As you very well know, the last day of the month is today.

So, let us close it out right quick now, without any delay.

Then, you can head out your door to the dock by the bay.

Or, get on your knees gently beside your bed to pray.

Or, go downstairs and play with some modeling clay.

Gather all your bills, grab your checkbook and pay.

Grab the remote, and sit in bed with your dinner tray.

Or do all of those things above without any slight delay!

Now, it is the time for you to have your very own say.

What would you do-oo-oo for a blog post now?

Would you jump in the mud and wrestle a sow?

Would you stand on a stage and take a bow?

Would you go to a farm and kiss a sloppy cow?

Would you take out all the dough you’ve invested in the Dow?

Would you flip over your back and then say “Wow?”

Would you grab a shovel and dig a trough?

Would you stop a mechanic and ask “How?”

Would you pucker your lips and await a “POW?”

Then cup your mouth and try to shout “OW!?”

Oh, what would you do-oo-oo for a blog post now?

I guess I should close out the “unofficial” spam week with another post on spam.

This time, with office supplies that are “in demand.”

Or, sometimes, pharmaceuticals that are in demand.

Or who knows what else that is in demand.

I’m not buying from any of them.

Especially when they go to great lengths to disguise who actually sent the message.

Or when they use weird URLs that no sensible person would pay attention to.

Or when their messages are filled with random words designed to get their trash past spam filters but just makes their message read like silly nonsense.

The problem is the people that do buy stuff from these clowns.

So, the clowns can send millions of messages and make a few bucks because a tiny percentage of people will buy something.

There are no winners. Only losers. Well, I guess maybe the spam kings win. Sigh.

That’s the latest rash of spam.

It will say something like:

“Jane Smith has viewed your profile.”

And the sender will be something like “John Smith.”

So, it looks like it’s trying to maybe pretend to be from a dating site (I would guess), but then who is John? Jane’s husband? Jane’s brother? Jane’s father?

Well, my first thought is husband, otherwise wouldn’t other eMails come from different people? That is, maybe Susie’s mother wants you to know her daughter viewed your profile or Beth’s friend wanted you to know Beth checked out your profile.

But, no. It’s a woman that viewed your profile and it’s sent by a man, which makes it look like a husband.

Maybe I’m supposed to think the husband and wife are into that sort of thing. Sorry, no thanks.

But, it’s not even an ad for a dating site. It’s not even an ad for a social networking site. In fact, I really have no idea what it’s an ad for, because the body of the eMail is all gibberish. Some links are for who knows what because they’re using an IP address rather than a domain name and another link seems to be for property sales.

I guess some people randomly click these links and randomly buy stuff? Who knows. Maybe it’s just an attempt to install malware on your computer.

At any rate: SPAMMER FAIL.

Okay, spam week continues with yet more spam nonsense.

This time, it’s comment spam.

Comment spam in the form of complete gibberish.

With a URL that’s gibberish dot com. And I don’t mean the word “gibberish” but actual gibberish, as in hcxhjbfhjmswcvm dot com.

And, no, that’s not the actual gibberish. That’s example gibberish. I’m not going to give them the benefit of mentioning their gibberish URL on my blog, not that you’d check it out anyway, but why reward them at all.

At any rate, would you click on that? Maybe they think some people are going to be curious and have to check it out.

But, I’m not checking it out. Who knows what malware or sale pitch or both may be awaiting us all on the other side of that URL?

I don’t intend to find out.

I am getting tired of this “Become a published author” spam I keep getting.

I am a published author, so buzz off!

It just goes to show how annoying spam is. It’s not targeted at all. It’s just sent to any and every eMail address they can find. Sure, some spam list sellers say they have lists of targeted buyers, but either I’m not on any of those lists or they’re lying because I don’t think I ever receive spam for things I would actually be interested in.

And, even if spam were targeted, it would still be a mess. It’s one thing if your neighborhood discount store sends you a advertising flyer in the mail. How many are in your neighborhood? Maybe a dozen, give or take, depending on where you live. And, they’re not going to send mail to you every day. Maybe once a week or twice a month. So, that’s maybe a dozen pieces of mail you’ll get each week.

That’s manageable, right?

