From: pedregal@eternity.cs.umass.edu (Message Meister)
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 09:59:15 -0500 (EST)

Greetings in the passive voice.  Coffee and bagels and donuts are being
readied (although the edible toroids had not arrived as of this writing)
in the lounge. 

A noticeable drop in attendance was observed at last week's MMC event. 
Flatterers of the Message Meister insinuated it was due to the delayed 
delivery of email that morning.  This could not be confirmed nor denied
by the usual authoritative sources, but indeed there was an incident of
Monday Morning choking of the email, which slowed down the business of
the department.  A senior administrative staffer was seen approaching
graduate students and communicating with them by voice about the status
of their various bureaucratic affairs.  This only added to the confusion, 
as it is well known that the automatic response to any action item is
"send me email".  We have to commend the system staff for their rapid
reaction to the email problems, especially those caused by yours truly.
On being informed of the crisis, senior administrators of communications
infrastructure at the campus level indicated that the problem lies with
the excessive volume of email generated into and out of the Computer Science
department. "We are going to add some modems," they said, "but you better
cut back on all that traffic." On asked about how to achieve a reduction 
(or at least a reduction of the growth), the administrator suggested that
images be limited to black & white thumbnails, and that all vowels be removed
from the text of email. "Vwls r rdndnt n nglsh," thy pntd t.