My spam turns ambitious

Recently, my spam took a step upward in variety and ambition.  In a single hour on a Sunday, my spam offered to

Tell me the secrets only my DNA could reveal—and at a discount.  Oh, yeah, I’m in a hurry to send a DNA sample to a lab I’ve never heard of.  What could possibly go wrong?

Provide me the device I need to decide if my dog has bad breath.  Uh, he’s a dog; of course he has bad breath!

Put a new roof on my house.  Just did that.

When putting on socks becomes just too hard, help me with that onerous task with the magical sock slider.  I’m fine on this front, thanks, but when I’m not, I’ll be turning to my house’s sock elves.  What—you don’t have sock elves?

Check whether I have diabetes.  Also fine here, but thanks for giving me another chance to support crackpot science.

Back up all of my photos onto the capacious photo stick.  I’m sure the photo stick is lovelier than any of my other many backup systems, but I’m good.

Illuminate the night with a tactical flashlight.  Better than my Surefires?  I doubt it.

Fix my diet with a Nutrisystem program.  Oh, my diet has much bigger problems than that.

The real lesson here is clear:  I need better spam.

This evening's spam would like me to...

...skip the mattress store and order online.

...vote in a poll of the best auto brands.

...join the Dollar Shave club.

...invest in life insurance coverage for less!

and

...refinance my home.


I'm continually amazed at how little relevance my spam has to anything I am at all interested in.

My spam makers need to up their game.

Web site spam needs to up its game

I've written before about the spam that comes to me via the form on my site's Contact page.  For the last little while, my Web hosting service's spam filters managed to keep the spam away, but now it's back with a vengeance.  From its many drug offers, I've learned that the spam gods worry that I am suffering from a wide range of maladies and so want to offer me an equally wide range of cure opportunities.

In just one week, my spam very considerately offered me the chance to buy drugs to fix all of the following ailments:

• obesity
• anorexia
• impotency
• vaginal itch
• chronic itching (but not specifically in my vagina)
• baldness
• psoriasis and other skin problems
• attention-deficit disorder
• fatigue
• manic attacks
• fits of depression

I'm quite impressed with the miracles the spam gods can now create with drugs--though not impressed enough, of course, to actually click on any link in any of these messages.

On an only slightly more serious note, I'm actually a bit disappointed in the quality of my spam.  Surely the spam mailers can scan my photos and note I'm neither balding nor likely to possess a vagina, to name but the two most obvious examples.  If they're going to keep bothering me, the least they could do is to try to customize their offerings to my interests.  Why, for example, aren't they attempting to lure me with a link to a $400, never-opened copy of the recent deluxe edition of the Codex Seraphinianus?  At least that sort of link would tempt me.

Until they do, other than occasionally checking to see if anything feels itchy, I'm going to have to continue to ignore my Web-site spam.

More lessons from my spam

(WARNING: Adult language and topics ahead. Kids, stop reading.)

As I've commented in several earlier posts, a torrent of spam rains on my systems daily. I run a spam filter, and it works for the most part, but I still need to scan the spam subject lines lest I accidentally lose a real message related to one of my jobs.

From this scanning, I've learned a lot. I've reviewed some of those lessons in those earlier entries, but new messages arrive all the time and bring with them new lessons. Here are a few recent jewels of enlightenment.

Dozens of people every day discover my FaceBook page and want to be my friend.

What a shame I'm not on FaceBook. These invitations, though, certainly make me want to join. If I'm this popular without a page, just think how many friends I could have after I create one! I'm positively giddy at the prospect.

The key to getting promoted is to make my penis larger.

As the co-owner of a company with no investors, I have no way to get promoted, so this one puzzles me a bit. Still, it could shed light on why I never made it to CEO at any other company.

Of course, this also explains the glass ceiling in many organizations for women.

Industrial machines are really cheap if you know how to shop.

Forget buying from manufacturers or companies going out of business; the real key to savings is to shop with Chinese and German manufacturers who bring descriptions, including pictures, of their machines directly to your email.

My mortgage needs protection--and they can provide it.

Wow, who knew insurance was this easy? Too bad I own my house outright and don't have a mortgage.

Polish women really want to meet me.

My earlier offers came primarily from Russians, so clearly my fame is spreading. I may soon have to move to Eastern Europe and take up my career as a sex god.

If my penis isn't ten inches long, it's not up to average--but they can help.

Hmmm. If the average is ten inches, then a whole lot of people are walking around well below the norm. And, somewhere there are men with monster cocks to bring the average up to ten inches.


On balance, I feel the quality of my spam has continued to decline. I'm waiting for something new and innovative. Spammers, rise to the challenge!

Spam update

It's been about six months since I reviewed with you the lessons my spam is teaching me, so I thought it was time for an update. In this half year, my spam has mutated in some interesting ways.

For one thing, the spam community has decided I need wristwatches--and lots of them. I apparently lack for Rolex, Tag Heuer, and Breitling watches in particular, but the good news is that my spammers can solve my timekeeping troubles with budget-priced knock-offs that are every bit as excellent as the real things. Some will even sell me the brand-name goods at amazing prices.

