RE: Two Day Special No max end 3/25/08 @ 5pm CST

-----Original Message-----
From: Mason Yang
Sent: Mon 3/24/2008 3:41 PM
To: XXXXXXXX@dellservicesales.com; XXXXXXXX@dell.com; XXXXX_X_XXXXXXXXX@dell.com; XXXXXX_X_XXXXXXXX@dell.com; XXXXXX_XXXX@dell.com
Cc: Parvin_Black_III@Dell.com
Subject: RE: Two Day Special No max end 3/25/08 @ 5pm CST

To whoever is able to remove my name from Parvin A. Black III's email list,

Over the past nine months, I've requested to Parvin A. Black the Third over a dozen times to remove my name from Parvin A. Black the Third's mailing list. Parvin A. Black the Third has steadfastly refused to acknowledge my request to be removed--in fact, I received another one today. If in fact Parvin A. Black the Third is a real person--because surely, the only way Parvin A. Black the Third could be capable of missing over a dozen requests from me (and I will be glad to forward them ALL to you, no really, I am DELIGHTED to) is if Parvin A Black the Third were a robot, and even then, I'm sure there are plenty of robots that could potentially parse a request like REMOVE ME FROM YOUR EMAIL LIST and perhaps do something akin to REMOVING me from a list rather than continue do the exact opposite and bombard me with specials for Dell desktops, notebooks, servers, and all sorts of other Dell accessories for no fathomable reason besides the fact that today is a workday, and perhaps this workaday person will just happen to buy a Dell item simply because the price is inexplicably lower. Really??? It's lower? Gosh, perhaps now I SHOULD BUY ONE??

No, I perhaps will not buy one.

Perhaps I would like to be removed from your mailing. Yes, that would be wonderful. Much better than an offer of a two-day sale for a product I do not need nor want. (Gosh, can't Parvin M. Green the Third be at least a bit creative with these sales specials? How about making this one an Easter themed one? "Just like Cadbury eggs, Dell laptops, real cheap today on the day after Easter!" If I read a header like that, I'd maybe even consider buying a Dell Inspirion or Dell PowerEdge or Dell RazorFast or a Dell FireThreat or Dell MuscleCorner or Dell HegemonicVertice... Actually, no, still not interested.)

So please, hopefully you get a chuckle from this irate email, but please, most importantly, remember the message: DONT EVER SEND ME ANOTHER EMAIL AGAIN ADVERTISING YOUR SPECIALS. I DONT CARE ANYMORE.

Thank you, and I hope Parvin A. Black the Third doesn't get in trouble, not that it can, because it's probably a robot that can't read.

-Mason


-----Original Message-----
From: Parvin_Black_III@Dell.com [mailto:Parvin_Black_III@Dell.com]
Sent: Mon 3/24/2008 11:54 AM
To: Parvin_Black_III@Dell.com
Subject: Two Day Special No max end 3/25/08 @ 5pm CST

Hey,
I wanted to share this two day special offer with you. Only you can get
these systems, the desktop valued at $1,400.00 for $969.00 before tax
and the notebook valued at $1307.00 for $885.00 before tax. No quantity
limitations and no S&H charge. This offer ends today 3/25/08 at 5:00
CST. This offer can not be applied to any previous orders.

Optiplex 755 Minitower - $969.00 before tax
Latitude D630 Notebook- $885.00 before tax
Intel(r) Core(tm) 2 Duo Processor E6550
Intel(r) Core(tm) 2 Duo
(2.33, 4M, 1333 FSB)
(T7250 2.00 GHz)
XP Pro with media
XP Pro with media
2GB Ram 667MHz
2GB Ram 667MHz
160GB SATA Hard Drive
80GB 5400 RPM
16 X DVD Burner
8X DVD Burner
256MB ATI Radeon
X1300 Video Card INTEL GMA X3100
2007FPW 20 inch UltraSharp Digital Flat Panel
Wireless Card
Keyboard & Optical Mouse
6 Cell Battery/65W AC
Sound Bar
Carrying Case
*Both Systems include a 3 year Onsite Service
Warranty *

Best Regards,

Parvin A. Black III
Business Development Group Account Manager
Business Systems Division

Is anyone even reading this?

