I come bearing tidings…

Tidings not of great joy (well, maybe a little), but of great spam! Some spammers are starting to post more relevant comments on my blog. At least relevant enough that I read through the whole comment, was amused, and decided to slap together an entry to preserve them in some manner. :)

First, on an old entry where I consider starting to use XHTML Strict and the W3Schools Validator, I got spam trying to tell me I most likely have a problem with Dreamweaver and my images folder. That’s nice, but I’ve never mentioned Dreamweaver on my blog, nevermind that single post. In fact, the only WYSIWYG I’ve used (for personal, non-school purposes) was Netscape Composer. Oh, I did use the Geocities WYSIWYG, but then I wasn’t serious about my Geocites site. Memories!

Another spam tells me I might have something called “Seborrhoeic dermatitis.” All I mentioned in that silly little post was that I’d started using conditioner in my hair! Did I really have to read, “I get more red patches then most people who had dermatitis, so thats why I also have psoriasis.” OMG, TMI SPAM. (Okay, no, I didn’t have to read it, rhetorical question.)

This spam might suffer from ADD [my commentary in italics]:

Great Journal prompt 22! I’m still icibednrly [WTF? Yes, I understand the use of typos in spam, but still, WTF?] behind BUT THANK GOODNESS I am holidays now [much better than being only one holiday?], and will be catching up on all the prompts I haven’t done yet. They’re all written down in note-point form in pencil on their respective pages, they just don’t look pretty!I’ll hopefully be up to date for Prompt 24!I love sparklers! They are simply stunning and it makes me so happy whenever I see people writing messages with them. That octopus is simply brilliant!I miss the fourth of July so much. Actually, I just miss Oregon in general. The whole town would come down to the main road (just off my street) and we’d have street parties and picnics at the local highschool. I miss picking crab-apples off trees and riding in a wagon with my cousins. And the chalk drawings on our street that lasted until the end of summer every-year…Enjoy every second while you can, you never know when you won’t be able to celebrate your favorite holiday anymore :) [But I thought you were multiple holidays now.] I love you!xxxxxx, Norah

One comment was a standard “I like this site, good article, bookmarking.” (No, this one actually said “very likely I’m planning to bookmark.” Gee, thanks?) But it was on a post titled “stupid spam”!! Spammer doesn’t have very good comprehension skills.

This spam made me laugh and want to know more:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH(it was probably an honest mistake two boxes got smashed to s—t. Right now there is a blender repair shop with a stack of comic books they don’t want.)

So… someone turned in a busted blender stuffed full of comic books? How else could a stack of comic books come to a blender repair shop? Unless the box was packed with the comic books? And what about the two boxes? Did a blender manage to blend its way through two boxes? But the comment notes the boxes were smashed, not blended. Mysteries upon mysteries. XD

As for any real content updates, or managing my sites, well I have time management issues (for the past half year, yes, okay) and my blog isn’t anywhere on my list of priorities. For a possible future entry, I may write about a book I finished recently, Home Again by James Edmiston, a white person’s biography about Japanese Americans and World War II. But who knows, I can’t get my thoughts straight on that subject. I may either scrap it or just post a very disjointed “review.”

In October/November I was considering writing about the Propositions on the ballot, but I found (first, that I didn’t have much time, but also) I didn’t see anyone, including me, getting much out of it, so I didn’t care and I ignored my blog for two months! So, see you again in another two months!

[comments closed to combat spam]

stupid spam

Or maybe I should say smart spam? ;)

Can I just say what a relief to discover someone who truly knows what theyre talking about over a internet. You really know how to bring an trouble to light and make it important. A lot more individuals have to read this and understand this side from the story. I cant believe youre not much more well-liked since you actually have the gift.

Why thank you, Sir or Madam Spammer! I still won’t approve your comment though.

This internet site is often a walk-through for all of the data you wanted about this and didn’t know who to ask. Glimpse here, and you will actually discover it.

Yes, we all need to know more about playing Tetris online. *blinks*

Good writing here I really really like the way you write your blogs. I will continue to visit your site in the future to read more great blog posts like this one! This is an awesome post here. love on web fighters :)

All these comments are on my post about putting a Tetris game on my website. Lately I was considering moving it to my other domain though, there I’ve got more content geared toward the visitor, and not all about myself and I.

more comment spam, and comments on words

I now have 16 more spam added to my Akismet hold. I forgot to delete the ones that were there when I wrote my last entry…

But I’m moving on!

