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Here are more sites with articles about spammers and spam.
When I get the time to look them over, if there are some I'm really impressed
with, I'll post them here in their entirety.
Spam: There's No Canning It
BusinessWeek – USA
Regardless of how hard IT experts work to intercept the trillions of junk
e-mails that bombard hapless in-boxes, the spammers will find ways to
defeat them. …
http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2007/08/spam_theres_no.html?chan=top+news_top+news+index_technology
Spam & bounced email!
American Chronicle – Beverly Hills,CA,USA
Spammers have become very creative. They now send under all types of false
pretenses to get you to open the email. It amazes me how much creativity
they …
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=36434
How Blog Spammers Do It
By Chuck
However, it seemed to attract spammers who abused it, which is even worse for
me, because it puts "Post by XXXXX and software by me" on the bottom of every
import, leading some people to believe that I am a spammer. …
http://work-at-home.business-opportunities.biz/2007/08/30/how-blog-spammers-do-it/
SPAMming the SPAMmers
By msalloum
SPAMmers are sending messages from outside the United States, which makes it
much harder than creating a law. Sending someone a SPAM email is not illegal;
forging another company's software is illegal. This will be discussed in the
next …
http://www.awecommwebhosting.com/blog/index.php/archives/Web-hosting-100
Blog Spammers Posting Porn, Spyware Links to .Gov Sites
In a development that underscores one of the downsides to the greater
interactivity of the so-called Web 2.0 environment, forums on governmental and
educational websites are being exploited by blog spammers to spread spyware and
…
http://www.xbiz.com/news/83625
Dev Articles Forums – Form validation against spammers
Date: August 30th, 2007 12:31 PM – SnapCracker – Form validation against
spammers Post: Hi Does anyone know what the form validation component is called
that asks you type what you see in alphanumeric characters that look like
they're …
http://forums.devarticles.com/php-development-48/form-validation-against-spammers-113712.html
Spammers Suck -They Hurt Usability!
Many Weblog publishers punish their fellow readers for something spammers do.
Spammers had blog owners close the comments. This article talks about this
stupid situation, where authors ask questions and readers cannot answer
(easily). …
http://digg.com/business_finance/Spammers_Suck_They_Hurt_Usability
One url among those in the alerts I posted earlier concerning articles on
spammers has the following knee-slapper!
This wordpress blog entry is too funny! If you ever thought anything toward
the spammers that annoyed you with their crap, it's probably in here!
http://centralsnark.wordpress.com/2007/08/28/dear-crummy-email-spammers/
Central Snark
We came, we saw, we snarked.« Trés Geek
Dear Crummy Email Spammers,
August 28th, 2007
No.
No, I do not want to "3nlaarge my Peni5?. Thank you for caring enough to
email me about it no less than three hundred and fifty-six thousand four
hundred and twenty-one times, but I've had quite a number of opportunities
to mull it over and I think that I'm going to stay with the current
downstairs configuration. Thanks, though. And by all means, you can stop
sending the offer to my wife. She's not interested at all.
I'm gonna have to go with the same response when it comes to the discount
software, too. I know the brand new "Windows V1sta" for $1.99 (plus
shipping) seems too good a deal to pass up, but I gotta tell you that I'm a
little worried that the "plus shipping" is going to add up to oh, I dunno,
$461.83, or possibly my firstborn child's kidney or something. Perhaps if
you actually knew how to spell the product that you were trying to sell me I
might be instilled with a little more confidence, but as it stands now I am
going to have to stick with my tried-and-true XP. And, were I still using
Windows 3.1, I would have to stick with that as well.
You also seem to be mistakenly under the impression that I might begin
pursuing a Master's degree soon. Not to mention the mistaken impression that
were I to pursue a Master's degree that I would want to pursue it from a
University I have never heard of located in some foreign country I have
never been to. Along this same thread of mistaken impressions about a Master's
degree lies your mistaken impression that your own personal testimony of the
Master's degree you received from said University in said unvisited foreign
country will positively persuade me. If the Master's degree worked out as
well for you as you claim it did, perhaps you wouldn't have to spend
twenty-two and a half hours per day emailing me about this Master's degree
that you claim you have and mistakenly believe that I am in the market for.
If you get the impression from this paragraph that you are mistaken about a
lot of things regarding my desire for a Master's degree, then you are not at
all mistaken.
Finally, I would just love to help you out with that wire transfer. Really,
I would. I have this personal policy, though, about paying out ridiculous
sums of money to receive an even more ridiculous sum of money. I don't play
the lottery, I don't gamble on the NBA, and I don't send money to complete
strangers in Nigeria. Call me crazy, and perhaps I am missing my gravy
train, but that's my strictest of policies. Not to say that I don't trust
you, but my guess is that if someone were actually a member of a royal
African family, they could probably land an email account from some place
other than "Yahoo!". Oh, and they would probably learn how to spell, too.
Sorry to disappoint you! It looks like all the time spent emailing me today
will prove fruitless. What a shame that truly is. Now I will say this…if
someone could land me a large wire transfer AND a Master's degree, all as a
plug in to Windows Vista that at the same time enlarges my…..well, you get
the idea. I might be interested then.
CrummyJoel
PS: Humor-blogs.com just asked about the enlargement process…I'll forward
them your email.
Chain letter mentality seems to have no bounds.
"It might arrive as an expression of goodwill, but Amish friendship bread is
heavy on obligations" – Kathy Stephenson, the Salt Lake Tribune.
-Ain't that the truth!
-It sounded very chain letter-esque to me, and really, if everyone did
everything they were obligated to do, we'd all be eating "friendship bread"
until it came out of our ears, and we'd start wishing for some enemies!
-Make some for yourself – if you really want to take the trouble. But all
the obligations that come with a package of starter should be against the
law – and the starters should be cut down to size so no one feels obligated
to either pass it on, or make something out of it or have it go to waste.
-As the article explains, the starter is a glue-like substance, and it takes
days to make, what a hassle!! I didn't make it, but saw it in the process of
being made by someone else.
-I found myself wondering as well, if this was even safe, with it having to
be stored at room temperature for days on end.
-I was expecting it to be absolutely horrible once it was all done.
-Surprisingly, it wasn't – and I survived sampling it.
-But why not just make a batch of cinnamon muffins or loaf with a little bit
of cocoa in it to taste, if that's your thing? It would come out basically
the same and without messing about with some rather nasty guck for days,
that you then have to pass on to three or four other people who are then
obligated to make more and pass on to others.
Pass it on
Salt Lake Tribune – United States
Despite being moist and delicious, Amish friendship bread is the culinary
version of a chain letter – cycling among neighborhoods, workplaces and
religious …
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_6743494
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ncl=http://www.sltrib.com/ci_6743494
Here is the full article.
WEDNESDAY, August 29, 2007
Pass it on
It might arrive as an expression of goodwill, but Amish friendship bread is
heavy on obligations
By Kathy Stephenson
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 08/28/2007 06:56:27 PM MDT
Anyone who has ever received the gift of Amish friendship bread can
empathize with Danny Letz.
After weeks of baking the cinnamon-spiced quick bread, the Salt Lake
City cook has run out of family, friends and co-workers willing to take a
"starter," which seems to be growing exponentially on his counter.
"It's a terrible pyramid scheme," said Letz, who accepted a fermented,
glue-like substance several weeks ago from his stepmother, Laurie Letz.
"I've been trying to cook more so she gave me a starter," Letz explained
during a recent interview. "But then it has just become a task trying to get
rid of the starters. The Amish should be ashamed of themselves."
Despite being moist and delicious, Amish friendship bread is the
culinary version of a chain letter – cycling among neighborhoods, workplaces
and religious congregations on a regular basis.
Unlike the mailed version, there are no promises of riches for those who
follow the recipe, which takes 10 days to make. Nor are there threats of
disaster for those who fail to heed the strict directions, such as avoiding
metal bowls and spoons and keeping the starter at room temperature.
But just like its chain cousin, friendship bread for some creates guilt,
resentment and just plain apathy.
Bread basics
For the uninitiated, here's how the friendship bread cycle works:
Someone with good intentions, usually a relative, friend or neighbor, brings
over a container with some yellow, sour-smelling starter and the
instructions for "feeding" it. The task is not too difficult. Most days,
stirring is the only requirement; on other days, milk, flour and sugar must
be added.
While keeping the milk-based starter at room temperature seems to defy
all food safety rules, few people ever report problems. However, if the
starter turns black or pink, throw it out.
On the 10th day, the starter is finally ready. Cooks are instructed to
divide the mixture into four equal portions: One portion can be used to make
a batch of the bread, two should be passed along to friends and the final
portion is kept so the feeding process can begin all over again.
Fermented starters, which act as a leavening for bread, are nothing new.
Everyone from prospectors to pioneers relied on the yeast-based sourdough
starter for making bread, pancakes and biscuits. A similar sweet-bread
starter, called "Hermann," is used regularly in Germany.
Amish anomaly
Exactly how the friendship starter earned its Amish moniker is not
clear, especially since the bread recipe that comes with most starters calls
for a box of instant pudding.
Some Internet sites suggest that Amish friendship bread is more than
just a recipe, it is a simple way of looking at our high-tech, prepackaged
world in which everything is fast and meant for personal gratification. A
bread that requires patience and is meant to be given away – thus the name
"friendship bread" – surely mirrors the simple, back-to-basics lifestyle
espoused by the Amish.
