As you might have spotted from my previous post, I’ve been on holiday. (There’s one of my favourite pictures: taken on my trusty Fuji, then post-processed in picnik.com before being posted on Flickr).

The reason for the quick holiday break? It’s my birthday tomorrow (Sunday). Why, thanks. Very kind. Anyway, given the amount of websites I must have punched my birthday details into, I wonder what kinds of crap I’ll be emailed from websites tomorrow.

I’ll detail them here; here’s a suitably rubbish one for starters:

From a big hotel chain: “Just for James” - between now and 23 August, stay in Budapest and claim special bonus points!
(For the record, I’ve never stayed in Budapest, nor anywhere in Eastern Europe since 1987. The price is cheap, but requires at least two nights, and doesn’t include VAT, which makes this email - gosh - illegal.)

It’ll be interesting to see what I get from some websites I use. A few years ago, Guinness was kind enough to send me (through the post) a coupon for some free beer. Not much has topped that; but let’s wait and see what I get.

(If you ask for user’s dates of birth on your website… what are you using that data for if not to greet your user on their birthday?)




[UPDATE] So far…

Tech Support Guy says “We at Tech Support Guy would like to wish you a very happy birthday today!”
vBulletin.org says “We at vBulletin.org Forum would like to wish you a happy birthday today!”
XFM wishes me a happy birthday, and advises me to pull a sickie tomorrow.

So far, XFM wins for at least having some kind of personal-like message.

(Virgin Radio, and Media UK, both don’t send birthday greetings. Yet.)

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