You could be moments away from millions. Or I could. Click quickly and confidentially, or wish you had.

Someone once told me that in the video format wars of the early 1970's (Sony had Beta-Max and RCA had VHS, which stood for 'video home system') a deciding factor in one format overwhelming the other was amount of programming available (Apple folks can sing a verse or two into the present day when they quarrel about technical superiority with MS operating systems). Technically, the Sony product had it all over the RCA folks--but you couldn't fit a full-length movie on a Beta-Max tape and you could with a VHS.

Actually, more specifically, the 'adult' movie industry discovered VHS worked a lot better for their customers-and porn was, in essence, the 'killer app' for the first battle of formats in the Brave New World of Technology. In the last decade we've seen all kinds of innovations in personal computing, and advances in inter-connectivity. This electronic scribble is a reflection of those steps forward, and a bad example at that, but we have telemedicine; on-line project collaboration; distance learning; asynchronous programming and the list goes on and on.

So, what has been the Great Leap forward with cell phones, Blackberrys and Talking I-books? Spam, lovely spam. With egg, sausage, baked beans, bacon. Bloody Vikings. Actually, of course, that's NOT the one I mean. Poor Hormel, what kind of a Supreme Being would allow the name of their trademark product to be so abused? Actually, considering how often the missives I get seem to invoke Her/His Son's name, usually in the salutation, perhaps there's a darker reason for this than I've been considering.

Spam is is the killer app for all the confluence and convergence we possess in this wired world. The other species must be so jealous. Purists may argue that all the solicitations for mail order Viagra aren't technically spam. Difference without distinction, imho. And Pfizer, I don't know how The Lord feels about your Viagra TV campaign, but it's very fortunate for your lab-coated whiz kids that Elvis has left the building, thankyewverymuch, because I can't imagine he'd be too thrilled with what you've done with his tune. On the other hand, in light of its purpose, you might have borrowed something from "Girl Happy", but what? Certainly, not this one. Ugh. Three months before The Beatles record Norwegian Wood, this dog of a movie comes out and Colonel Tom Parker can't understand what happened to derail the gravy train. I guess Vernon and Glady's son wasn't the only one doing drugs, eh?

All that entrepreneurial opportunism and celebration of avarice and greed from Nigeria (and there were three million, one hundred and sixty thousand separate page entries on Google about this and only this many mentions on starvation in Darfur) and elsewhere is what we all think of when we say 'spam.' And I am taken with how nearly-clever so much of it is, in terms of weaving a narrative with real events, a plane crash or a horrible auto accident (usually the email has a url for the precipitating event, so I can 'see' how this note is all legit) and now the person writing has found money, boxcars of money, that they are keen to split with me(!)

Exactly how they have my address is a little flaky--the next time you get one of these notes, read it and see what I mean, and the spelling and grammar are always suspect. But they're funny, great reads and I save them and then send them as responses to other spam I get, because I cannot imagine these boiler room operators have ever heard of, much less signed, Lenny's 'missionary's pledge' (and thank you, Masked Man). It's like chaperoning a dance at Piranha Tech.

For a moment everyone is thrilled to be hearing 'back' even if Missa Darla (the one who uses 'my dear' at least ten times in her note) isn't actually getting my bank account number for the fifty million she wants to give me before croaking from the heartbreak of psoriasis or something even more awful. And that Army captain who is sitting on all of Saddam's gold he found in the hidden bunker and needs my help to get it back to the USA, for a sizable slice off the top (I've told this guy I'm leaving to go watch a movie, Three Kings, and that I'll get back to him 'straight away.' I always sign those notes 'sincerely, George Clooney', because doesn't he seem like a polite person who would sign things 'sincerely'?) eventually gets antsy and, on occasion, has actually flamed me for wasting his time.

I'm not petty and hold no grudges, but as soon as I get that T-3 line run into the basement and start my own boiler-room operation, I'm never letting that Army guy get the chance to send me a dime. Here in Lagos, we cannot be bought-only rented.
-bill kenny