channel shakti for divine transformation of your chakras. after several months of this effort, you will find that you have been added to several distribution lists for new age products, but, with your sense of inner peace and fulfillment, it will not matter and it will make newsweak seem small in comparison.
Weak of: 2006/05/08should you want to be removed from the list, simply get some old rich coot to mary you (make sure that the pairing is legal in your jurisdiction because you would hate to be bamboozled by some activist judge), get a rock-solid will drawn up and signed in blood, and wait until s/he kicks the proverbial bucket. now, with all that cash, you can do whatever you want. what was it you wanted again? oh yeah, to mary some old rich coot (making sure that the pairing is legal in your jurisdiction...
Weak of: 2006/05/01some of you may want to be removed from the distro. however, the staff here has decided to branch out into motivational speaking and, as such, need to remind you that real change comes from within. you cannot simply ask someone else to make a significant change in your life; you must do it for yourself. do you really want to be removed from the distro? do you? if you want it bad enough, then you can make it happen, but you simply cannot expect us to hold your hands; we are not enablers.
Weak of: 2006/04/24removing yourself from the distro list is as simple as being replaced as secretary of defense. simply plan a war with no thought to what happens after you win, ignore the advice of your professional staff, alienate much of the nation and the world, and claim success where most people see failure. with that kind of track record you are absolutely assured of being removed from the list. the staff here is the decider, so we will be happy to entertain any requests, regardless of how unpatriotic they might be.
Weak of: 2006/04/17terminating the arrival of these emails is simple. bring suit against newsweak in british court, citing your own satirical web site, blog, journal, whatever, as the intellectual precursor to newsweak, demanding retribution, a cease and desist order for further news creation, and a termination of spam-like emails from the editorial staff. however, on hearing that you claim to be the intellectual precursor of this, the judge will just laugh hysterically and throw out the case, so you might consider emailing me instead.
Weak of: 2006/04/10stemming the flow of these emails is simple. you plan a series of progressively more audacious temporary public art projects, defying conventional images of art, resulting in broader and more stinging ridicule from artists and the general public with each effort, all while touching the lives of millions, rising in notoriety to the point where you are considered so passe that no one, not even an internet spammer, would include you on their distro. sadly, you will have just missed your chance, since you are now so ubiquitous that no one would dare remove you from any distro. ah, fame is a fickle mistress.
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Weak of: 2006/04/03if you would like to cease receiving these emails, simply open your own defense contracting firm; respond to an RFP; win the bid; employ several thousand outwardly christian, family-values-spouting constituents in the manufacture of lethal weapons designed to kill anonymously and without remorse at a distance; advertise in various media formats about how your company "defends freedom", guarantees jobs for thousands of "hard-working americans", and represents a "pillar of america's war on terror" (or drugs, take your pick); have your picture taken with several critical members of the house armed services committee; and you can probably get whatever you want, but i would not guarantee it. at least not without a few more zeros ahead of the decimal place.
Weak of: 2006/03/27to cease receiving these emails, simply take a long, satisfied gander at your good looks in the mirror, you handsome thing, and then engage in some risky behavior by emailing your local lobbyist, asking them to donate large sums of money to your favorite representative in return for legislation making newsweak illegal as a threat to national security, while including enough personal information to find you, the lobbyist, and your representative, when it all goes to court, proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt that no one cares who bought whom, for how much, since nothing really changes -- particularly distribution lists.
Weak of: 2006/03/20removal from the distro is as simple as extricating yourself from a preemptive strike on a sovereign nation. simply win the hearts and minds of the editorial staff, who will welcome your request with open arms and flowers, all the while plotting to keep you mired in a weekly debacle of pseudo news. if you are still reading this three years from now, don't say you weren't warned, but i might suggest that the easy way out of the distribution list predicament is simply to preemptively join another distribution list immediately adjacent to this one. that will focus attention away from your failure to get off this list, possibly allowing you to slink away under cover of darkness.
Weak of: 2006/03/13if it should come to pass that you no longer wish to partake in the community we have all constructed with blood, sweat, and tears, then begin by consulting the gallup organization to determine your approval rating. since you should always leave on a high note, begin taking strategic steps to raise your approval rating by invading a foreign country and miring the military in an unwinnable quagmire. if those efforts are insufficient to boost your rating, consider other measures like drowning an entire country in staggering debt. we guarantee that, within a few months, your approval will be at an all-time new level. once your rating is high enough, we will happily send you forth to help others with their own approval problems.
