SpamXSW

So, SxSW is done. Phew. My last entries are posted to the Houston Chronicle blog, and I'm trying to get back to normal life.

One aspect of doing that is getting back to zero inbox. I am kind of a freak about email (as you might remember), so that's not an easy process for me.

First up, I had to get through all my held spam, which was about 700 emails (held by Spamcop). This only takes a few minutes, but is concentrationally intensive, because it's very important to me that I don't delete (or worse, report) any legit emails.

BTW, as I was going through the list, I found a spam message with the subject "Martha Steward Prison Photos". The mind boggles.

Next up, I've got to deal with the ~80 real messages in my inbox. Some of these are requests to send albums, some are requests to come to a show, and some are just "hey, what's up?" kind of emails. All require different responses. I'm guessing just moving these to-dos into the appropriate system will take about 2 hours.

Next up is my physical inbox. That's got a stack of receipts & mail, plus checks to deposit, bills to pay, etc. Probably got a good hour there.

And of course, there are still other inboxes: voicemail, RSS, pending business cards from SXSW. And then there's ... THE BAG. SxSW gives you this big honkin' bag of stuff when you register. I haven't even opened it yet. Most of it is the music business equivalent of spam ... flyers, free CDs, coupons, etc, most of which I don't really care about. But being slightly OCD, I have to look through it all to make sure I don't miss something good.

So anyway, guess I have my work cut out for me. Off I go!