The instructions that come with each starter always warn that only the
Amish know how to create the basic starters. So if you forget to tend to it,
or if it spoils from inattention, usually you are out of luck.
Thanks to the Internet, some of the mystery has been taken out of the
bread. Several sites, including www.amish recipes.net, offer recipes for
making your own starter, a simple mixture of flour, sugar and milk.
There also are recipes for using the starter outside the high-calorie,
high-fat bread, which is loaded with eggs, oil and sugar. There also are
hints on how to reduce the amount of starter you make and how to store it in
the refrigerator.
Not everyone likens Amish friendship bread to something as despicable as
zucchini in August.
In fact, Erin Morris was thrilled when she received a starter from Letz,
her boyfriend.
"I've always hoped I'd end up with one because I think the bread is
delicious and it's a nice thing to give friends." she said.
In the last few weeks she has given bread and starters to family,
friends and co-workers, but she is quickly running out of people. Her last
option for eager cooks – or unsuspecting victims – is church.
"There definitely is a point when you have too much," she said.
—
* KATHY STEPHENSON can be contacted at kathys@sltrib .com or
801-257-8612. Send comments about this story to livingeditor@sltrib.com.
Amish friendship bread starter
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 1/2 cups sugar
3 1/2 cups milk
Day 1: In plastic container with a lid or in a resealable plastic bag,
combine 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk. Mix well. Cover and store
at room temperature. Do not refrigerate.
Day 2: Stir or squeeze the bag to mix.
Day 3: Stir or squeeze the bag to mix.
Day 4: Stir or squeeze the bag to mix.
Day 5: Stir or squeeze the bag to mix.
Day 6: Add 1 cup sugar, 1 cup flour and 1 cup milk into container,
mixing well.
Day 7: Stir or squeeze the bag to mix.
Day 8: Stir or squeeze the bag to mix.
Day 9: Stir or squeeze the bag to mix.
Day 10: Add 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 1/2 cups sugar and 1 1/2 cup milk,
mixing well. Place 1 cup of the starter into three separate containers. Give
a container and these instructions to two friends, making sure to put the
date on the container.
Keep a container of starter for yourself. With remaining starter, make
batches of bread, muffins or pancakes (see other recipes).
Note: Once you have made the starter, you (and the people you give it
to) should ignore the Day 1 instructions. Do nothing on that day and proceed
to Day 2.
Source: Adapted from www.cooks.com
Amish friendship bread
1 cup Amish friendship starter (see recipe at right)
2/3 cup oil
2 cups flour*
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two large loaf pans. In a
glass or plastic bowl (not metal), combine all the ingredients. Stir with a
wooden or plastic (nonmetal) spoon. Pour batter into prepared pans and bake
45 to 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out
clean.
Makes 2 loaves.
*Those at high altitudes may need to add 3 to 4 tablespoons flour.
Amish cinnamon bread
Topping:
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Bread:
1 cup Amish friendship starter
3 eggs
1 cup oil
1/2 cup milk
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour*
1 large box instant pudding mix (any flavor)
Heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease 2 large loaf pans. Combine brown sugar
and cinnamon for topping and dust pans with half the mixture. Put the
remainder aside for later.
In a large glass or plastic bowl (no metal) combine all bread
ingredients. Stir with a plastic or wood spoon (no metal). Divide batter
evenly between the two pans. Sprinkle with remaining topping. Bake 1 hour or
until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Makes 2 loaves.
* Those at high altitudes should add 3 to 4 tablespoons flour.
Amish friendship biscuits
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup Amish friendship starter
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup butter, melted
Heat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl combine flour, baking soda,
salt and baking powder. In a separate bowl, combine eggs, Amish starter and
oil. Mix well. Add starter to dry ingredients and mix until dough pulls away
from sides of bowl. Transfer to a lightly floured surface and roll until it
is 1/2 inch thick. Using a 3-inch circle cutter or floured glass, cut out
biscuits and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Brush top of biscuits
with melted butter. Cover and let rise 30 minutes. Bake for 15 to 20
minutes.
Source: www.amishrecipes.net
Amish friendship muffins
Muffins:
1 cup Amish friendship starter
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup oil
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup nuts, chopped
1 cup apples, chopped, optional
1 cup raisins or blueberries, optional
Topping:
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup butter
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Liberally grease muffin tins if not using
liners.
Combine starter, flour, oil, baking soda, baking powder, sugar, eggs,
cinnamon and vanilla extract; stir well. Add nuts. Stir in fruit, if using.
Pour evenly into muffin tins. Combine topping ingredients and sprinkle each
muffin. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center
comes out clean.
Source: www.recipegoldmine.com
Amish friendship pancakes
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons oil
2 cups Amish friendship starter
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
Maple syrup or jam
In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and
sugar. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, combine oil, Amish starter, milk and egg. Add wet
ingredients to dry and mix on medium speed until just blended.
Spoon a little bit of the batter onto a hot, greased griddle. Cook until
golden brown, 1 to 2 minutes. Turn pancakes and cook until second side is
golden. Remove from heat and serve with maple syrup or jam.
Source: www.fooddownunder.com
Here's another great post about chain email.
http://articles2.org/e-commerce/chain-emails-hateem/
Chain Emails, Hate'em!
This week I received for the hundredth time a chain email that's appallingly
stupid. This one announces the closing of Hotmail.com, the popular free
email service. As it explains, the user must send the chain email to all of
his/her friends in order to avoid the cancellation of the service. It goes
like this: since hotmail.com administrators don't know who is really using
the service nor the real popularity of it, they are sending this email to
contact all their users and find out if the service is being used and then
decide if they keep the service active or close it, because of the economic
problems they were having. This is just one of the versions I've received.
Obviously, this is not going to happen. Hotmail is the most popular free web
mail service and they don't have any plans to cancel their services. Sadly,
this is just one of the many chain emails I've received. Issues range from
free gifts from notorious companies to good luck promises, help for sick
kids, free money, free software, etc.
What fundamentally bothers me about these chain emails are two things:
first, the time and resources that are wasted sending these pointless
emails; second, the nonsense people swallow.
E-mail is one of the most used Internet tools, and it's a real shame to fill
it with trash that only wastes people's time. This is one of the main
reasons why some companies limit internet access to employees, because
instead of raising productivity, web hosting servers get loaded with trash.
But of all the chain emails I've received, the ones that annoy me the most
are those that say things like "If you send this to 10 friends, you will
receive a surprise, if you send it to 20 friends…" People that send me these
emails not only make me waste my time filling my inbox with useless stuff,
but they go and promise me happiness and good luck (some even threaten me!)
for continuing the chain.
For all of those that follow these chains, let me tell you, you are just
wasting your time and that of others: hotmail is not going to stop service,
you are not going to help any kid with cancer, you are not going to receive
any money nor (please!!) are you going to have any luck as you send your
stupid chain email to more accounts.
If you too are annoyed by this trash, you can use the following answer, and
probably some of these guys will get the idea:
"I just received your chain email. About 1,000 people have sent me chain
emails and every one of them has died in the following 6 months, probably
caused by the 'Chain email curse'. You will probably die soon if you
experience any of the following symptoms: 1) tiredness at night, 2) Hunger
just before eating, 3) Inability to remember your license plate number, 4)
stupidity".
Founder and actual CEO, Ricardo d'Argence has been in the field for more
than ten years. Alojate.com is now one of the biggest web hosting providers
in Mexico.
www.alojate.com
Spammers have tried so many tricks, from fake confirmation messages to
spamoetry to pdf and other files to fake e-card links, now they're
pretending to be Youtube as several of these articles mention.
Keep Up With Spam Scams
Wall Street Journal – USA
If spammers send out a million messages, and 2% of the people buy the
stock, it will go up. But the spammers bought the stock first, and so they
can ride it …
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118826159801810399.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ncl=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118826159801810399.html%3Fmod%3Dgooglenews_wsj
Storm worm shifts path to fake YouTube links
TechSpot – USA
By Jose Vilches, TechSpot.com In yet another twist to the Storm worm
nuisance, spammers are using fake YouTube links to trick users into
downloading …
http://www.techspot.com/news/26775-storm-worm-shifts-path-to-fake-youtube-links.html
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ncl=http://www.techspot.com/news/26775-storm-worm-shifts-path-to-fake-youtube-links.html
A Clean New Internet?
InformationWeek – Manhasset,NY,USA
It will be interesting to see how the new network will keep out the
hackers, spammers, and loudmouths who are causing it to be built in the
first place. …
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/08/a_clean_new_int.html
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ncl=http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2007/08/a_clean_new_int.html
Storm Worm Spreads In YouTube Spam
WebProNews – Lexington,KY,USA
McAfee researcher Vinoo Thomas said on the Avert Labs blog that the
spammers now use a couple of ways to get the worm onto someone's system.