Weak of: 2006/03/06if you would like to remove yourself from consideration as a nominee in the category of "newsweak recipient", simply begin hustling with movie producers and other luminaries of the national academy until you build up enough hype to steamroll a hippopatamus. you might also consider making a film, but this is optional. finally, with all the favors called in properly among the cognoscenti of american cinema, we will remove you from the list as readily as the academy grants extra time for your acceptance speech.
Weak of: 2006/02/27if you should care to cease receiving this email at any time, simply become a world-class athlete, assuming the spotlight at every chance. orchestrate press releases that serve to polish your halo and cement the inevitability of your olympic victory. then, at the height of your international stardom... become the first american to live up to the media-controlled hype of icarus-like proportions and actually win the olympic events for which you are favored. finally, at the obligatory press conference, request that your gold-medal winnings be used to remove you from the newsweak mailing list. we would graciously accept -- could there be a more fitting tribute to sporting excellence?
Weak of: 2006/02/20should you be concerned that receipt of these emails will land you on the homeland security watch list, you might want to be removed, taking refuge in a secure undisclosed location. i assure you, mr. cheney, no one knows you are reading this. oops.i am sure if the rest of you would like to be removed, you can simply go hunting with the vice president.
Weak of: 2006/02/13at times, you may find it necessary to reduce your influx of mail, however amusing and enlightening. if you are in this category, simply phone up the VP's residence at the naval observatory in DC and request a hunting trip with mr. cheney. then email me from your hospital bed in the ICU, as soon as you are able and i will happily feature you in the next edition. you will note that in the space from when you were shot and when you were allowed to access email, you did not see a single unwanted email. repeat as necessary, mr. cheney will not mind.
Weak of: 2006/02/06if you have grown to despise the well-concealed and subtle political slant of the editorial staff here at newsweak, you may remove yourself by writing your email address on the back of a human-animal hybrid and mailing it directly to the white house. the ensuing shock will guarantee your removal and the cessation of this and probably all other forms of mail, electronic or otherwise.
Weak of: 2006/01/30despite the consistently high-quality for which we strive in the editorial department, there will be some who can get no satisfaction. admittedly, this is an infinitesimally small faction of the readership, far outweighed by the silent majority, for whom, i am not a crook. we, at the editorial board, will not let this almost non-existent group chart the direction for our loyal readers. those of you who object may, in the great tradition of america, simply write to the fairly elected editorial board of this paper (me) and you will get the same level of response you can expect from your fairly elected leaders in washington. you have my promise.
Weak of: 2006/01/23if your employer has begun dumping all your more useful mail (such as this) into the "spam" bucket, please send me a note asking me to put a new address on the distribution. do not bother to remove the old address; it makes the security people feel important when emails get added to the spam folder.if, on the other hand, you have begun adding my mail to your automatic spam filter on your own, might i suggest that you are probably not reading this? in which case, you may as well just send an email somewhere asking to be taken off. of course, you are not reading this, so i doubt you get around to it; you'll just go on ignoring me. you're so passive-aggressive.
Weak of: 2006/01/16one or two people have implied that it is impossible to be removed from the newsweak distro. a few of these have even impugned the character of the editorial board with the implication that our disclaimers and procedures for removal are less than sincere. well, let us assure you that we will exercise the utmost prudence with any request for removal. there is a pile around here somewhere for removal requests. we assiduously add requests to the stack, shuffle, fold, spindle, mutilate, and then act on the messages presented to us. how do you think we come up with the stories?in all seriousness, if you want to be removed from this list, then just forward this email to 33 of your closest friends in the next ten minutes and bill gates will give you $1 million, that kid will be cured of whatever rare disease he had, and you will be miraculously removed from the distro. of course, if you send a note to me asking to be removed and skip the other steps, that might work too, but this news source will not be held responsible for your kidneys, when they are stolen by organ thieves after a late night bender. they are your kidneys; do as you will, but don't say you weren't warned.
Weak of: 2006/01/09i respect the fact that many of you detest unsolicited emails. even ones that are amusing and/or sent by friends. i can completely understand the headaches that an overload of email can cause. with all that email, finding the delete key to eliminate an unwanted message just gets too hard. you have my sympathies. if you are one of the many people finding it increasingly difficult to locate the mysterious delete key, email me and i will use the delete key, the mouse, two or three separate programs, a series of export/import routines that i have set up for just such a purpose, and my amazing intellect to (hopefully) ensure that you are taken off the distro.
