Tag Archives: WTF

Spam: The Next Generation

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Why yes, the blog’s spam trap is still catching strange and wonderful new marketing approaches.

Mind you, it’s also still catching huge steaming piles of all-natural fertilizer–lately I’ve been getting several hundred spam attempts a day for online dating, all of which are straight out of the boring, “seen it a million times” school of spam.

Herewith, an assortment of the creative attempts to use my blog to sell you things you didn’t know you needed.

  • gaming laptops under 600 pounds I thought all laptops were under 600 pounds. I certainly don’t want to put one that isn’t on my lap. Maybe they ran afoul of an English/Metric conversion glitch? I’d buy a 600 gram gaming laptop. That was, by the way, the entire message. No details, no link to a website, no attached malware. I have no idea how they expected to make any money.
  • When choosing the colours for you office, there are a few basic points to consider. Agcefefgakbd Another spammer who seems unclear on the concept of driving traffic somewhere: no link, no indication of what’s being sold–and no hint about the considerations involved in painting your office.
  • Human beings during Adam’s era that thought his knowledge of the times was the ultimate reality. For example, when you need reliable vehicle lighting you must try to find flexibility in mounting options. I’ve seen spam invoke biblical authority before, but never for automotive parts. And the use of Adam as the authority is interesting. Did he even own a car? Where would he have driven? There can’t have been much night life in Eden.
  • Today, while I was at work, my cousin stole my iphone and tested to see if it can survive a twenty five foot drop, just so she can be a youtube sensation. My iPad is now destroyed and she has 83 views. I know this is entirely off topic but I had to share it with someone! Any other considerations aside–what’s the point of having an iPhone if you’re going to leave it home where your cousin can get her hands on it–I wish you would explain how dropping your iPhone destroyed your iPad! Given some of the stories I’ve covered here, this one might actually be on topic for the blog if you come up with a few more details. However, you’re right that your game cheats website is off topic.
  • Woodman ended her life in January 1981 by throwing herself of a building after having a long period of depression. Wear old garden clothes when tending to flowering lilies inside garden to stop unwanted stained clothing. I have a sneaking suspicion that the best thing I can do to ward off depression and keep my clothes clean is to NOT buy calla lilies from this spammer. Calla lily spam was really hot for about a week. Did some florist overestimate the number of funerals in his area?
  • Article writing is also a fun, if you know then you can write or else it is complicated to write. I’m guessing this spammer thought I’m still in the QA business and used me to test his new spamming software. Hints for the future: Include a link to what you’re selling and don’t post from an account named “test3”.
  • I like reading an article that can make men and women think. Also, thanks for allowing for me to comment! You’re welcome. I like those articles too. It’s odd, though: I find it much harder to write an article that only makes one gender think. Drop me a note if you have some hints to improve my single-sex writing skills. They might come in useful if I ever decide to spam-sell sports equipment. No, wait, if I do, I’m going to want to sell to men and women.
  • Innovative high heels Guide Exposes Method To Dominate The high heels Scene I hadn’t realized there was a high heels scene, though I can’t say I’m surprised–or startled that it’s apparently linked to domination. Two questions: If everyone uses your method, who’s actually going to dominate the scene? And where do the discount sunglasses you’re selling fit into the high heels scene?
  • Here you will benefit from the elephant trip. After that you’ll discover the Metropolis Palace Advanced and museums. Is it just me, or does this message make more sense when you know the poster is selling health care products of dubious effectiveness. You had heard that many herbal supplements–most of which have never been shown to have any health benefits in the first place–don’t contain the herbs they list on the label? I’m puzzled why this was attached to my piece about Pilot Bread. Maybe the seller thinks elephants like Pilot Bread.
  • That is why we advise injecting grizzly bear adrenaline into your initially cup in the morning. Because there’s nothing better than a hot mug of bear extract to kick your brain into gear. Safety first: make sure you wear this seller’s ski gloves whenever you handle raw grizzly bear adrenaline!

Spam III: The WTF Issue

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As usual, attempts to spam the blog comments are a problem. Most of it gets deleted automatically, but I do still have the privilege of reviewing a few that the spam-catcher can’t make a decision on. I thank the technogods for the spam-catcher on a daily basis: at last report, over 9,000 spams have been deleted since the blog launched. If I had had to delete them all manually, I would have given up in disgust months ago and turned comments off–and that’s no way to run a railroad. Or a blog.

I do appreciate the opportunity to review the borderline cases, though. How else could I find such fascinating blank verse as It is really entry levels with respect to black metallic without reserving unyielding passion to suit another function. Phantom’s screams is standard associated with genre, with a few distance given to its harshness.? For the record, I have no idea what this was intended to sell, even after looking at the linked website. But I would consider my life immeasurably impoverished if I had never been introduced to entry levels of black metallic phantoms.

The spam tells me about blog features I didn’t even know about: I visited several web sites however the audio feature for audio songs present at this web page is really fabulous. Just think, if it hadn’t been for this attempt to use my blog to sell counterfeit designer jeans, I would never have known I had been posting music!

The positive feedback helps me get through those days when the words refuse to flow. Consider this bit of egoboo; apparently even my most minor posts are fabulous. The brief “Orly?” post in which I urged people to vote in the turkey sandwich poll […]has touched alll the internet people, its really really fastidious piece of writing on building up new webpage. Oh, pardon me. It’s “fastidious,” not “fabulous.” A slight difference. I guess I won’t be buying any “parajumpers” (whatever those are) from the spammer’s site in gratitude after all.