My site has now been declared lucky by one comment spammer. Is that lucky for spammers, or lucky for me? Or lucky for visitors? (I think that would be the best way to increase traffic, don’t you? “Visit my site! Click three times and your wish will be granted, guaranteed!”)

Another comment read “what percent of people born here are illegal and legal”

I can answer that right here: none! That’s because you can’t be both at the same time. The comment should have read “What percent of people born here are illegal, and what percent are legal?” Break up the classifications of legal and illegal. Even “What percent of people born here are illegal or legal?” would have made a bit more sense. People just can’t be “illegal and legal”!

Argh, typos and grammatical errors. It’s getting harder and harder to be a closet grammar nazi.

The first shocking instance I saw was a local political print ad using a newspaper headline with a typo. I don’t remember the typo. Something involving an apostrophe. I just thought it was sad that not only did the newspaper editor miss it, but the political ad designer missed it as well — or saw it but decided to use it anyway, which I find even more sad.

Then I saw a typo in a storefront. I don’t suppose this should have shocked me much; people can’t spell nowadays and your average minimum wage worker isn’t exempt. Can’t remember what it was … argh. It’s probably better for my blood pressure that my mind is nice enough to wash away memories of typos.

After that I read a comment somewhere on songmeanings.net … which I can’t find. Probably for the best. But oh man, was it painful to read! It seemed like the author was purposely mangling the English language. It wasn’t even “leet speak”! (Sorry, won’t use the numbers.) Shouldn’t it be obvious that if you want to communicate, you do it so that the intended audience can understand you? (Or maybe it was, and the intended audience was himself.)

The final kicker was an improper use of it’s/its (can’t remember which one) in one of those links that appears on top of Gmail. Noooo! Even Google is infected! The world is doomed! Dooomed, I tell you!

[comments closed to, ironically, combat spam on this entry]

current state, a review

I feel like my blog has become some review site for random things. Mostly books, though.

All the entry ideas sitting in my head (or on my desktop in a Sticky): 3Musketeers Mint review, Burt’s Beeswax lip balm review, Across the Wall review, pixel size vs. point size vs. em size, Scarlett Johansson’s new album review…

Even as I list the topics I find it hard to call them “reviews” because, well, I’m no professional critic (yay for that), and a lot of the things I comment on probably never even crossed people’s minds. I don’t talk about writing style (in books) or acting ability (in movies or on television) or storyline or anything.

I guess it’s not that bad, since I’m really not interested in those things. If I like something, I like it. I don’t … argh, stupid brain, that word where you inspect why you like it or not, what are good and bad parts, like in literature classes … which I generally can’t stand, by the way. But anyway! Getting off track.

If I were to not post reviews, then there would be virtually nothing new on this blog. And if I were to scrap the posts that contained vitriol (not the sulfate. *blink* word dork popping out again), then there would be literally nothing new here!

I could go back to recording my life daily, like I did a year and a half ago. But nothing interesting goes on in my life at the moment. Today: went to lecture, had an impromptu critique of our sketches for newspaper design, and took a class photo for the cover of our magazine. Am now considering a nap, but should really be working on my newspaper (uuuugh, even less interested in than magazine) and washing the dishes.

Yesterday, went to class, had a lecture about happiness (in an Estimating class *grin*), went to other lecture, learned about the Manhattan Project and saw a video on the uber secretive pilots who flew the bomb to Hiroshima. (Why doesn’t the History Channel, etc./Discovery Channel, etc./TLC show cool history shows like that anymore? Well, I guess the History channel is going through a Hitler phase right now.)

Most interesting thing from the video that I remember now: the B29s (planes) made regular flights to test dropping one bomb, solo or in a group of three (planes), so the Japanese grew accustomed to seeing them. :O Although now that I think about it, Laurence Yep wrote in Hiroshima that planes were not an uncommon sight. Scary.

Some other things I remember: the group of pilots (forgot the military term XO troop? division?) that was training for this mission didn’t know what they were training for. I think only one official there knew what was going on. They were told often, if you don’t want to live under all this mysteriousness and secrecy, you’re free to leave. Also the other pilots on Tinian would make fun of that group, because all they did was fly short missions to drop one bomb (versus the many, many bombs that others dropped), and it was thought that the other B29 pilots were carrying a much heavier workload to make up for what the special group wasn’t accomplishing.

