Time to answer my spam!

Image by carljohnson via Flickr

The e-mail spammers seem to have just about given up; although some of them are now bothering to spell all the words in “My friend in Christ” correctly, they are now actually including the word “SPAM” in their subject lines, pretty much daring you to open the latest Nigerian timeshare bequest franchise opportunity. But comment spammers have gotten much more sophisticated, stringing together sentences that are not only entirely in proper English, but which sometimes seem sincere and perhaps even relevant. Such as: “Hey there . . . I just needed to say thanks for sharing your ideas with this site. After checking out all of this blog, I’m interested in a few of your feelings on the latest earthquakes ravaging various countries. Thanks.” Then they blow it by signing it “Car Insurance Cheap Quote” and linking to a malware site – but I was touched for a moment! If you really wanted to know, my feelings are that earthquakes are bad, and should be outlawed. Someone named “Debt Consolidation Help” – and if that were my name, I’d go by the nickname “DC” – wants to know just what template I’m running on this particular website. He truly likes it. Well, thank you, DC. And Alisa Wheatcroft, who, judging by her link, is very big in the candleholder industry, wrote me a wonderful treatise on how people used to customize vehicles with neon lighting. That the entry she was commenting on had nothing to do with any of those words does not in the least diminish my appreciation for the time she, or her robot, took to comment.