Mind you, some of the spam is a bit worrisome. This comment, posted to last year’s Google I/O commentary, seems to be promoting cannibalism: The brick oven dishes out hand-made pizzas with the toppings of your choice: tuna, calamari, pepperoni, beef and chicken. Brussels sprouts, 5 sprout ——————————————————-3. Then grill and chop the chicken before dicing the tomato. Pithi Dastoor: In this ceremony, turmeric paste is applied on the hands and the feet of the bride and the groom. Slightly more unusual is the chicken chaat, chicken tenders with tamarind mango seasoning. Either that or it’s suggesting uses for the pigeons attracted to the rice thrown at weddings. Makes you want to reconsider your use of Nexus devices, doesn’t it?

I think this is a public service announcement for safer sex: There are safe places to go where your anonymity will be preserved. If you really did a cost-benefit analysis of sexual acting out, you might see that the benefit is fleeting and the costs’well, you know what they are. It needs a bit of punching up, and I’m not sure what it has to do with ordering songs on a CD, but I suppose it’s a worthwhile effort. I thought maybe the linked page would have the kicker to drive home the point, but no. The linked page was several screens full of apparently random gibberish. Maybe it was some sort of code. Do you suppose the NSA is trying to use my blog to pass secret messages to its overseas agents?

Speaking of “worrisome” and “safer sex”, consider this little number: Goat care becomes enjoyable when the person giving care and the goat enjoys each other. Surprisingly enough, the linked site appeared completely innocent. Intimations of bestiality used to draw eyeballs to a collection of animated gifs and low-resolution flash movies? Whatever will they think of next?

Apparently, what they’ll think of next is a whole new view of geography: The University of West Indies is also a home to many tourist attractions. It is only weak against itself, so meaning you will deal tonnes of damage against most dragons. Individuals are traveling the world when they come to Toronto. I’m not sure when UWI moved to Canada–or did Toronto relocate to warmer climes–but I suppose anything is possible when dealing with dragons. Didn’t anyone warn the Canadians that it’s dangerous to get them mad?

Still, it’s reassuring to see that there’s still creativity and energy being put into the ancient art of selling people things they don’t need.

posted through poppo in 10:30 AM in Might Several, 07

Oh, come on! You’re not even trying!

What a data of un-ambiguity and preserveness of valuable knowledge on the topic of unexpected emotions. Ooh, blank verse and compliments in one post? And selling something as useful as dubious weight loss drugs? Sign me up!

Say what?

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Today I want to point out a few WTF items. None of them really amount to enough to stand by themselves, so I’m following an ancient tradition and throwing them together. Call it the literary equivalent of “leftovers soup”.

  • First up: The OFF Pocket. This is a Kickstarter for a product that you probably didn’t even know you needed. I certainly didn’t know that I needed it. Now that I know about it, I still don’t know that I need it. What is it? It’s a cloth bag that you can put your phone in. When you do, it (supposedly) blocks radio signals to and from the phone. Presto! Nobody can call you and the NSA can’t track you or use your phone to eavesdrop on you. As of this writing, 73 people thought this was a great idea and are backing it to the tune of $6,317.WhyTF would you want this bag? If you block the signal, your phone is going to run its battery down faster than normal as it scans for towers. How about just turning the damn phone off? That not only accomplishes the same privacy ends as the bag, but it also saves your battery. And it only takes a couple of seconds longer to turn it off or on than to dig the bag out of your purse/backpack/pocket and shove the phone into it.
  • Next bit of news: Grumpy Cat is getting her own line of coffee drinks. OK, I love Grumpy Cat as much as the next guy–given my grumpy, snarky persona, how could it be otherwise? I’ll passionately defend the right to merchandise the hell out of anything and anyone. As long as there’s some small connection between the endorser and the endorsee. In the case of a product endorsement, that means the endorser really ought to use product. At least once. Show me the cat who’ll come within ten feet of a cup of coffee and then get her to endorse the brew!Besides, doesn’t this sort of endorsement dilute Grumpy Cat’s image? How does an endorsement from someone who’s unimpressed by everything help drive demand? I’m not even going to get into the atrocity being committed on the English language with “Grumppuccino”.
  • This one’s a bit late, but seemed apropos given yesterday’s conversation. Earlier this year, the Sacramento River Cats gave away Barry Zito bobbleheads. (For those of you who need some background: the River Cats are a minor league baseball team affiliated with the Oakland As. Zito played for the River Cats way back when. He’s still fondly remembered in Sacramento. And bobbleheads have been a common giveaway item at baseball games since 1999.)Take a look at the picture of the bobblehead linked above. Now take a look at this picture of Zito. Or this one. Do you see a resemblance? I mean beyond the fact that they both have one head and two arms? With well over a decade of practice at making bobbleheads, couldn’t they have come up with one that looks sort of like the original? But even leaving that aside, Zito is left-handed, as you can see in the photos: glove on the right hand, ball in the left. So why is the bobblehead right-handed? Sacramento must have been borrowing QA engineers from Caltrans’ Bay Bridge team.

OK, enough negativity.

Here’s something to brighten your mood heading into the weekend. (Background)