Gmail

You know how you sign up for something and in the fine print, which you don’t generally read but agree to anyway, is the clause that you agree to allow some third party to blast away at you with email and/or popup’s?  Okay, so I have this email account with Google.  It’s a no frills sort of thing, but the main draw for me was that I couldn’t have one except by invitation that you can only get from somebody who already has an account.  Only, I didn’t know anybody well enough to ask for an invite, so I sat there for months with no Google Gmail wondering what it was like.  One day I see an offer to sign up.  So I did.  I use it primarily as an experimental email account for my newsletter; to see how it acts with different accounts.  Some cause different things so as time has gone by I’ve learned not to use dashes or apostrophes and things like that in the newsletter.  

In any case, since I’m a sucker for new things, I heard about Google Talk.  What is this? I wondered.  So, I signed up.  But, as of yet, I haven’t convinced any friends to try it out with me.  Imagine, free phone calls.  Anyway, that’s what I think it is.  So, I’ve been signed up for a couple of weeks.  And, the first ding-donged thing that happened was that every time I sit down at my computer and move the mouse for pity’s sake, a little window eases up from the lower right-hand side of the screen with some sort of baloney in it for me to try out.  Underwear, food, vitamins, Viagra.  You name it and I’ve been watching and getting more and more annoyed at the offers rolling in.  

It wasn’t until just this minute that I put two and two together and realized that is my Google mail box.  How cool is that?  I wondered about it the other day as I sent out my newsletter for February 1st.  And, a few minutes later I’m sitting here and I see Talking To Spirit Newsletter appear in the lower right-hand corner of my screen.  I wondered about it at the time.  How could they know about my newsletter?  It’s amazing I’ve gotten this far in life.  And, I’d say it’s a good thing I don’t generally handle dangerous materials on a regular basis.  But, it’s only taken until February 3rd for me to realize that is ONLY mail from my Google Mail Box being shown.