The LAST cartbeforethehorse newsletter (#266)

[cartbeforethehorse]

Hello, fans, friends, and family.
As the subject line may have already tipped you off, this will be the
last newsletter that I'll be sending out. . .in email form anyway. You
may have noticed that these newsletters, that used to arrive in your
inbox like clockwork, have petered out. I know exactly what the
problem is, so I may as well tell you and try to fix it. These
newsletters started way back in 2005, a year when the word "blog"
still confused the spell checker. Since then, people have been
steadily requesting to be on the mailing list, making it a GIANT group
of people. And that fact alone makes it statistically more likely that
someone is going want to be removed from the list each time I send out
a newsletter. I'd like to say that this doesn't mess with my head, but
at a certain point, it gets hard to share when I consistently get
back, "Please remove me from your mailing list!" Obviously, I'm not
talking about any of you. If you're reading this, you're among the
silent majority that has appreciated me keeping you in the loop. And
some of you have not been so silent, and I appreciate all of the kind
words and encouragement you've given me over the years.

But it's 2011 now, and even grandma and grandpa know what a blog is.
You probably didn't realize it, but these newsletters have also been
mirrored on my blog for the last few years. So I think that will be
the best format to continue sharing what's going on in the cart before
the horse house. I'll be able to write again without feeling like I'm
bugging someone somewhere.

I had an "ah-ha" moment while sorting the recycling that clued me into
this subtle difference between writing a newsletter to email and
writing a blog. I was removing a bunch of unread newspapers from their
wet plastic bags and grumbling to myself, "Why am I getting the paper
all of a sudden? I don't remember signing up for it. I should call the
newspaper and get them to stop sending them because this is just
getting to be a nuisance on recycling day. I know where to get the
news!"
You see, I constantly have the BBC news in my headphones. They're more
focused on world news, and their British accents give everything an
ominous 1984 tone that I appreciate. So in that moment I realized that
to some people, my newsletters are like those soggy unwanted
newspapers on the lawn. So from now on, I'll be more like the BBC
news. If you want to know what's going on, just stop by and visit me
here. . .

http://dylansnewsletters.blogspot.com/

Thanks for reading.
-Dylan