…
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/08/27/storm-worm-spreads-in-youtube-spam
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ncl=http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/08/27/storm-worm-spreads-in-youtube-spam
Stiff-Arm the Stock Spammers
Motley Fool – USA
Spammers are now disguising their pitches as stock reports published as PDF
files, hoping to avoid the suspicion typically reserved for miracle drugs
and …
http://www.fool.com/personal-finance/general/2007/08/27/stiff-arm-the-stock-spammers.aspx
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ncl=http://www.fool.com/personal-finance/general/2007/08/27/stiff-arm-the-stock-spammers.aspx
Nuclear Lab Web Site Used By Spammers Selling Phony Meds
InformationWeek – Manhasset,NY,USA
The spammers used incomprehensive gobbledygook in the ads advertising
erectile dysfunction and sleep aid medications. By W. David Gardner
Lawrence Livermore …
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201802487
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ncl=http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml%3FarticleID%3D201802487
Spammers use YouTube to spread Storm worm
Builder AU – Australia
By Liam Tung, ZDNet Australia | 2007/08/27 13:49:02 In yet another twist to
the Storm worm menace, spammers are using a fake YouTube site to trick
users …
http://www.builderau.com.au/news/soa/Spammers_use_YouTube_to_spread_Storm_worm/0,339028227,339281510,00.htm
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ncl=http://www.builderau.com.au/news/soa/Spammers_use_YouTube_to_spread_Storm_worm/0,339028227,339281510,00.htm
Storm Worm Uses YouTube Ruse
PC Magazine – USA
Spammers are distributing the Storm Trojan via e-mails purporting to be
from friends and containing a false link to a YouTube video. …
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2176469,00.asp
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ncl=http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2176469,00.asp
Kerman Telephone Selects Xangati to Improve Operational …
Business Wire (press release) – San Francisco,CA,USA
After months of searching for a solution, the service provider purchased
the Xangati RPI solution to unearth spammers who were inappropriately using
…
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070827005051&newsLang=en
See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ncl=http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp%3FndmViewId%3Dnews_view%26newsId%3D20070827005051%26newsLang%3Den
Dear Crummy Email Spammers,
By crummyjoel
No. No, I do not want to "3nlaarge my Peni5 . Thank you for caring enough to
email me about it no less than three hundred and fifty-six thousand four
hundred and twenty-one times, but I've had quite a number of opportunities
to mull it …
http://centralsnark.wordpress.com/2007/08/28/dear-crummy-email-spammers/
Central Snark
http://centralsnark.wordpress.com
Fight Back Against Spammers
WWW Robots (also called wanderers, spiders, crawlers, or bots) are programs
that crawl the Web continually retrieving linked pages. When a spammer's bot
visits your website, blog, forum, etc, all pages and sites linked to it will
be …
http://www.first.org/newsroom/globalsecurity/144239.html
Forum of Incident Response and…
http://www.first.org/newsroom/globalsecurity/
stopping comment spammers in their tracks
By Colleen
In this case though, the site doesn't appear to be a legit business, just a
website with links to mortgage companies. Don't let spammers ruin your
blog – stop them in their tracks by letting them know you won't tolerate
D-list spam and …
http://www.geekyspeaky.com/2007/08/28/stopping-comment-spammers-in-their-tracks/
GeekySpeaky.com – gaming, SEO,…
http://www.geekyspeaky.com
How Spammers Get Your Mail ID And What You Can Do If Spammed
By SunSeven
Every day we get spam mails from unknown persons. Sometimes we delete them
without reading, and at best we report these messages as spam to the
respective email providers. Have you ever wondered from where these people
get your mail ids …
http://www.indianpad.com/story/93782
IndianPad – All Stories
http://www.indianpad.com
Agents Becoming Spammers
By Aaron Dickinson
Yes, the market is slow. Yes, the showing activity has fallen. Yes, housing
activity is at record highs. No, agents should not Spam each other for
things already in the MLS. Agents are running scared now with sellers that
are very …
http://www.twincitiesrealestateblog.com/2007/agents-becoming-spammers/
Twin Cities Real Estate Blog
http://www.twincitiesrealestateblog.com
Did Spammers Fuel the Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis?
By Dan Gray
Did spammers fuel the sub-prime mortgage crisis? This is no common
conspiracy theory, my friends. It's common sense. Indulge me if you will and
take a gander at the raft of unsolicited mortgage offers that fill your
inbox. …
http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/technobabble/2007/08/27/did-spammers-fuel-the-sub-prime-mortgage-crisis/
Technobabble
http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/technobabble
Beware of "War Drivers" and "War Spammers"
By Catherine
… "War Drivers" have emerged – folks who hack into these home wireless
networks. These hackers literally drive around town searching for wireless
networks to which they can connect…" link: Beware of "War Drivers" and
"War Spammers"
http://flyinghamster.com/post/44614
Flying Hamster
http://flyinghamster.com/
Beware of "War Drivers" and "War Spammers"
As many more American households are now opting for the convenience of
wireless networks, "War Drivers" have emerged – folks who hack into these
home wireless networks.
http://www.wjtv.com/gulfcoastwest/jtv/news.apx.-content-articles-JTV-2007-08-27-0004.html
News Channel 12 – Local News
http://www.wjtv.com
startlogic are spammers
By whoo
startlogic are spammers startlogic are spammer sstartlogic are spammers
startlogic are spammers startlogic are spammers.
http://www.village-idiot.org/archives/2007/08/27/startlogic-spam/
village-idiot.org
http://www.village-idiot.org
The car horn stuck, waking us all up! There was no reason for it, no one was
even down there.
Suddenly:
HOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNKKKKKK!"
At first, we thought it was coming from the neighbors' garage.
But I don't have my windows open right now, and this seemed a little loud,
like it was right under my room, I realized after a while.
Sure enough, a look in the garage revealed it was our car!
Dad fiddled with things, trying to unplug it and make the noise stop, and
Mom just took the more basic direct approach of giving the steering wheel a
tap.
The horn stopped, thank goodness!
But wow, what a thing to wake up to!
http://blog.myspace.com/zjd422
? Zi ?
Gender: Female
Status: Divorced
Age: 34
Sign: Taurus
State: Ohio
Country: US
Signup Date:
03/05/2006
08/26/2007
CHAIN LETTERS: EXTREMELY ANNOYING, ALL FORMS, ALL TYPES!!
I liked chain letters when I was about 10 years old. Get a chain letter in
the mail and send it to 5 of your friends and watch it all go and come
around again. That's when I was about 10 years old.
Then we all got older and it seemed to have disappeared. I don't know if
chain letters actually disappeared or if we were just too old to care
anymore.
The first time I got a chain letter text message on my cell phone, I thought
the sender was a total do-do head. Maybe it was just something unusual. Then
I started getting them from different people, both male and female. I'm glad
that I pay for a text message bundle and I don't have to pay for message
after message, message after message. Um, please, stop sending this stuff to
me. It only makes me wonder why my so-called friends do this stuff!!!
E-mail text messages, too. Here, I'm thinking that I have a letter from a
dear friend and its B.S! I appreciate some people thinking of me. Oh, wait,
they are not thinking of me or wishing me good luck or health and happiness.
They are running out of people to send the chain letter to!
MySpace chain letter bulletins! Here we go again. "Re-post this bulletin
again to wish love on the world or to show God your love." Sometimes I will
re-post it for someone if they are a friend.
What's shocking to me is the number of guys who do this. If I'm thinking its
annoying or childlike for women to do, I cannot understand why a guy would
do it!
CHAIN LETTERS: EXTREMELY ANNOYING, ALL FORMS, ALL TYPES!! Who agrees with me
on this? If you agree, copy this blog and send it to ALL your MySpace
friends or put in it a bulletin. Don't forget to send it through e-mail.
Next send it through text messages. Then get addresses out of the phone book
and send it to everyone through the mail until you have spent your life
savings on paper, ink, envelopes and stamps!
I was just kidding about that, if you didn't know it.
1:20 PM – 0 Comments – 0 Kudos
* * *
-Well, I don't have a Myspace account, so I'll kudo this person here
instead. Great post! I also liked these entries.
Don't tell it all-do you want a stalker??
If you are someone who reads my profile alot, you know that I put my
interests up and take 'em out and put 'em up. I'm taking them down again.
MySpace is not a personals site and I feel like its a personals site when I
display all that info about me. I know MySpace is supposed to be for
networking. Am I gonna really get a new friend because we both like "The Two
Coreys" or we both listen to Robin Thicke? I don't think so. A fansite may
be used more for something like that. And definately a profile advertising a
business. I am not trying to advertise my self. I've had a wonderful time on
MySpace getting in touch with old friends and associates. I do enjoy the
entertainment of MySpace and seeing how different people did thier profiles.
I've also written about the dangers, large and small, about telling all of
our business on MySpace. Small dangers like someone pretending to know you
by telling you about yourself by getting the info off of your page. Large
dangers such as someone knowing your name, location, family, etc , etc. I
have to be careful about that, too.
8:57 AM – 0 Comments – 0 Kudos
Time to filter out friends again
I've filtered out my MySpace friends before based on the R-rated contents on
their profile, their R or X-rated profile pix, and just to clean out the
friends. (I've been past that "OOh, I want to have a big number of friends
on here" for a while.) Now I'm filtering out for my own benefit. I'm tired
of seeing Bulletins like "Ni@@as in the House" or "How to eat p*ssy right",
"Why women are b*tches" etc, etc. If a person has over 40 friends on here,
they probably won't even know-and if they are not my friend in real life,
I'm sure they don't care.
2:09 PM – 0 Comments – 0 Kudos
* * *
-Kudos!
There is another Myspace blogger who's as sick of chain letters as the
person above and as I am. But I can't post her entry as she wrote it
exactly, neither do I want to just point anyone to her site, because,
erm…Well – because of some lingo problems, and I had other additional
ideas and it just needed a bit of touching up IMO.
If you want to read it the way she originally wrote it, go ahead, it's at
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=147510429&blogID=304020484
But be forewarned, you may not like it as much as the edited one below.