But, what if every discount store across the country sent you a flyer? You’d be overwhelmed. Of course, that’s not going to happen. They know that most people outside of their market area aren’t going to buy. Plus, they can’t afford to send out that much mail.

But, compared to postal mail, spam sends next to nothing to send out. So, why not send to people outside your immediate market? They might come in and buy something. Why not go further? People farther away might be willing to pay shipping costs if you have a good enough deal.

The more you send, the better too, right? So, instead of once a week or twice a month, why not send them a message every day? You could even send them one message in the morning and another at night, just to make sure you catch them.

Targetting doesn’t matter, because the cost of sending is so low. You might as well take the chance. You’re spending pennies and could be getting dollars in return, even if most recipients never buy anything. You don’t have to have a high conversion rate. The break even point is far lower than for a postal mailing.

Fortunately, most businesses aren’t doing that. Yet, we are still deluged with spam. Can you imagine if more people and businesses were to spam people with offers?

It would kill eMail. Heck, it’s almost killing it now.

Isn’t it time for your refill?

Nope.

This is why you’re fat!

I bet not.

You are one of the 500 customers chosen to view our site.

No thanks. You can send someone else the invite.

We’re your exclusive pharm source!

No, you’re not.

Sorry, guys, not for you.

Then don’t send it to me!

Someone thought you might be interested in our Internet pharmacy.

Someone thought wrong.

Wholesale pricing you won’t believe!

I bet you don’t believe I don’t care.

Do you need more Percocet?

Nope.

Do you need more Adderall?

Nope.

Start learning forensics!

I’ll settle for watching NCIS. Thanks.

Rapid fire weight loss, Jennifer Aniston.

I’m not Jennifer Aniston.

Rapid fire weight loss, Britney Spears.

I’m not Britney either.

Natalie Portman.

Nope. Guess again?

Girls strip for cameras.

Must be expensive cameras. They usually won’t strip for the disposables.

Do you have a story to tell?

Yes.

I just finished taking down another WordPress blog.

This is one that I had started to set up, but never finished. Never mentioned it anywhere, never linked to it from anywhere.

Yet, the spammers were able to find it.

I had set it up only to do the design work on the site. So, all the content was the default WordPress content. That is, the “Hello world!” post and the “This is an example of…” default About page. And the default comment on the “Hello world!” post.

Yet, the spammers managed to find it. On top of that, traffic continued to grow! From the spammers, of course. You’d think the lack of comments on the site (because I never approved a single one of them) might be a hint, but no. I guess their spambots aren’t sophisticated enough to check to see whether a site actually posts comments.

I guess it must get passed around somewhere as a place to leave your spam comments, even though no comments were ever approved.

With January not even over yet, the traffic on the site had already surpassed December’s.

And this was with no promotion whatsoever. The spammers must have some way of checking recently registered domain names and then seeing if a WordPress blog is installed. As I recall, it was just a couple short weeks after setting up the blog that I started getting spam comments.

At any rate, the spammers will be in for a shock now. Well, maybe not an actual shock, because they are just little spambots and not actual people posting these comments on how great and wonderful and useful the default “Hello world!” WordPress post was.

I took the blog down, and have the domain forwarding to another one of my sites. One where they have to register to leave a comment. And, I don’t have an automated registration system. So, the bots won’t know how to handle it.

At any rate, it’ll cut down on the amount of eMail I receive, since I will no longer receive notifications from WordPress that someone has commented on the blog.

If you’ve seen it, please let me know.

It’s getting late, and it’s no where in sight.

I had a couple earlier in the day, but now that it’s time to send them out into the world, they are no where to be found.

Oh, where, oh where have my blog posts gone?

Seriously, I had some good ideas today. Some real, meaty blog post ideas.

I wish I knew where they went.

Bummer. They were going to be some good stuff too. And, yes, that last sentence was probably not completely grammatically correct. But, it would have been had I had an actual blog post.

If you see them, please send them home. Maybe they just got scared and ran off. They can rest up tonight and maybe they’ll be ready to go public tomorrow.

See? Invisible. You can’t see them at all, can you?

Yeah, I know. Just when you thought I was back to posting substantive stuff, I start phoning it in with curtains. Not to worry. Busy working on something right now, and should be back to normal blogging (maybe) soon.