"Disclaimers? We don't need no stinking disclaimers."

Fine, don't read them. And ignore the other FAQs too. If it is particularly obvious that you haven't made any effort to learn what we are about before sending us mail we will probably delete your message without making any effort to respond.

"You are running your business in a really lousy manner ..."

This is not a business website; it is a Dead Pool Contest, part of a larger PERSONAL website formerly found at a major midwest university but now just slumming it with the rest of the perverts at a major southwest hosting company.

"We are looking for business partners ... exciting business opportunity ... Viagra ... mortgages ... computer supplies ... gambling ... sex ... vacations ..."

Delete, Delete, Delete, Delete, Delete, Delete, Delete, Delete, ....

"I saw a listing for one of my favorite «fill-in-the-blank» on your website. You have listed only three examples of his work; he actually has over 500 «whatever» to his credit. Please complete your listing so that people won't think that you are an a bunch of ignorant boobs — to help you, I have typed up a listing of the missing 497 items, ordered by the chemical potentcy of the drugs I was using when I first experienced their `genius'. I've typed them into a Visicalc spreadsheet and attached them (along with several hundred relevant BMPs & MPGs) to this message ..."

Too late — we've been known as `boobs' for a lot longer than you have been surfin' the 'net. Besides, if we listed everything then there would be no need for you to continue to exist. Make yourself useful — build the fan site that you've always wished would exist. Then. everyone will get your site as the number one-listed item on Google ... you'll sell advertising, do an IPO, get laid, and completely forget about us!

"This whole website is disgusting ... filthy ... depraved ... it should be shut down ... you should be fired ... you should be prosecuted ..."

Loon alert ... your message will be folded, spindled & mutilated before deletion (and you'll be added to the "nut" list). More than a few people actually believe that the site has redeeming social and/or reference value.

"Google had you in the top 10 listings for my search ... make them stop cataloging the site so that I don't have to risk coming here anymore and being exposed to this ......"

We don't run Google --- they catalog what they want, when they want. Same goes for Yahoo!, Ask (Jeeves), Alta Vista, Lycos, Bing and the other web catalogs. After all, it was your own search criteria that lead you here. If you want our site to be blocked from your system install a net ninny program on your computer and instruct it to block the site. Notice that the title bar of your browser always shows "Caskets On Parade" — should be easy enough for you to enter -"caskets on parade" into that search filter to exclude our listing.

"The People's Republic of Blivetstan does not permit this kind of vile corruption to appear on our computer monitor screens. We are charging you with blasphemy, high treason & deviated preversion. Prepare to be extradited to our people's paradise where you will stand trial before a revolutionary tribunal of religious leaders ..."

Shove it up your *#*#*#*, pinhead. We've never been to Blivetstan; we have no intention of ever visiting your backward little hell-hole. The website is legal in the U.S.--- it was one of your own digital minions that came here to get it. Flog yourself all you want, but keep your visions of digital purity to yourself (paging General Ripper).

"My precious little baby has been traumatized/corrupted/debauched by visiting your website ... I'm calling the Attorney General. I'm calling my senator. I'm calling America's Most Wanted. This disgusting site is not fit for children. It's time to take you down."

We don't recall signing away our Constitutional rights ... since you failed to obtain our prior written consent to procreate, the onus is on you to keep your progeny away from the site (net nanny time). May we suggest packing the kid in biodegradable foam and keeping him/her sheltered in a hermetically sealed vault until they reach their 18th birthday? Even better, join the kid there.

Your message has one or more Attachments

Toxic --- automatic deletion of message. Don't attach anything.

Your message contains in-line graphics

Also Toxic --- automatic deletion of message & inclusion on the enemy subversives list that we report to Jack Bauer at CTU.

Your Message Contains HTML

Our mail reader doesn't display HTML; we immediately delete these messages. Turn Off HTML before your mail program sends the message.

Your Message is typed entirely in UPPER CASE.

The equivalent of shouting. Our computer room is like a library ... sssssh! Type in normal, mixed, case.

Your Message is a giant blob of continuous text (perhaps hundreds of lines long).

Indent, use paragraphs, use relatively spare verbage. The message will be substantially more readable. Long messages look like diatribes; we delete diatribes. Plus, we add those people to our auto-deletion filter --- we'll never see your subsequent messages.

Your Message's subject line is bait to get us to open an otherwise unacceptable message

Naughty, naughty. Permanent exile in the penalty box.

Your Message is loaded with insulting, disparaging verbage.

Throw your tantrum somewhere else. Deleted & added to list of filtered (automatically deleted) messages.

Your message is a forward of something received by you and you thought you'd share it with everyone that you ever captured an E-mail address for ...

We have no sense of humor; we don't want to save the « fill in the blank»; we don't contribute to any cause, worthy or otherwise; we don't care if the "chain" is broken and we have seven years of bad luck; blah, blah, blah ... again, message deletion & inclusion of your E-mail address (or provider) in the permanent kill file filter.