From KRISTA
with some edits, additions and modifications by yours truly
KRISTA's myspace info:
Gender: Female
Status: Married
Age: 31
Sign: Capricorn
City: MINNEAPOLIS
State: Minnesota
Country: US
Signup Date:
11/01/2007
Monday, August 27, 2007
Email forwards
Ok, first I have to admit that there was a time, probably a good 10 years
ago, when I was pretty "e-gullible," if you will, and I believed the warning
emails I received, and I passed them along to my friends and family, out of
genuine concern no doubt.
It took ONE response from someone saying, basically, umm, yeah, tardo…
this is a hoax – check it out…. to get me to stop forwarding those damn
things.
So WHY is it that there are a few people who just can't stop? I swear that
if someone sent them the following, they'd forward it:
WARNING!!! LADIES, THIS IS IMPORTANT, SO BE SURE YOU FORWARD IT TO EVERY
DAMN PERSON YOU KNOW.
Whatever city you live in, there is a guy there named Chuck who likes to
flash headlights and slash at people's ankles with an axe. He has been
targeting women with extremely huge butts, thin lips, skinny limbs, and
greasy, matted, dandruff-laden hair. He puts razor blades in their food and
arsenic in their beverages, and he goes online and tries to lure their
daughters into underage cybersex, and he has poison perfume samples, tapes
of babies crying, and terrible BO because he doesn't use cancer-causing
de-odorant! He likes to microwave plastic, which we all know causes cancer
as well, and he would like your money for Katrina and 911 victims, and he is
working with the terrorists and the Mexicans (who we think are in cahoots
anyway), and he could be hiding in the back seat of your car right now,
waiting to slash your ankles and snatch your daughter or niece or any
under-age girl who gets into the car with you, and this would never have
happened if only our children were allowed to pray in school, and you had
passed on every single good-luck friendship chain letter you ever received,
to every single email address you ever heard of!
WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T GO TO YOUR CAR! PASS THIS ALONG TO EVERYONE YOU
KNOW. IT MIGHT SAVE THEIR LIFE. AND IF YOU DON'T PASS IT ALONG, I AM GOING
TO TELL CHUCK AND HE WILL NO DOUBT COME FIND YOU BECAUSE HE KNOWS YOU HAVE
AN ENORMOUS butt, thin lips, skinny limbs, and that you never wash your
hair!
P.S.: God bless America!!!!!!
For the love of all things good, please don't send on this stuff to anybody.
Please!
And when I repeatedly reply back to you and everyone else you forwarded it
to saying "this is a hoax," don't get mad at me because you are a moron and
can't figure out that John's Hopkins University would not publish a cancer
study (with several misspelled words) in the form of a chain email.
Don't get hot under the collar when I use the "reply-all" function in my
email to debunk a hoax that was sent to me by someone who put you, me, and
everybody else under the sun in their list of email address for passing on
junk to. I didn't get your address by myself, nor was I the one stupid
enough to pass on the chain letter to you in the first place! Want to get
mad at somebody for exposing your precious address to the whole world in the
Cc field, yell at the idiot who sent the chain letter to both of us in the
first place!
Do not send me this shart at work after insisting you need my work email "in
case of emergencies."
Do not forward anything race or religion related. I'm not in the least
paranoid about different races taking over my country and have no tolerance
for people who are!
I know that God does not work through the disreputable means of spam, which
chain email is part. I'm sure some religious hoaxes and chain email rants
are actually originated by anti-Christian twits who just want to see if they
can fool and manipulate religious people into passing on their dreck!!
I know that just because something claims to be from God, doesn't make it
so. Chain email does not come from god, nor is it any substitute or even a
good way of showing what a good friend you are and how much you apparently
care about me!
Don't pass around fake petitions claiming that our children are in danger if
I don't type my name at the bottom of this email and forward it to everyone
I know.
Please don't send stuff about "baby killers" or about marriage being "in
danger" in email forwards.
Please don't send forwards telling me that there will be no social security
left for me because of those blasted Mexicans or whatever race of the month
is currently prey to the racial paranoid chain emails going around.
Please don't send emails with pictures that don't load…. or with pictures
that do (unless they are pictures you actually took).
Quit forwarding videos of some stupid kid putting maxi pads all over
himself, which I think could possibly be construed as child porn.
Stop forwarding stupid quotes supposedly from famous people. 50% are bogus
or misquoted anyway.
Stop passing on lists of supposed facts and trivia. They are often not facts
at all and a trip over to any hoax debunking site can debunk a good lot of
them.
Stop sending these annoying "Getting to know you" surveys that asks an
endless number of pointless, meaningless questions such as what color my
kitchen dishes are and if I like croutons or bacon bits on my salad. (I
don't even like salad.) Those things are so long and time consuming, and the
questions differ just a bit with every time these surveys come around, I'm
sick of getting them, nor could I remember all of my friends' answers to
those pointless questions let alone care to fill out the infernal thing as
well, only to get another one almost like it a week later!
Don't send me joke forwards! I know they are still chain email, especially
after getting the same stupid jokes in my email from different sources
twenty times within the last ten years! There are plenty of humor sites
where all the forwarded jokes are archived! If you like them, go there and
have fun, but please, don't circulate more copies of it all over the net.
Don't send the chain letter that offers excuses for sending chain email!
I.E. "I care about you. So, I forward jokes. Now, if you care about your
friends, please pass this on to let them know, and next time you get a joke
in your email, please please please know someone cares very very very deeply
for you! Pass this on and share the caring!"
Stop forwarding any religious whining chain email that tells me Christianity
is in danger and I can save it and be a better Christian and show everybody
else what a good Christian I am by passing on the chain and spamming
everyone with copies of the forward all over the net! I'll scream especially
loud if you send me one that whinges on about how joke emails are being
forwarded many times more than religious chain email because everybody's
afraid to admit to believing in God! I've been on the internet for years. I
can recognize a chain letter manipulation when I see it, and in my
experience, I've received just as many religious chain email forwards as
jokes!
Stop passing on glurge chain email in any form, from stories to make me cry
to poems or sayings about "mom stuff" or "friendship" "I've learned" "I
believe" "A simple friend VS a true friend" "the virtues of a hug" "the
virtues of a smile" "Friendship is like" "Love is like" "If I could catch a
rainbow for you" "Internet ten commandments" "Email prayer of kids" "The
darndest things kids say" "Kids on love" "Kids on the Bible" "How good it is
to be a woman" or anything like that in a forward. If it's a chain letter
forward, it's been around the net and back a million times or it will be
soon, and it's phony!
Please. Please. PLEASE STOP PASSING ON THIS SHART.
Please remember that when you're tempted to send sayings and quotes about
"God" and "His glory." in chain email forwards!
If you want to send me religious content, you're welcome to if it comes from
your own heart, in your own words, or from anywhere BUT chain email
forwards – provided you know it's something I'm already inclined to agree
with.
I was outraged when there was to be a report on whether or not trampolines
should be banned because of kids breaking bones.
What in heck is this society coming to? Kids break bones in car accidents,
should we ban cars too? Kids break bones falling in the living room against
furniture, and break toes running in the house and stubbing them on the legs
of a chair or sofa, good gosh should we ban furniture and living rooms too?
People get injured and suffer broken bones skiing, maybe we should ban ski
resorts and disallow people to ski on any hill as well! Kids fall off
skateboards and have mishaps rollerblading, OMG, gotta get rid of
skateboards and rollerblades too!
Kids get hurt in the playground, woops, we should outlaw playgrounds!
People have always risked injury and gotten hurt millions of ways throughout
all of human history, and it's time to see the ultra pro-ban movements for
what they are, nothing but fear mongering, exploiting any tragic story that
they chance upon in order to further their "Let's ban this! Let's ban that!"
agendas and control and run our lives, and trying to use our children to
scare us into screwing ourselves out of our rights and freedoms to live our
own lives. All the big-brother movements can back the heck off, like
yesterday! Stop scaring us about our food, stop scaring us about our
livelyhoods, stop scaring us about our books, stop trying to ban everything
that might resemble some kind of fun and that might actually *gasp* give us
and our kids some happiness!
Anyone who's been on the internet for a few years or even a few months will
no doubt be receiving and *gasp* sending chain letters.
They are annoying.
They are *ALL* ANNOYING!
But what's even worse than simply getting these darn things in one's inbox
is seeing them on web forums and blogs!
chain letters are not just your average get rich quick schemes. They are
cutesy or tear-jerking sappy stories that shout to you they are really
really really true, pics of cute little dancing animals and teddybear cloud
formations, pointless trivia that is actually not really trivia at all, but
a lot of bull that has no basis in truth, or at least very badly distorted,
turning what might've been true into a soundbite of distorted
misinformation. And then there are the hoaxes such as the kidney theft
story, the needles on theater seats, the missing/dying kid hoaxes, the
warnings about plastic in the microwave, and so on. There are also these
infernal brain teasers, surveys with pointless and never-ending questions,
pointless ponderings, and nonsense lists of ways to annoy your boss, ways to
freak out your friends/room mates/relatives etc. ways to be sane, ways to be
crazy.
And it is the "ways to" I'm going to scream about here.
It's a list of absolutely dumb, even some outright offensive ideas on how to
make the people around you think you've gone koo-koo.
Things like – make beeping noises whenever a large person backs up, I found
this particularly offensive. Replying to everything anyone says to you with
"Would you like fries with that?" Paging yourself over the PA/intercom
system, with the added instruction "Don't disguise your voice." And many
other extremely lame ideas that people have sent me in so many copies of
that darn chain letter over the years.
I haven't received it lately, thank goodness, or else I might have a hard
time not yelling at whoever sent it.