Um. Back to original thought. If I can remember it … I think I was going to quickly review what I listed. But this entry is quite long as it is (history is so interesting!), and you should know that I can never write short entries no matter how hard I try. So I might write another entry. Maybe.

Oh, now I remember. I wanted to comment on spam that I’m getting on this blog. The other day I deleted 600-plus comments from Akismet’s hold. Today I’ve got 34 in there, and since there were so few I decided to read through them. These aren’t as bad as they used to be, with dozens of links to porn or sex pills. I have two or three comments pushing those, but there are only a couple links.

Most of the comments are on my entry where I complained about mixing paints. A lot of the comments say, “Great site!” Oh yeah? If you really think so, wouldn’t you comment on the latest entry, not a really mundane, old one?

Some comments add stuff like “Keep up this great resource.” and “…a lot of useful information” and “Found invaluable information. Just what I was looking for :-)” (Oh look, a smiley face! They must be really earnest!!!) So … paint mixing is a hot topic nowadays, is it? It’s replacing all those knitting and crocheting sites out there? To think, I got in on this trend from the get-go! And don’t forget, Yellow-Green should never be mixed with Magenta-Purple, because they’re not exact complements! lololol!

One comment read, “I would love to hear more about this …” So, an update. Since I wrote how I felt about the results in the entry following that one, I’ll show some pictures. Here’s a photo of a towel I used to clean off my brush while working on some project. And here’s a photo of my brush after one project. Then here’s a photo of all the masking tape I pulled off of one part of the last project. And finally, the project.

Now can I stop getting spam on that entry? Or at least write a real, constructive comment. I have no problem with allowing real comments even if they are just writing to get a link to their site. My blog doesn’t have any sort of Google pagerank to ruin, much less a substantial one.

spamishness

They put the oddest things in spam …

How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?
Why is it that when we are humming and then we plug our nose, our humming stops? Do people really hum through their nose, or their mouths?
Can you blow a balloon up under water?
Can crop circles be square?
How do they get the air inside the bubble wrap?
Why are there black lines on a basketball?
Does it really count in court when an atheist is sworn in under oath using a Bible?
Why are there pictures of the sun wearing sunglasses when the purpose of sunglasses is to protect your eyes from the sun?
If you were born exactly on 12:00 midnight on December 31st–January 1st, which year would you say you were born in?
If marriage means you fell in love, does divorce mean you climbed out?
Why are the numbers on a calculator and a phone reversed?
When a car is for sale and it has a balloon on it, does the balloon come with it?
If you are parking somewhere and the signs in front of the parked cars say “30 minutes” then when your 30 minutes are up can you park in the spot right next to you??
Why isn’t the word ‘gullible’ in the dictionary?
When you see the weather report and it says “partly cloudy” and then the next day it says “partly sunny”; what’s the difference?

me:

  • It’s a sign of our more lazy lifestyle.
  • Is it just me or does this seem obvious? I dunno…
  • I wanna try this. XP I guess you can’t … unless you have a lung capacity of a balloon … ehh … bad grammar *whackwhack* Make sense of it.
  • I dunno, I guess the real question is what do crop circles say? What’s the significance?
  • *imagines a smashy machine*…
  • dunno, so you can tell which way it’s spinning? *shall ask Daddy*
  • I dunno. I guess it doesn’t. Or maybe it’s just a sign of how little the Bible is worth today…?
  • People are stupid?
  • The new one. Everyone says happy new year at midnight … so it’s the new year. Also, military time starts at 0:00, right? (The day certainly wouldn’t end after 0:00…)
  • yes
  • Ooh, I knew this once! Er. I don’t remember now though. :x
  • Only if you say pretty please.
  • I dunno. :P Try it.
  • It is. I actually looked it up once. *laughs*
  • like half full or half empty, maybe?

WordPress came out with 1.5.1 8 days ago … Shows how often I look at that update page! Now I have to upgrade … *nervous* I’ll get around to it …

What happened to extreme tracker? Did it die? I just tried to look at it now, and I got a 502 “bad gateway” error … but I use a Dell. :o Okay that was bad…

It’s the start of my summer! wahoo! (How does one get a job? I have absolutely no friggin clue.) The one thing that I’ll miss about not having classes is that I can’t listen to my uber cool stereo system in my car. Dang.