You sent us a message and you want to know why we haven't responded ...

Read the disclaimers, dummy. Figure out where you fall in our priority list. Look elsewhere for someone to change your diaper.

You've given up trying to contact us by E-mail ... now you've left a message on our answering machine and you want to know why we still haven't responded ...

Our response will be delivered by the appropriate governmental authority ... the Ingham County Prosecutor's office.

You're gonna park your carcass on my doorstep ... now we won't have any means of avoiding you & giving you an acceptible response to your dunning E-mail(s) & voice mail rants.

If it's daylight, make yourself useful — rake/mow/trim the lawn; wash the car; clean out the rain gutters; feed the neighbor's perpetually-snarling & barking rottweiler; shovel the sidewalk & driveway; .... After dark watch out for the gangs of drunken party animals that roam the neighborhood looking for trouble, beating-up and robbing schlubs like you. In either case, upon my arrival at home to find you on the porch I will place a call to the ELPD ... they usually respond to this kind of situation with shotguns, sniper rifles & bullhorns. Go ahead, make their day!

You employ a very sophisticated identity masking firewall and complicated email sender identity authorization server to keep spam out of your in-box. The "key" to demunging your reply-to address is found in an encrypted attachment found in your message's "signature" text. Why haven't we responded to your message?

[1] When we click "reply" in our email client we expect that the "reply-to" address requires no editing.
[2] We ignore message "signatures" - anything in them is ignored & will likely lead to your message being routed directly to our "trash" folder.
[3] We refuse to go though hoops to respond to messages - we will not "register" with your mail host and provide a bunch of private information "proving" we are who we claim to be just to respond to your message.
[4] Reply messages that "bounce" are considered fully responded-to; followup queries about our lack of response to your original defective message will be ignored.
[5] We are irresponsible cranks that delight in the torment of oh-so well-meaning but cluelessly earnest do-gooders who only want to make everything "right" for everyone by making everything "wrong" for everyone else. Go away and leave everyone alone, you life-sucking trolls.

#1 messages from Audit Committee members

These are the people that administer the contest.

For messages requiring a response we usually respond within 7 days.

#2 messages from the current Contest's Entrants

For messages requiring a response we usually respond within a month.

#3 messages from previous Contest Entrants & Audit Committee members

For messages requiring a response we usually respond within a year.

#4 messages from individuals with which we have an established, ongoing dialog

For messages requiring a response we usually respond within a decade.

#5 messages from people reporting "errors" in the Book of the Dead database

We almost always respond to these one way or another. The turnaround time can be anywhere from a century to a number of millenia. All inquiries of this type require an extra verification step on our part before we respond. Sometimes the error is obvious and can be corrected immediately without further research; other queries may involve a trip to the library for further research. We will usually respond before the North American plate drifts over the north pole & is buried under miles of ice.

#6 everything else

Eventually ... before the sun explodes ... maybe.

Remember — the operative words here are usually and maybe.

This website is maintained in our spare time. Right now about 1,250 hours per year are devoted to all aspects of the Contest and Databases. We get around to E-mail when we get around to it ... sleep, compensated employment, gastronomic excess, household maintenance & reproductive merriment all come first.

Don't bother asking if we'll help you do some research project; our own research project eats all of our free time.

The master database is not for sale. We don't give it away. What we post on the 'net is all that you're gonna get. The fact that the database had previously been posted at a host with an .edu domain doesn't mean that some Federal or State agency had paid for it ... there is no "entitlement" associated with the existence of our databases.

Sending us snail mail doesn't speed up the response process ... it actually tends to slow it down by several orders of magnitude.

If you are contacting us with information that is at odds with something that is in the database please: identify the page in which the problem data is located & cite your source(s), preferably sources that are publically accessible documents. Anything other than simple typing errors will require a library visit to confirm your information over the info that is already posted. Upon completion of our research we will contact you, either to acknowledge your info or for further info that could substantiate your info.

If you possess some kind of "definitive" documentation (a birth/death certificate, police report, handwritten suicide note, ..., etc.) we would like a scanned copy of it so that we may file it away with the other paperwork that we keep. We prefer the BMP, TIFF or GIF file formats. Let us know that you have an image attachment to send & we'll write back with the Email address to use for attachment submissions.

Regarding photograph copyrights — yes, we understand that most of the photographic images found here are still under copyright. We're hoping that their usage falls within the "fair use" guidelines of the copyright laws (the old adage about a picture being worth a thousand words is certainly true when it comes to some of the people and things we've referenced in the website; for example, check out where the microphone is aimed vs. where Regis' eyes are aimed). If you still want us to haul it down, make your pitch.

So, you still want to send us mail?
Go head, burn those electrons ... click on the icon below.

Page last updated on 11/15/2011