But I've found this idiotic thing is getting posted all over the net on
people's blogs, for crying out loud!
I'm interested in voice changers, and voice changing software, so one of the
alerts I get is for "Disguise your voice"
And what has been coming up in just about every alert, sometimes all by
itself, with no other really interesting site on voice changers?
That blasted dang crazy chain letter! The one with the list on how to freak
out your friends/boss/whatever. The one with the instruction of paging
yourself over an intercom and "Do not" or "Don't disguise your voice".!
Sheesh, man, it wasn't cute or funny the first time it barged into my inbox,
it was hair-tearing by the tenth and other times after that. It's been
around for years and it's not even impressive enough to warrant the title of
half-baked humor! Please people, kill it already!!
I can see posting chain letters on blogs if one is going to rip it a new one
and completely point out how moronic it is, and scream about it getting
passed around. People who are frustrated with forwards can often be pretty
humorous when sounding off about them.
But just posting chain letters on blogs as they are, because you actually
think they are cool!? *Rolling eyes*
E-gads!!
Give me a break!
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Very interesting article that explains the spammers' latest trend, pathetic
attempts to disguise themselves as *choke* authors!
http://www.courant.com/hc-spamoetry0819.artaug19,0,7995457,full.story
August 20, 2007
Dallying With The Muse Of Spam
Disguised As Verse, It Fools The Filters
By JANICE PODSADA | Courant Staff Writer
August 19, 2007
Charmagne Tripp thought her computer was being inundated by an anonymous –
and prolific – poet.
She opened several e-mails that, even though they were topped with
advertisements, contained line after line of what appeared to be poetry.
That didn't seem particularly unusual to Tripp, 34, who hosts weekly poetry
readings at Vibz Uptown, a Hartford restaurant and nightclub. She often
receives e-mail from budding writers.
But looking closer, she realized that it "wasn't poetry at all, or if it
was, it was written by somebody who couldn't express themselves," Tripp
said.
It was spam.
Andy Werner, on the other hand, owner of The Language Link of Connecticut,
immediately recognized a similar batch of gibberish-filled e-mail for
exactly what it was.
"It's different than the raw porn coming in five years ago, but it's still a
nuisance," said Werner, 45, whose Newington-based company provides
professional translation services.
What's going on here? The same people who have bombarded us for years with
spam punctuated with four-letter words are now filling our inboxes with
poetry?
Spammers seem to be cutting the raunch and opting for a lyrical approach.
Words like #%$! and %&{circ}# have been replaced by snippets of poetry,
literature and random lines of text. The idea: Confuse your spam filter.
An ad for Viagra, ($1.78/100 mg; Cialis $3/20 mg) contained these lines:
"Wide, whited fields, a way unframed at last that rings, with faithful
tongue, its pious note, by bloody pool -rattling, gasping his last. Blurring
the terrain, A pallid yellow lingers to listen, by the sputtering, smoking
fire."
Nice huh? It's actually an amalgam of phrases taken from Charles Baudelaire
and Paul Verlaine, two 19th-century French poets.
Lest you think this is the work of a muddled but literate spammer, the truth
is: However evocative, the passages aren't meant to uplift or inspire, but
to defeat your spam-blocking software.
The same tired ads for cut-rate software, off-shore pharmacies and organic
love potions now contain 10 to 20 lines of text. The accompanying text,
which has been dubbed spamoetry, can sometimes resemble free verse.
"Lovely Spam! Wonderful Spam!" Monty Python intoned in a 1970 skit (and
hence provided the alleged origin of the term for unwanted e-mail). And now,
poetic spam.
Spamoetry is the latest weapon being deployed by spammers, said Doug Bowers,
senior director of anti-abuse engineering with Symantec Corp., the
Cupertino, Calif.-based developer of Norton AntiVirus software and other
programs.
Every time programmers come up with a way to block the latest generation of
spam, spammers seem to come up with an equally clever way to thwart them.
Designed to fool blocking programs into thinking they're seeing a legitimate
e-mail, spamoetry is created by software programs that randomly pull text
from all over the Internet.
In spite of spamoetry's insidious purpose, some people find it hard to
resist.
The musings of the machine have drawn the attention of artists, ordinary
folks and bloggers who revel in posting what they consider to be
particularly inane or profound examples on websites and blogs devoted to
spamoetry.
In the new world order, one person's spam is another person's art.
"Not that I am a huge fan of poetry or anything, but the beautiful and deep
work being produced by the random-text generators employed by spammers has
truly moved me," someone posted at www.ifisgeek.com/2007/02/23/spamoetry.
"Who needs poets any more? With the beautiful works coming out of spambots
these days, what need do we have for real poets any more?" another admirer
posted at www.digg.com/offbeat_news/spamoetry.
It may be amusing, but it's costing us.
Two-thirds of all e-mail is spam. Every day, four out of five adults receive
a piece of spam, experts estimate. And a 2004 study estimated that spam is
costing businesses $22 billion annually in lost productivity, according to
the National Technology Readiness Survey.
"It's time lost by workers reading no-value e-mail," Bowers said.
Besides crowding employees' inboxes, spam clogs a company's mail server and
takes up valuable computer storage space, Bowers said.
Programs that generate spamoetry, Bowers said, grab content from everywhere
on the Internet – from technical news groups to websites that feature
selections from the Bible, Shakespeare and the "great books," which accounts
for such pairings as, "Empty streets I come upon by chance, snowdrops and
crocuses might be fooled III. Chronology of Northern Exploration."
To guard against an influx of spam, companies typically employ a type of
spam blocker known as a Bayesian filter, which analyzes whether or not a
given piece of e-mail is spam, said David Gianetti, a New Haven based
e-commerce analyst.
"The filter assigns weightings to words, and comes up with a score,"
Gianetti said. "Based on that score, it uses probability to determine
whether an e-mail is spam."
To fool the filter, spammers insert random words and phrases into their mass
mailings. The addition of text – spamoetry – throws the filter off.
"If an e-mail contains 10 words that appear in spam and 300 commonly used
words, then this stuff gets through," Gianetti said.
When Susan Batson Feuer, a Canadian artist, noticed the appearance of the
new type of spam, she initially thought it was badly translated e-mails from
overseas.
"Some of them were hilarious, moving, intriguing, bizarre," she said. "I
started keeping them."
A year later, Feuer, the owner of St2dione Creative, a design company, has
created a line of clothing and accessories called Matchstick Atom Sp@mwear
that incorporates spamoetry into its design.
Feuer has gleaned such phrases as "Chipmunk Hopelessness," "Indigestion
continuum anxiety" and "Assume Flotation!" from spam, and imprinted them on
T-shirts and backpacks.
"Now that technology and machines bring so much form to our lives," Feuer
said, laughing, "it seems fitting that they should have a say."
Antivirus and anti-spam companies are busy trying to develop filters that
can recognize spamoetry, Gianetti said: "The problem is, it gets more and
more tricky to discern the good e-mail from the bad."
But a few people hope that spam never goes away.
"This blog is dedicated to nonsensical, yet entertaining spam. Here's hoping
those spammers continue to remain a step ahead of spam filters with their
computer-generated mastery of the English language," a blogger posted at
thisproductwillchangeyourlife.blogspot.com.
Spamoetry's fans are willing to put up with the irritating ads and
overflowing inboxes.
"The top part's not so great – the ads for Viagra and Cialis," said Brendan
Mahoney, 23, a recent graduate of the University of Connecticut. "But the
poetry part, I like. I like the randomness. It's better than magnet poetry.
It's rendered out of the flotsam and jetsam of the Internet."
"If this kind of spam were to go away, I would miss it," Feuer said. "But
I'd be OK. I have a collection of 1,500 of them in my inbox."
"Beyond ice floe and berg and ice-bound sea. Merely a mockery of spring …
the old men burnish stories of Yaz and the Babe."
Sigh. That's beautiful.
Contact Janice Podsada at jpodsada@courant.com.
–
-So, now you know why you may be getting jibberish emails.
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We celebrated my Dad's 75th birthday on his actual birthday, which is a bit
unusual awith our family. We usually celebrate birthdays on weekend
afternoons or evenings, never during the week. So it was just Dad's luck
that his birthday happened to be on Sunday this year.
Also, we celebrated my bro-in-law, Kim's the same time.
We didn't have a barbicue, it wasn't nice enough for that, we had lasagna
instead.
It isn't often we have birthday dinners, but the ones we have are during the
summer months so we can eat outdoors. Normally we have Brad (nephew) and
Barb's (sis-in-law) birthday barbicue at Audrey's (sister) and Dad and Kim's
bd barbicue at our house. But this year theirs was at Marvin (bro) and
Barb's.
Dad got a lawn dethatcher from us kids, and a botchy ball set from Mom. Kim
got some smoked salmon, and I didn't catch all the other things they
received. One thing that couldn't be missed was the electronic fart maker.
Kim and just about everyone else got a huge kick out of it, and it was funny
at first, but after a while, it was like, okay, enough already. I'm glad I
wasn't the one receiving that gift, it would've been something I wouldn't
have any idea what to do with other than hide it away and never use it.
There were two kinds of cake, carrot cake, Kim's favorite made by Audrey,
and a coconut-topped cake Mom made. It was the same type of cake she had
made for my birthday. It's good, but I hope to get something different next
time. Dad would've loved them both, but I don't know which one he had. I had
the coconut one since I dislike carrot cake, and I especially don't
appreciate cream cheese icing on it. Just white icing without the cheese,
yes, but IMO cream cheese and cloves/cinnamon/nutmeg type spices just don't
go together. I'm not all that keen on those spices anyway except for
cinnamon buns, rolls, and cinnamon toast, now that's good.
