Then again, it could be because Vietnamese can be written in Romanized text. At any rate, whoever's running the Dich Vu Mail List, we are not interested in "1 trieu dia chi email danh cho Quang cao, gia cuc re trong dip Tet." Thanks anyway.

PR flack needs decaf

Agency Indigo seems besotted with the phenomenon of email. Over the Chinese New Year holiday, when many of your devoted CWHK staff were cooling their overheated cyberbrains in exotic locales (or playing "couch potato" with TVB droning away on the 42-inch plasma), one enthusiastic Indigo flack took it upon herself to send a flurry of emails. While each one included an attachment, there was a paucity of information in the body of the email itself. "Please find attached photo release from [CLIENT NAME DELETED] today for your reference," for example, a cryptic missive that did not inspire us to check said attachment.

The hyperactive flack did not desist as the Year of the Dog dawned, but rather, ramped up her caffeine level, although the content level remained minimal. Among the cyberbones she frantically hurled our way were three identical emails sent in a single day, all without explanation (save an attached Word document...in Chinese) for a total in-box clog of over 6MB.

The moral of this story: send press releases in text format in the body of the email, and keep attachments to a minimum or, better yet, don't include them as a matter of course. Simple text emails that state their purpose rapidly get our attention. Emailers who click "attach" thinking they've accomplished something rapidly get our "DELETE."