The Hills are Alive...

It's a sign of the times...

I suppose I should be happy that Yahoo has imposed numerous rules to reduce spam and other abuse originating from their accounts… but it was *SO* frustrating the other day: there I was, groaning delightedly at a punny e-mail I felt was worth sharing with everyone… so I composed my message, and proceeded to select most of my ex-colleagues in my address book; then I clicked “send”.

Yes, I myself label that as spamming… but it’s not really a true spam, since I’m sending the joke to people I know! Anyway – can u guess what happened next?


ERROR: YOUR MESSAGE HAS NOT BEEN SENT was the message on the screen – in red - instead of that usual “message sent.” Ugh. It seems Yahoo now puts a limit to the number of recipients OF THE SAME DOMAIN NAME in any one e-mail message. And since I was e-mailing my ex-colleages at their work e-mails… of course they were all addresses of the same domain name! Ugh!

Fine.

Since the error message didn’t state just how many of the same domain name WERE allowed, I figured I’d just send the same message to smaller bunches of people instead. So I only did about 20 (instead of the almost 100 or so) recipients, and hit send. Yahoo! No problems with that!

Then I did the second batch, continuing with another 20 or so recipients.

I hit send.

ERROR: YOUR MESSAGE HAS NOT BEEN SENT.

Omg what now? Can you guess? It seems I had now reached my “sending limit for the hour”!!!

>>>>>>> “sending limit”?????? “… for the hour”??????

What, are we allowed to only send two or three messages per hour now??

No way in hell was I going to putter around online just to wait for an hour to pass by before trying again to pass some groans/laughs to my friends and colleagues!

So here it is: The joke that led to the discovery of new and restrictive anti-spamming Yahoo practices. You tell me if it was worth it:

~~~~~~~~~

Bob Hill and his wife Betty were vacationing in Transylvania. Driving in a storm, they had a wreck. Both were hurt, especially Betty. So Bob carried her to a nearby farmhouse. A hunchbacked man, Igor, answered the door, and called to his master, a scientist. The Hills were taken to the lab downstairs, where they were placed on tables. Despite the scientist's best efforts, both died. Disconsolate, the scientist went upstairs to play his piano. Igor, cleaning the lab, noticed that both Bob and Betty were moving. He ran upstairs. "Master, master," he exclaimed, "the Hills are alive with the sound of music!"