Our rendition of "Happy Birthday" was pretty sad, not just because everyone
but me sang off key, but because it was taken so painfully slow! The joke
was that Kim and Dad were getting older, so we had to sing it slower.
*Groan*
Cooper (six-month-old great-nephew) was so good the whole time, he bounced
on my knees and after some time he shrieked with excitement. That's so darn
cute when babies are having a good time. I wanted and tried to record him on
my player, but only realized too late that I'd forgotten to unlock it before
getting out of the car on the way into the house. So, that didn't get
recorded, and he was pretty quiet for the rest of the evening. DARN!
Today is gloomy outside, but there is contentment here. I'll go make myself
a hot drink once I finish writing, and then there will probably be more
email to check.
Great article found at:
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20044270_20044274_20050689,00.html
Now that the dust has settled on ''Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,''
Stephen King reflects on why no review did it justice, and whether kids (and
their grown-ups) will ever read the same way again
J.K. Rowling's Ministry of Magic
By Stephen King
And so now the hurly-burly's done, the battle's lost and won — the Battle
of Hogwarts, that is — and all the secrets are out of the Sorting Hat. Those
who bet Harry Potter would die lost their money; the boy who lived turned
out to be exactly that. And if you think that's a spoiler at this late date,
you were never much of a Potter fan to begin with. The outrage over the
early reviews (Mary Carole McCauley of The Baltimore Sun, Michiko Kakutani
of The New York Times) has faded…although the sour taste lingers for many
fans.
It lingers for me, too, although it doesn't have anything to do with the
ultimately silly concept of ''spoilers,'' or the ethics of jumping the
book's pub date. The prepublication vow of omertà was, after all, always a
thing concocted by publishers Bloomsbury and Scholastic, and not — so far as
I know — a part of either the British Magna Carta or the U.S. Constitution.
Nor does Jo Rowling's impassioned protest (''I am staggered that some
American newspapers have decided to publish…reviews in complete disregard
of the wishes of literally millions of readers, particularly children…'')
cut much ice with me. These books ceased to be specifically for children
halfway through the series; by Goblet of Fire, Rowling was writing for
everyone, and knew it.
The clearest sign of how adult the books had become by the conclusion
arrives — and splendidly — in Deathly Hallows, when Mrs. Weasley sees the
odious Bellatrix Lestrange trying to finish off Ginny with a Killing Curse.
''NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!'' she cries. It's the most shocking bitch in
recent fiction; since there's virtually no cursing (of the linguistic kind,
anyway) in the Potter books, this one hits home with almost fatal force. It
is totally correct in its context — perfect, really — but it is also a
quintessentially adult response to a child's peril.
The problem with the advance reviews — and those that followed in the first
post-publication days — is one that has dogged Rowling's magnum opus ever
since book 4 (Goblet of Fire), after the series had become a worldwide
phenomenon. Due to the Kremlin-like secrecy surrounding the books, all
reviews since 2000 or so have been strictly shoot-from-the-lip. The
reviewers themselves were often great — Ms. Kakutani ain't exactly chopped
liver — but the very popularity of the books has often undone even the best
intentions of the best critical writers. In their hurry to churn out column
inches, and thus remain members of good standing in the Church of What's
Happening Now, very few of the Potter reviewers have said anything worth
remembering. Most of this microwaved critical mush sees Harry — not to
mention his friends and his adventures — in only two ways: sociologically
(''Harry Potter: Boon or Childhood Disease?'') or economically (''Harry
Potter and the Chamber of Discount Pricing''). They take a perfunctory wave
at things like plot and language, but do little more…and really, how can
they? When you have only four days to read a 750-page book, then write an
1,100-word review on it, how much time do you have to really enjoy the book?
To think about the book? Jo Rowling set out a sumptuous seven-course meal,
carefully prepared, beautifully cooked, and lovingly served out. The kids
and adults who fell in love with the series (I among them) savored every
mouthful, from the appetizer (Sorcerer's Stone) to the dessert (the gorgeous
epilogue of Deathly Hallows). Most reviewers, on the other hand, bolted
everything down, then obligingly puked it back up half-digested on the book
pages of their respective newspapers.
And because of that, very few mainstream writers, from Salon to The New York
Times, have really stopped to consider what Ms. Rowling has wrought, where
it came from, or what it may mean for the future. The blogs, by and large,
haven't been much better. They seem to care about who lives, who dies, and
who's tattling. Beyond that, it's all pretty much duh.
So what did happen? Where did this Ministry of Magic come from?
Well, there were straws in the wind. While the academics and bighead
education critics were moaning that reading was dead and kids cared about
nothing but their Xboxes, iPods, Avril Lavigne, and High School Musical, the
kids they were worried about were quietly turning on to the novels of one
Robert Lawrence Stine. Known in college as ''Jovial Bob'' Stine, this fellow
gained another nickname later in life, as — ahem — ''the Stephen King of
children's literature.'' He wrote his first teen horror novel (Blind Date)
in 1986, years before the advent of Pottermania…but soon you couldn't
glance at a USA Today best-seller list without seeing three or four of his
paperbacks bobbing around in the top 50.
These books drew almost no critical attention — to the best of my knowledge,
Michiko Kakutani never reviewed Who Killed the Homecoming Queen? — but the
kids gave them plenty of attention, and R.L. Stine rode a wave of kid
popularity, partly fueled by the fledgling Internet, to become perhaps the
best-selling children's author of the 20th century. Like Rowling, he was a
Scholastic author, and I have no doubt that Stine's success was one of the
reasons Scholastic took a chance on a young and unknown British writer in
the first place. He's largely unknown and uncredited…but of course John
the Baptist never got the same press as Jesus either.
Rowling has been far more successful, critically as well as financially,
because the Potter books grew as they went along. That, I think, is their
great secret (and not so secret at that; to understand the point visually,
buy a ticket to Order of the Phoenix and check out former cutie Ron Weasley
towering over Harry and Hermione). R.L. Stine's kids are kids forever, and
the kids who enjoyed their adventures grew out of them, as inevitably as
they outgrew their childhood Nikes. Jo Rowling's kids grew up…and the
audience grew up with them.
This wouldn't have mattered so much if she'd been a lousy writer, but she
wasn't — she was and is an incredibly gifted novelist. While some of the
blogs and the mainstream media have mentioned that Rowling's ambition kept
pace with the skyrocketing popularity of her books, they have largely
overlooked the fact that her talent also grew. Talent is never static, it's
always growing or dying, and the short form on Rowling is this: She was far
better than R.L. Stine (an adequate but flavorless writer) when she started,
but by the time she penned the final line of Deathly Hallows (''All was
well.''), she had become one of the finer stylists in her native country —
not as good as Ian McEwan or Ruth Rendell (at least not yet), but easily the
peer of Beryl Bainbridge or Martin Amis.
And, of course, there was the magic. It's what kids want more than anything;
it's what they crave. That goes back to the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian
Andersen, and good old Alice, chasing after that wascally wabbit. Kids are
always looking for the Ministry of Magic, and they usually find it.
One day in my hometown of Bangor, I was walking up the street and observed a
dirty-faced boy of about 3 with scabbed knees and a look of extreme
concentration on his face. He was sitting on the dirt strip between the
sidewalk and the asphalt. He had a stick in his hand and kept jabbing it
into the dirt. ''Get down there!'' he cried. ''Get down there, dammit! You
can't come out until I say the Special Word! You can't come out until I say
so!''
Several people passed by the kid without paying much attention (if any). I
slowed, however, and watched as long as I could — probably because I have
spent so much time telling the things inhabiting my own imagination to get
back down and not come out until I say so. I was charmed by the kid's
effortless make-believe (always assuming it was make-believe, heh-heh-heh).
And a couple of things occurred to me. One was that if he had been an adult,
the cops would have taken him away either to the drunk tank or to our local
Dreamboat Manor for a psychiatric exam. Another was that kids exhibiting
paranoid-schizophrenic tendencies are simply accepted in most societies. We
all understand that kids are crazy until they hit 8 or so, and we cut their
groovy, anything-goes minds some slack.
This happened around 1982, while I was getting ready to write a long story
about children and monsters (It), and it influenced my thinking on that
novel a great deal. Even now, years later, I think of that kid — a little
Minister of Magic using a dead twig for a wand — with affection, and hope he
didn't consider himself too old for Harry Potter when those books started
appearing. He might have; sad to think so, but one thing J.R.R. Tolkien
acknowledges that Rowling doesn't is that sometimes — often, really — the
magic goes away.
It was children whom Ms. Rowling — like her Fear Street precursor, but with
considerably more skill — captivated first, demonstrating with the
irrefutable logic of something like 10 bazillion books sold that kids are
still perfectly willing to put aside their iPods and Game Boys and pick up a
book…if the magic is there. That reading itself is magical is a thing I
never doubted. I'd give a lot to know how many teenagers (and preteens)
texted this message in the days following the last book's release: DON'T
CALL ME TODAY I'M READING.
