Personally, I celebrate Arizona Statehood Day.

I'm just not that into the Hallmark holiday that is Valentine's Day, and I'm not alone.

Even though V-Day is the second biggest card-sending holiday behind Christmas (ahead of Mother's Day?), it's just not for everybody.

And card makers -- always looking for the next big group of consumers to bilk -- are picking up on that. Hence the emergence of anti-Valentine's Day cards and merchandise.

I have four words to say to that.

It's about damn time!

Sorry, I'm not the gushy type.

I admit that I do send Valentine's Day cards, but I usually deface them in some manner. Now I don't have to.

Even more than sending snail-mail cards, I love sending eCards. In fact, we have a very nice selection here on azfamily.com -- all free. We have some great Valentine's Day cards, but none to fit the dark Feb. 14 moods of people like me.

So I bopped on over to AmericanGreetings.com. There are only a few AVD eCards there, but they're quality. Definitely good for a laugh.

I'm generally not into paying for eCards, but they do have a free one-month trial. That's a good thing. After that it's $13.99 per year. (You have to remember to cancel during your trial period to avoid being billed. There's a toll-free number you have to call. It's included in the confirmation e-mail they send you.)

They also have an option to create and print actual cards if you want to go that direction. (That's a separate membership that runs $19.99. You can bundle 'em for $29.99.)

Me? I'm happy with the eCards, especially for a "holiday" I loathe.

Should you decide to keep the service, you can set up reminders for special dates, an address book and event invites (both as host and guest).

You can do all this during the free trial, but it doesn't seem worth it if you're not going to stick with it.

It's easy to cancel, by the way. (Ease of cancellation is a concern with any service -- at least for me.) I just called 'em up. The rep, who was very nice, asked why I was canceling, but didn't give me a hard time or anything. She clearly did not go to the AOL school of customer service. Less than a minute after hanging up, I had an e-mail confirming the cancellation.

If only it were so easy to cancel Valentine's Day.

But I digress.

If you like the idea of date reminders but don't want all the bells and whistles of American Greetings.com, check out BigDates.com. It's a nice little online service and it about half the price per year of AmericanGreetings.com. BigDates also has a variety of free eCards for its members. No AVD cards that I saw, but no service is perfect.

It all depends on what you're looking for.

I go for 5'10" or taller. More brains than biceps. Not living with Mom and Dad. Must like cats (or at least tolerate them to make me happy).

Oops. We were talking about eCards, not men.

Well, it's just that time of year.

Happy Statehood Day!