Folks, I’m seriously bogged down and I won’t be particularly verbose here until after Thursday. In lieu of content, I leave you with this thought.

The picture on the right is from Outlook Express. It is from Version 6.00.2800.1123, which was released roughly around October 2001. If you open the program up in Windows, you’ll see it on the default image on the right-hand side. Now the pen watermark graphic I can understand. But what’s with the glasses?

If the idea here is that the act of checking your email, let alone writing one, is somehow an intellectual status symbol, then I’d like to know what makes email intellectual, given that most of it is composed of emoticons, endless acronyms and outright stupidity (“DOOD! Check out this KOOL Flash animation of a guy falling on his ass! HAHAHAHAhahahaHAHAHA!!!”). And that’s not counting the strange Santa spam.