The same thing probably happened with R.L. Stine's Goosebumps books, but
unlike Stine, Rowling brought adults into the reading circle, making it much
larger. This is hardly a unique phenomenon, although it seems to be one
associated mainly with British authors (there was Huckleberry Finn, of
course, a sequel to its YA little brother Tom Sawyer). Alice in Wonderland
began as a story told to 10-year-old Alice Liddell by Charles Dodgson
(a.k.a. Lewis Carroll); it is now taught in college lit courses. And
Watership Down, Richard Adams' version of The Odyssey (featuring rabbits
instead of humans), began as a story told to amuse the author's preteen
daughters, Juliet and Rosamond, on a long car drive. As a book, though, it
was marketed as an ''adult fantasy'' and became an international
best-seller.
Maybe it's the British prose. It's hard to resist the hypnotism of those
calm and sensible voices, especially when they turn to make-believe. Rowling
was always part of that straightforward storytelling tradition (Peter Pan,
originally a play by the Scot J.M. Barrie, is another case in point). She
never loses sight of her main theme — the power of love to turn bewildered,
often frightened, children into decent and responsible adults — but her
writing is all about story. She's lucid rather than luminous, but that's
okay; when she does express strong feelings, she remains their mistress
without denying their truth or power. The sweetest example in Deathly
Hallows comes early, with Harry remembering his childhood years in the
Dursley house. ''It gave him an odd, empty feeling to remember those
times,'' Rowling writes. ''[I]t was like remembering a younger brother whom
he had lost.'' Honest; nostalgic; not sloppy. It's a small example of the
style that enabled Jo Rowling to bridge the generation gap without breaking
a sweat or losing the cheerful dignity that is one of the series' great
charms.
Her characters are lively and well-drawn, her pace is impeccable, and
although there are occasional continuity drops, the story as a whole hangs
together almost perfectly over its 4,000-plus page length.
And she's in full possession of that famously dry British wit, as when Ron,
trying to tune in an outlaw news broadcast on his wizard radio, catches a
snatch of a pop song called ''A Cauldron Full of Hot Strong Love.'' Must
have been some witchy version of Donna Summer doing that one. There's also
her wry send-up of the British tabloids — about which I'm sure she knows
plenty — in the person of Rita Skeeter, perhaps the best name to be hung on
a fictional character since those of Jonathan Swift. When Elphias Doge, the
perfect magical English gentleman, calls Rita ''an interfering trout,'' I
felt like standing up and giving a cheer. Take that, Page Six! There's a lot
of meat on the bones of these books — good writing, honest feeling, a sweet
but uncompromising view of human nature…and hard reality: NOT MY DAUGHTER,
YOU BITCH! The fact that Harry attracted adults as well as children has
never surprised me.
Are the books perfect? Indeed not. Some sections are too long. In Deathly
Hallows, for instance, there's an awful lot of wandering around and camping
in that tent; it starts to feel like Ms. Rowling running out the clock on
the school year to fit the format of the previous six books.
And sometimes she falls prey to the Robinson Crusoe syndrome. In Crusoe,
whenever the marooned hero requires something, he ventures out to his ship —
which has conveniently run aground on the reef surrounding his desert
island — and takes what he needs from stores (in one of the most amusing
continuity flubs in the history of English literature, Robinson once swims
out naked…then fills his pockets). In much the same manner, whenever Harry
and his friends get into a tight corner, they produce some new spell — fire,
water to douse the fire, stairs that conveniently turn into a slide — and
squiggle free. I accepted most of these, partly because there's enough child
in me to react gleefully rather than doubtfully (in a way, the Potter books
are The Joy of Magic rather than The Joy of Cooking) but also because I
understand that magic is its own thing, and probably boundless. Still, by
the time the Battle of Hogwarts was reaching its climax of clumping giants,
cheering portraits, and flying wizards, I almost longed for someone to pull
out a good old MAC-10 and start blasting away like Rambo.
If all those creative spells — produced at the right moment like the stuff
from Crusoe's ship — were a sign of creative exhaustion, it's the only one I
saw, and that's pretty amazing. Mostly Rowling is just having fun, knocking
herself out, and when a good writer is having fun, the audience is almost
always having fun too. You can take that one to the bank (and, Reader, she
did).
One last thing: The bighead academics seem to think that Harry's magic will
not be strong enough to make a generation of nonreaders (especially the male
half) into bookworms…but they wouldn't be the first to underestimate
Harry's magic; just look at what happened to Lord Voldemort. And, of course,
the bigheads would never have credited Harry's influence in the first place,
if the evidence hadn't come in the form of best-seller lists. A literary
hero as big as the Beatles? ''Never happen!'' the bigheads would have cried.
''The traditional novel is as dead as Jacob Marley! Ask anyone who knows!
Ask us, in other words!''
But reading was never dead with the kids. Au contraire, right now it's
probably healthier than the adult version, which has to cope with what seems
like at least 400 boring and pretentious ''literary novels'' each year.
While the bigheads have been predicting (and bemoaning) the postliterate
society, the kids have been supplementing their Potter with the narratives
of Lemony Snicket, the adventures of teenage mastermind Artemis Fowl, Philip
Pullman's challenging His Dark Materials trilogy, the Alex Rider adventures,
Peter Abrahams' superb Ingrid Levin-Hill mysteries, the stories of those
amazing traveling blue jeans. And of course we must not forget the
unsinkable (if sometimes smelly) Captain Underpants. Also, how about a tip
of the old tiara to R.L. Stine, Jo Rowling's jovial John the Baptist?
I began by quoting Shakespeare; I'll close with the Who: The kids are
alright. Just how long they stay that way sort of depends on writers like
J.K. Rowling, who know how to tell a good story (important) and do it
without talking down (more important) or resorting to a lot of high-flown
gibberish (vital). Because if the field is left to a bunch of intellectual
Muggles who believe the traditional novel is dead, they'll kill the damn
thing.
It's good make-believe I'm talking about. Known in more formal circles as
the Ministry of Magic. J.K. Rowling has set the standard: It's a high one,
and God bless her for it.
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To Unsubscribe from this list please follow this link
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—– Original Message —–
From: Rescue_Rx
To: dog_anti-rescue_anti-peta_new@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2007 10:05 AM
Subject: Re: [dog_anti-rescue_anti-peta_new] H$U$ wants to run FEMA Search
and Rescue
Well, it has always been my thought, that these AR types are not in this for
the love of animals, but for the control of human lives. They aren't
interested in the welfare of animal, or humans for that matter, but in the
power they have when they get laws passed and infiltrate gov't bodies so
they can control our lives.
The sad part is that to many people this sounds so far-fetched that they
dismiss it as ranting. ~ Rx
Not only could it get as dire as described in this post, but if the H$U$ ran
search and rescue, they would probably follow up any disaster clean-up with
house raids to "liberate" any pets "companion animals" on trumped up
accusations of "animal abuse". They might even decide which people should
even be saved from the disaster, whatever it happens to be. Gosh, the H$U$
might even forget about saving the people when they see Fluffy and Felix
among those caught in the wake of the disaster and step over some poor
helpless child or senior to get to that cat or dog somewhere beyond.
—– Original Message —–
From: Horse N Hound Spa
To: dog_anti-rescue_anti-peta_new@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2007 9:40 AM
Subject: Re: [dog_anti-rescue_anti-peta_new] H$U$ wants to run FEMA Search
and Rescue
It's a lawsuit waiting to happen. Picture it – snowy freezing rain; kid
disappears, dogs called to the staging center; H$U$ says – nope you can't
take them out it's too cold for the dogs and the conditions are too bad for
them. If searchers refuse – can they be sued? and if someone dies because
the dogs don't go – there *will* be a suit sooner or later. It's going to
cost lives. They didn't want the dogs there after 9/11. Not sure where
people's common sense is – not only does the government turn the other way
while millions of tax free $$ are collected but they allow it to be used for
bad and not only look the other way but encourage it.
Furkids? Isn't that calling yourself the mother of a dog? Wouldn't that be
calling yourself a bitch? What does that make your
sons?——————-"Shelters" importing dogs is like the fireman who
sets fires so he can be a hero when he puts them out.
Finally, Payback Time for Spammers
By Allan Holmes | Wednesday, August 08, 2007 | 05:19 PM
Wouldn't it be great revenge to hit spammers who fill up your email inbox
with those messages …
http://blogs.govexec.com/techinsider/archives/2007/08/finally_payback_time_for_spamm.php
-I haven't looked at this article yet, but hope it offers something better
than the last one I saw that said you can hit the spammers at their web site
hosts. That's something I don't know how to do, especially without risking
my own computer and giving the spammers' sites they advertise, more hits.
Spam Case Tossed; Plaintiff Must Pay Up
PC World – USA
A Washington state man who sued spammers under the CAN-SPAM Act and lost
must pay the legal fees of the defendants, a judge has ruled. …
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,135678-c,spam/article.html
-What the bloomin heck!? Something's just not right!
Back to School Can Mean Fresh Victims for Spammers;
SPAMfighter … Business Wire (press release) – San Francisco,CA,USA
BOCA RATON, Fla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–
Every year at this time parents buy new computers for their children heading
back to high school or off to college.
…
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070809005670&newsLang=en
Spammers embed images in PDF files to bypass spam filtering software
By editor@ITSecurityPortal.com
Spam continues to be a headache for administrators and end-users because
spammers are constantly trying to stay one step ahead of anti-spam software
vendors. On an individual user basis, spam is annoying; it is a waste of
time and often …
http://www.itsecurityportal.com/itsecurity_news.asp?articleid=259855
Spammers ruining my server
Forum: Technical & Security Issues Posted By: servitium Post Time:
08-09-2007 at 02:35 PM.
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=626756&goto=newpost
Calling all spammers, please read.