Ummm, someone post something.

---------------------------

Is this movement?

The lovely way that
people on the train
sway like swamp reeds

until they’re
shaken like tectonic plates—
it’s not me.

I’m feeling wobbly like a
bespattered café table

but nothing a sugar packet could fix.
I take my days black.

meeting wednesday

Prompt for wednesday:
write anything
Pwost on Tuesday.

Degenerate

when our ruddied hands get all wishy-watery
our fingernails spill out
the silver scum of lottery.
our wallets gape
like hungering starlings
ah, but let us lose some more my darling

and let’s love like tin men
til the coils become flaccid
til our bodies corrode in atmosphere acid—
let’s love like a black and white classic—
but ah, ah
to take part in this generation

to not end poems with punctuation

Providence

Spent the last couple days in Providence revisiting old haunts. On Monday, I chatted with an old co-worker about things I hadn't done in Providence yet, and she mentioned the Athenaeum. I'd never been there, only knew that it somehow had ties to HP Lovecraft and Poe and what not, but it always seemed so imposing. But wow, am I glad I stopped by. I wandered around and somehow ended up in a giant comfy chair with a copy of Sarah Ruhl's collected plays, Clean House. Her name has always popped up since she studied with Paual Vogel at Brown and was friends with Mac Wellman, both MacDowell fellows, and I'd been looking forward to seeing her stuff some day.

I only had a chance to get through the title play before I had to hit the road, but I dunno, maybe it was a combination of the hushed voices and the antiquities on display, but when I finished the piece, I felt like I'd read something classic. Exhausted and satisfied at the same time. Something about the uniqueness of playwriting...how it doesn't really translate to other mediums, the wonderfully stilted rhythm of the dialogue, the fantasy elements which would be ridiculous in any other context, but with playwriting, it's so easy to just accept it as is... a beautiful play and I can't wait to see a production of it some time. And I'm def not some theater buff.

So yeah, though I definitely didn't plan it this way, I guess spent the past couple weeks reading works by three different contemporary female writers in three different disciplines in three different cities. Strange how it turned out that way...

Editing the Currently Reading box in sidebar

EDIT: I changed the permissions so you all can actually do this now if you want.

Thought it would be amusing if people posted what they were reading every once in a while. I made a little sidebar (there, on the right under Links) called Currently Reading. Feel free to go in there and add yourself and link to whatever you want, be it your Facebook visual bookshelf, your LibraryThing books, your Listal favorites, or your Shelfari collection.

To edit the box, you can click this link, or after you've logged into Blogger, click on the manage Layout link. Then click edit next to the box that says Currently Reading and type in your info. If it looks like a lot of indecipherable code, make sure to click the Rich Text link in the toolbar. Also add to the links and any other parts of the page. Fiddle around. You can't really break anything.

Another City, Another Rec, More Awesomeness

I usually hate buying new books, but while here in Montreal I ended up in a bookstore, and found myself in the poetry section, browsing through some recommendations Celeste had made. I picked up Dorianne Laux's collection Facts About the Moon, and after I read through half of the first poem in there, "The Life of Trees," I knew I had to buy it. Generally I'm totally against impulse buys, but I think this one was worth it. Really accessible poems with strong narrators and actually funny moments, not just, oh, that's clever, hmm, let me sip my brandy to toast to your intellectual wordplay, but chuckle-in-bed and if you happen to be drinking chocolate milk while reading there, perhaps unexpected laundry the next day. Not that it's not sophisticated and refined and all that shit that good poetry has to be. Right. Oh well, not that I would know since I never read poetry. So you can take everything I just said with that proverbial smallest grain of salt thing.