I found this interesting bit in my Spam folder today, different from the usual garbage, but just as annoying:

All,

The brother of a friend of mine was in a terrible accident. Last week his home caught on fire and he was trapped by the explosion, 90% of his body has third degree burns. He is in critical condition and is desperately in need of blood. If anyone is type O+ please donate. He's 13 years old and is undergoing three or four operations a week and the family can not find enough donors with his blood type. PLEASE, if you or someone you know is O+ DONATE so this little boy can live! Below you'll find the information to submit once you donate to make sure he receives it. Please pass this on to all of your family, friends and colleagues.

Shriners Hospital
815 Market Street
Galveston, Texas 77550

Fill out a donor gift card with his name (Storm St. Clair) and his hospital at any blood bank or hospital and the blood will go directly to him. His family has created a web site for his family, friends and donors to receive daily updates of his condition. Please go to www.stormstclair.com to read about his accident, get an update or send Storm and his family you thoughts and prayers.


Please keep him in your prayers.


Thanks,

Sheila Zachary
Cyberdyne/ATS
Executive Account Manager
Office: 972-418-9074 x239
Fax: 972-418-7075
Cell: 214-693-8197
sheilaz@cdats.com

Now, I have no idea who Sheila Zachary is, or why she sent me this e-mail, but frankly, it annoyed me. I doubt the legitimacy and/or the accuracy of this e-mail for several reasons. And yes, I did even visit the website, though I thought it might be porn, because Storm St. Clair really sounds like the name of a porno actress to me.

First of all, the e-mail says he suffered third degree burns over 90% of his body. Now, I'm not a doctor, but I've watched enough TV to know that if you've suffered third-degree burns to 90% of your body, you're not long for this world. Secondly, it takes weeks for blood to be screened, tested, bagged and delivered to someone who needs it. Thirdly, I don't even have O+ blood, I have A+ blood, so I'm of no help to him.

That said, all of the above could be true, in which case I'm certainly sorry for the young man, but flooding the web with junk e-mail isn't going to help him any.

Updated: The friendly weblog neighborhood nurse, Alwin, has chimed in with this post in the comments section, confirming my suspicions, and making a horrible pun:

It's bogus on its face; it isn't that easy to 'dedicate' units of blood, o pos is the most common of blood types, and, as you've noted, if he's getting that much blood for that amount of burn he's (if you'll pardon the expression) toast.

And really, I'm a total web geek, but if someone in my family was to get burned, putting up a web site about it would be about the last thing on my mind.

Updated again: 8-27-2002 Someone claiming to be the brother of Storm St. Clair called me on my cell phone last night, I have no idea who it actually was, as they blocked their caller ID info. I notice that the site has also changed to reflect the apparent death of Storm, and his brother apologized for a friend of his sister sending the mass e-mail to strangers. He apparently found his way to this weblog entry, and just wanted me to know that it was a legitimate site, and that he was concerned about the "harshness" of some of what was posted here. I'm not going to take down my words, or Al's, as weblogs are all about capturing moments in time, and that's what we thought after receiving the offending e-mail message. Obviously, I feel sympathy for Storm's family, and hope that they can come to terms with what happened.

Oh, and in the future, if someone wants to criticize what I've written, send me an e-mail, don't use my cell phone minutes.

- posted by Seth @ 2:02 PM    

 
Wow, Netscape 4 is 5 years old now. This is an interesting little graphic rendition of the problems with that browser.(Found via Al) If you're reading this in Netscape 4.X, it's time to upgrade. Use Internet Explorer or Mozilla already. And, if you're running Internet Explorer, how about downloading the newest version already? I can't believe how many people in the log files are still running IE 5.0 on Windows, which has some serious security holes in it. Here's a tip, if you're running Windows 95, you should be using Internet Explorer 5.5 Sp2, if you're running any other version of Windows, you should be using Internet Explorer 6.0. Or, better yet, get Mozilla 1.0, it works great, and you can turn off those annoying pop-up ads that the web is full of now. I'm going to end this rant here, but please, lose the Netscape 4.x folks!
- posted by Seth @ 8:05 AM