When I moved from Edmonton to New York a dozen years ago, I was quite surprised the first time I saw the mail being delivered on a Saturday. Somehow, I'd gotten by for the first three decades of my life with Canada's 5-day-a-week mail delivery.

In the news this week: the US Postal Service wants permission to eliminate one day from its current six day delivery schedule.

I think we'll all get by if it happens.

Labels: USPS Mail Saturday delivery

I don't get or send many text messages. (I steer everyone to e-mail.)

The nice thing about this is that when I do get a text I'm reasonably assured that it's from someone who knows to message me that way at times when I'm off e-mail.

Except for this week. My phone suddenly came to life with what I assumed to be an "urgent" message. Actually, it was an advertisement from AT&T reminding me that American Idol kicked off this week. (AT&T is one of the lead sponsors.)

This is not cool. I didn't sign up for Spam when I bought my iPhone. And I learned today that I wasn't alone. AT&T told the New York Times that it sent the Idol ad to a "significant number" of it's 75 million subscribers.

In a weak defense of the unwanted e-mail, AT&T points out that the message was delivered to subscribers at no charge (Thanks!) and provided instructions on a method to opt out of similar messages in the future.

Labels: American Idol, AT+T, Spam