By alex
Dear Spammer. Please be aware that there is absolutely no way for you to
spam on this site. Let me say this again: No way. Initially a member's
post's have to be validated manually by a moderator, regardless of whether
or not they have …
http://www.thecomputerforums.co.uk/f12/calling-all-spammers-please-read-6580/
The Computer Forums
http://www.thecomputerforums.co.uk
Gold Spammers
By Autuumn
I've been getting at least one email a day and several "/tells" from
spammers offering me to buy gold. I'm sick and tired of these low lifes that
I can't stress enough how badly these losers ruin a game. I've reported them
each time …
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=82662
Spammers
spammers referrer blog ( ). WordPress Referrer plugin, , spammers referrer.
. # Spam Protection … SetEnvIfNoCase Referer antispysoft2005.com
spammer=yes …
http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/simple-htaccess-rules-to-block-spammers/el/
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http://www.govtech.com/gt/129654?topic=117671
Hoax Chain E-mail Spreads False Facts About Red Planet
Aug 8, 2007, News Report
Experts have warned users not to forward a chain letter that has returned to
haunt e-mail users every August for the last 4 years. Sophos has received an
increase in reported sightings of the Giant Mars chain letter from computer
users in the last few days. The e-mails claim that the planet Mars will pass
close to Earth on 27 August.
Although it is true that the planet Mars passed extraordinarily close to
Earth in August 2003 (the closest the planets had been to each other for
some 60,000 years), the e-mail chain letter spreads across the internet
every August. It is advised that users should simply delete the e-mail, and
not forward it onto their friends and colleagues.
"Chain letters like this are too easily forwarded to friends, family and
colleagues without people using their common sense. Stories like this become
treated as fact, simple because they are repeated so often," said Graham
Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "Hoaxes and chain letters
like Giant Mars are not harmless — they waste time and bandwidth, and can
make support departments see red. Users need to be more skeptical, and ask
themselves whether everything they are told by e-mail can be believed."
Part of the chain letter reads as follows:
The Red Planet is about to be spectacular! This month and next, Earth is
catching up with Mars in an encounter that will culminate in the closest
approach between the two planets in recorded history. The next time Mars may
come this close is in 2287. Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars
and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not
come this close to Earth in the Last 5,000 years, but it may be as long as
60,000 years before it happens again.
"Up until 27 August it's likely that we will see more and more copies of
this chain letter spreading across the net," explained Cluley. "Then things
will die down — until next year at least."
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The posts from these people, and the points about "furkids" at the end of
these posts show just how fundy animal activism is and how much it has taken
over the mainstream pet and animal owning population. Sadly, girls, you are
all too right, and people are getting needlessly hurt because of these
zealots who view animals as little four-legged children in fur and feathered
coats.
—– Original Message —–
From: Chrissy
To: dog_anti-rescue_anti-peta_new@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2007 10:19 PM
Subject: [dog_anti-rescue_anti-peta_new] The American language towards
animals
Cleaning up mail and found this, its pretty old but I think its relevant
Chrissy
You go to any website that is trying to place animals… they will say most
of them are abused…. I don't see it, the dogs are usually in pretty good
shape.
We have to think of what abuse is…
Is it not letting the dog in the house to ruin your carpet abuse? Some would
say so.
Is feeding your dog this brand of dog food abuse? Some would Say so..
Do you walk your dog everyday? Well You should because you are neglecting
them.
Is your dog confined with a chain or tie out cable? Well You had better
watch it that is abuse.
But it isn't only dogs..
Do you keep chickens? Well you know you are depriving them of a wonderful
free life where they are not protected from predators.
Do you have cattle? we all know MEAT=MURDER so you are abusing that calf by
giving it a wholesome diet.
Do you have horses that you ride? Horses are majestic animals, and should
not be rode, they should be out on the open prairies where they can run
free…
Abuse is a word that is OVER used.
Lets see I abuse my car, I don't change the oil as often as I should I had
better watch it I will have the ALF after me (auto liberation foundation)
I also abuse my television
—– Original Message —–
From: Kathryn
The media has really helped our society embrace the entire AR mindset.
NOW I'd like to see them be as " in our face" with all the stories of our
native terrorists.
We need to really use the new language in all our yahoo groups to turn the
tables back on them.
I ask someone if they've " rehomed" the dog they are calling a rescue. I
call everyone on the abused
tag they seem to hang on every rehomed dog out there. I ask if they can
PROVE that the dog was abused, or were they just told that by the person
making the sale.???
I get sooo sick of hearing about all the abuse going on. ( I should call it
convenient abuse that comes with a larger price tag)
I'm aware that some people DO abuse dogs….but geeezzzzeeee……….there
are thousands and thousands of dogs all over the country being rehomed and
they ALL seem to have been abused.
.
__._,_.___
Furkids? Isn't that calling yourself the mother of a dog? Wouldn't that be
calling yourself a bitch? What does that make your
sons?——————-"Shelters" importing dogs is like the fireman who
sets fires so he can be a hero when he puts them out.
Has anyone ever seen someone on the net using their name in part or in full,
or even their handle, and doing stuff the real person with that
handle/nickname wouldn't do?
Even spammers that use the names of my friends, or my own name or any of my
nicknames, is really galling. It's even worse when the spam itself has an
offensive subject line.
This is SO WRONG!
Return-path: jr.gribaudo@dorise.fr
From: "Sophie G. Penn" Sophie@dorise.fr
-I intensely dislike when spammers use any one of my real names or
nicknames/handles etc, spelling them the same way I do to boot – especially
to say moronic junk like this!
Subject: I just started having sex, and my boyfriend *nix rest of trashy
subject line*
-I blacklisted every other one of your reject pals who tried to email me
with this subject line, and you're getting the same!
To: "Sherrie Z. Kern" avatar@cyberjunkie.org
-So you're really Sherrie Z Kern, with the email username of "avatar" I'm
just fine with that. But don't you dare go online calling yourself Sophie,
or Capri or even Danae, because that's me, and I'm not into – the sort of
thing you are. Go by any of these names and go around telling everybody
you're having sex, and I will hurt you – and you don't want that…
BLACKLISTED!
Oh, my heart just bleeds for this girl…NOT!
–Start of Myspace bulletin "I'm such a poor hard-done-by little damsel,
pity me" whine–
I'm sorry
That I'm not enough of a slut to sleep with you on a first date
I'm sorry
That my boobs aren't big enough to "satisfy" your needs
I'm sorry
that I'm not anorexic and skinny enough for you to see my ribs
I'm sorry
That I'm not pretty enough to be "your girl"
I'm sorry
That I'm not a Playboy model so I can't act like a porn star for you
I'm sorry
I don't have a dream body that turns you on
But most of all
I'm sorry
That you can't accept me for who I am
If you're a girl and you agree with this letter, repost as "I'm sorry"
If You're one of the few guys with enough balls to repost, and you would
never make your girl feel this way, repost as "I appreciate you
–End of extremely sarcastic, babyish, self-pitying whine–
-*Rolling eyes*
- Look at her, for all her snivelling about the guy and the obsessions she's
convinced herself he has, it's obvious what she's obsessed with. Can we say
"hypocrite" and "double-standard"? In her zeal to paint all guys as
shallow-minded slobs, she completely discredited and outed herself with that
last line in one fell swoop!
-This girl comes off as nothing but an insecure little brat who needs a few
lessons in how to interact with other people before she can be considered
safe for anyone to enter into any kind of relationship with, be that a
boyfriend or just a friend.
-Anyone can "act like a porn star" whether they're a playboy model or not.
Also, isn't that second last statement about being accepted just a bit
unnecessary, considering all the things she snivels about in the above?
-Obviously she's the one obsessed with appearance and is terribly insecure,
especially since she, like many of these frighteningly insecure sad rejected
girls in these bulletins, is determined to judge all other guys as
shallow-minded jerks just because one guy didn't return her advances – for
whatever reason.
-She might've even made up the idea that she's rejected because of her looks
and simply can't stand the fact that maybe there is no reason they didn't
work out other than they just weren't meant to. Or maybe she was far too
narcisistic and clingy, and the guy couldn't take it any more. I've seen
narcisistic drama-queens in action, they can get extremely ugly trying to
play the victim act and villify anyone else who doesn't coddle them and give
them exactly what they want, all the time. And they absolutely refuse to
take responsibility for their own disgusting behavior that repells people in
the first place.
-Assuming the guy really was a jerk, if this girl had any backbone, she
wouldn't waste her time pining over someone like that in the first place.
-The whole thing could've been summed up as "I'm sorry you're such a jerk
and I wasted too much time on you."
-Here's a different treatment of the "I'm Sorry" showing how to give a jerk
a rough sendoff. If you want to wound his pride, don't moan on about how he
was such a meannie to you and how hurt you are. If he really is a jerk, he's
not going to care, or worse; he'll be thrilled that he was able to make you
writhe on a string for him. However, it might rattle him to know he's no
prized catch himself.
I'm sorry
That your two heads got confused.
I'm sorry
That I'm too busy with my own life to give a crap about "satisfying" your
bust-lusts
I'm sorry
that you're not a galaxy away and I might risk the chance of seeing your
ugly mug at my door again.
I'm sorry
That I'm far too smart to be "your girl"
I'm sorry
That I broke your butt-ugly model car and can't fix it for you.
I'm sorry
I don't have a dream that includes you, since you don't turn me on.
But most of all
I'm sorry
That you're not a man, just an overgrown little boy and a huge waste of
time.