Weak of: 2006/01/02i am sure that, with the stroke of midnight on december 31st, you made a resolution to start the new year off on a clean slate. part of that resolution was to eliminate all silly email such as this one. i admire your efforts and will assist if you simply send me a note asking to be taken off the list. however, i might point out that, since you did not do this before i sent the mail, you have already failed to live up to your new year's resolution, so you may as well give up and stay on the distro. there is always next year. you can make more unattainable resolutions then, too.
Weak of: 2005/12/26this time of year is marked by charity, giving, and a sense of community. however, if you should choose to reject all of that and the very foundations of america, you can email me and ask to be removed from the distro. no guilt involved, really.
Weak of: 2005/12/19should it come to pass that you desire to be disconnected from the community of concerns represented by this weakly journal, please purchase and inflate a large (>20') inflatable and internally lit snowman on your front yard. add 8+ tinny speakers playing christmas carols at high volume in full quadrophonic sound. wrap all vegetation in your yard in multi-colored, blinking lights to such a depth that they put out enough heat and light to cause nearby airports to divert flight paths. then, when your neighbors demonstrate their appreciation of your holiday spirit with a court order to cease and desist, send me an email asking to be removed from the list.
Weak of: 2005/12/12if, for some reason, you would like to eliminate the incredible predictability of newsweak from your lives, feel free to write and explain in 5-10 words, what predicability means and how it is represented by newsweak. please use examples from the ptolemaic dynasties of egypt, relating these to the paradigms set in place by the caliphate of cairo. please be brief and concise.
Weak of: 2005/12/05if you would like to stop receiving this valuable news source, you may simply write to me. you can expect the same level of professionalism seen so far in these pages.
Weak of: 2005/11/28of course, i must point out that i consider all of you family (of a sort). and with family, all you have to do is ask them to stop pestering you and they willingly comply, because that is what families do. in that same vein, just ask me to stop sending this and i will happily comply, just like any family member. meaning, of course, that it will involve tears, guilt, anger, and denial. but go ahead and ask.
Weak of: 2005/11/21needlessly, i must point out that it is possible to have your email address removed from the distro. there are those who assert that my claims are false; that i have misled the american people with wild propoganda to suit my own ends, but i can assure you that i base my conclusions on the exact same information that i gave to congress. wait, what was i saying? oh yes, to paraphrase a prominent US citizen "either you are on my distro or you are against my distro"...
Weak of: 2005/11/14you know, if you have your spam filters set properly, you will never see this (as i think the comments above clearly show). that would be easier than asking to be taken off the distro. easier for me, anyway.
Weak of: 2005/11/07and yes, you can get off this distro. silly reader; you've always been able to get off the distro. close your eyes and tap your heels together three times and think to yourself, "take me off this #*%& distro!" but such language is unbecoming, so you might have unexpected results. perhaps ending up in kansas.
Weak of: 2005/10/31naturally, i respect your constitutional right to privacy as much as the next supreme court justice, so i have published all your email addresses to every spam generator i could think of. if you would like your name removed, please just send me an email and repeat several rosaries. (after all, getting your name removed from a spam list might as well be a miracle.)
Weak of: 2005/10/24as always, you can choose to bite the sarcastic hand that feeds you this drivel on a weakly basis by simply asking me to stop sending this email or obtaining a court order, which ever is easier. i hear wal-mart sells court orders now; they are available next to the guns.of course, you realize that asking us to stop only makes it worse...
Weak of: 2005/10/17and remember, it is your right to disassociate yourself from such tripe at any time. though i might point out that to "disassociate yourself" sounds awfully similar to "dissociative disorder". of course, what you do is totally up to you.operators are standing by... probably over by the bar, actually.
Weak of: 2005/10/10if, for some unknown reason, you do not care for erudite literary humor sent to you by a friend or would simply like to crush the feeble ego of a budding satirist, feel free to let me know and i will remove you from future mailings. and no, my feelings will not be hurt. too much.[Editor's Note: This was the very first unsubscribe message. The previous weak was simply an email with a much shorter distro that was visible to all on the mailing list. Such unprofessional behavior is unseemly.] |
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Except where expressly noted,
all materials are completely ficticious, facetious, sarcastic, and
© 2006 Lea Ann Mawler & Stuart Mawler