German spammers have joined my fan club, and they, too, want to sell me hardware--but of a very different type. They want me to buy circuit boards, lots of them. Unfortunately, I don't read German, and all their messages arrive in it.

My Russian female fans have also adopted a new strategy. Now, they don't just want me to pay them to come here and date me. No, no; these are industrious women. They now want me to pay for them to come here and work at real jobs--and, as the spam notes, if we happen to end up dating, wouldn't that be fine? My company is trying to hire some people, and these women assure me they would relocate for very little cost, so perhaps we're mistaken in our decision not to move people.

Some of those same women are concerned, however, about the size and hardness of my personal unit. Again, though, these women are helpers: they will sell me pills, both soft and chewable, that will make me huge and as strong as steel. Even better, these pills are on sale!

Of course, some things never change: many other people share the concerns of these women, and they, too, are offering me heavily discounted pharmaceuticals. Some of those people even claim they are from huge drug companies, such as Pfizer. It's good to know that so many people are looking out for me.

My new favorite type of spam, however, is the government stimulus offering. The messages of this type all guarantee to hook me up with a big fat suitcase crammed with authentic U.S. dollars for me to use to grow my business. The Obama team has always used technology to its benefit; I think it's great to see them involving the spam community in getting out the good government word.

One last trend in my spam is one I've really appreciated at work: the pictures that arrive are now almost never of naked women. Instead, I receive many, many low-res photos of pills. At least you can see those in your email preview pane and not wince at your accidental HR violation. I do appreciate their consideration.

More lessons from my spam

(WARNING: Adult language and topics ahead. Kids, stop reading.)

As I've mentioned before, a flood of spam washes over me daily. I run a spam filter, and it works for the most part, but I still need to scan the spam subject lines lest I accidentally lose a real message related to work.

From this scanning, I've learned a lot. I reviewed some of those lessons in a May post, but new ones arrive all the time. Here are a few of the them.

The IRS is concerned about my under-reported income.

They want me to check their Web site and fix my tax return, sometimes because I'm guilty of fraud, and other times because they might owe me money. I'm glad they're looking out for me.

Montana investment property is available cheaply.

This one makes no attempt to lure me, despite the enticing headline. Instead, it gives me a link to click and ends. Oh, spam-masters, where has the romance gone?

ED drugs are available in soft forms.

This one just feels wrong. Shouldn't those pills be hard?

I can learn exciting Microsoft Office applications for free!

Okay, boring spam is the worst kind of all. This isn't a real ad for learning Word, Excel, or PowerPoint--which would be dull enough. No, they're trolling for suckers with Office. What happened to those Russian women who wanted me only a few months ago?

Many people are concerned with the size of my genitalia.

Ah, it's good to know the classics never die.


Frankly, the quality of my spam has gone down, and I'm a little concerned. If the people out to steal my money and identity won't make a decent effort to lure me into their evil snares, then we are in a dark time indeed.

Spammers, pick up your game!

Lessons from my spam

(WARNING: Adult language and topics ahead. Kids, stop reading.)

I receive an enormous amount of spam email, particularly at my work address. Most of it is due to the fact that the spambots trolling the Web find an email address that is a list that includes me, and then eventually my out-of-office message bounces and gives me away. Though I run a reasonably effective spam filter, I still scan through the list of messages it flags, because sometimes a legitimate request for information ends up there. From these scans, I've learned a great many lessons, a few of which I thought I'd share with you.

Many people are concerned with the size of my genitalia.

I honestly wouldn't have known. Until the era of spam, I'd always assumed (and sometimes bemoaned) that only a very small number of people would ever care about how I was built. It's flattering to instead learn that all over the world, people are interested in how I'm constructed.

My genitalia don't measure up.

The dark side of all of these discussions is that a consensus has emerged, and it's not good for me: I'm too small. Apparently, the smallest acceptable size is huge, the norm is gargantuan, and really, most men are bigger than that. I'm a sad panda.

I can fix this problem for a very low price.

Miracle drugs can grow me from the Lilliputian to the giant. All those discussions can and will turn flattering if I'll just buy any of multiple available medications, each of which is conveniently on sale for a low, low price that will be going up--like my size--any time now. Lucky me.

Many women will want me once I fix this problem.

As the spam assures me, women don't want men who aren't so enormous that sex causes screams of pain. Fortunately, once I buy the medications, I will meet that standard--and many women will want me. To be fair, the spam assures me that some women want me now--but only via the phone, at numbers the messages conveniently supply, and also at low, low prices that are going up, like my size, any time now. Again, lucky me.

Russian women really want to meet me.

Well, to be accurate, they will once I fix my size problem. Apparently, a great many of the discussions about my size have occurred in Russia, where I am, to my surprise, quite the hit with the ladies. That's good to know.

Enough for now. I need to order some pills and brush up on my Russian, which I haven't used since college.