Spammy goodness comments.
February 29, 2004
I had a couple more spam comments appear on my blog recently. Frankly, I wonder where they come from. It’s sort of strange that they appear in the first place, and my only guess is that people have bots crawling the Net looking for blogs that run certain types of software with comments enabled and then they post their own spam comments to it. These last two involved penis enlargement pills, and I can only presume that none of my readers promotes that kind of crap, so that leaves Mr. Anonymous as the culprit.
Speaking of blog spam, I’ve also been getting quite a bit of email spam recently, too. I went for about a year or more without any spam whatsoever, and then BAM, it picked up quite rapidly. Thankfully I’m not getting much porn spam (though I don’t actually read them, so they may be), but the majority seems to have to do with similar products to the afore-mentioned blog comment spam. I know that stopped on even slowing down spam is a difficult task to say the least, but can’t the FCC at least shut down the companies selling these products for false advertising? I mean really, all it takes is calling the number or going to the website and then finding out the name of the company. If the FCC were to file a lawsuit without even investigating, I’ll bet that the sites would get shut down because the companies can’t afford a lawsuit.
Or we could track down the spammers and firebomb their houses, either way works for me. Non-violence, violence, whatever gets the job done.
This was kind of a frustrating week. After finally connecting with Martin on Monday and getting some work to do, he told me to hold off on doing more until we could talk on the phone again and make some calls together in conference mode. I missed him on Thursday due to a meeting he got stuck in, called him on Friday when I got up, and when I hadn’t heard back from him after a couple of hours I took the invitation my Dad offered to go with him and two of his friends (the same two I’ve gone with on a couple of other times, including the reopening of the Rock Creek Tavern last winter) down to Salem for lunch at a new McMenamins. #20 for me, I believe? None of us had actually been to this one. But I got a call from Martin while I was on my way there, and I missed another day of work because he hadn’t gotten back to me quickly enough. I had figured because he can rarely get back to me when he says he can/will, I had to leeway time. And then I told him I’d be back by 2, and I didn’t get home until 3 PM, and he had a meeting at 3:30. Oh well, guess I’ll have to talk to him on Monday.
Part of the reason I didn’t get home until 3, though, was I had to swing by the bank. I was thinking about driving to the store to get some dinner this past week (I need to go grocery shopping, and while I have plenty of soup to eat I’m missing sandwich materials) and so I looked up my checking account balance to make sure I had enough before I left, and lo and behold, I was down to -$89. WHAT? How the hell did that happen? I did some investigation, and it turned out that one charge I had made last Friday before I left hadn’t been posted to my account like all the other charges I’d made that day, plus the check I’d written for my wireless bill had cleared a full two and a half weeks after it had left my control. I had assumed both of those had already been cleared, and so I had cut it a little too close to the wire. That, and Washington Mutual charges you $22 for every overdraft you make on your account. That’s right, you could buy four $0.01 items to put you at -$0.04 in your checking account and they would charge you $88, putting you at -$88.04. It kind of sucks. So I had to get a check from my Mom to cover the amount while I wait for my paycheck from Martin to arrive. Sigh. I was so careful with my money, and then I get slammed.
Another downer this week happened the same night I discovered I was overdrawn by almost $90. Instead of going out, I did a carbohydrate feast of spaghetti, and as I was grating a bit of fresh parmasean cheese to top off my dish, I slipped and my hand hit the grater at a pretty forceful speed. The result was a grated hand that hurt like a mofo. I practically ran around the house looking for a BandAid, but it turned out that my entire stock had disappeared and I couldn’t find where my Mom had stashed hers. I just had to let it bleed, instead, and I couldn’t put my hand in my pocket for a day or two. Ow ow ow. It’s not a big injury, but it hurt like hell for a bit.
This weekend I went over to my Dad’s, and since Cindy was gone Friday and Saturday night, just the guys hung out. Friday night we grabbed a pizza and some beer for dinner, and last night was steak, baked potato, and corn. Men food all the way. Right now I’m drinking a beer, but believe me, I’d rather not. The mini-fridge that I had at school that’s now in my room here at home has a small freezer that’s been bulging outwards for quite some time, and it went from being able to hold six bottles of beer (it doesn’t actually freeze things, really, at least not beer) with some effort to five if you really jam them in. Hmmm, time to defrost that bad boy. So I pulled out what little beer was still in there, filled my water bottle, unplugged the unit, and put a towel down. The reason I’m drinking a beer right now, though, is because it’s a Bridgeport Ale, and one of the times I toured the Bridgeport brewery, they said that Bridgeport Ales don’t do well to being warm, then cold, then warm again. I don’t know about other kinds of beer, but it has to do with Bridgeport’s brewing process, apparently. And naturally, I just realized that there’s probably some room in the fridge in the kitchen…so I guess I’ll put the others in there for now. I don’t like having beer in the afternoon unless it’s with a meal like lunch, but hey, since it’s half gone already….
This coming week should be nice. Hopefully I’ll connect with Martin finally and we can get the stuff over the phone accomplished so that I may finish up the work he’s given me (or at least get paid some more). In addition, The Crystal Method concert is on Tuesday night at the Crystal Ballroom, so my sister and I should have a great time that night since we both dig TCM so much. Perhaps I’ll even find some time to write, who knows?
See ya.
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