Lucubratrix

Why Don't I Receive Better Spam?

It's the familiar lament of everyone who has email: I log in, and my inbox is full of nothing but spam. The Nigerians want you to handle their money, people with indeterminate names want to sell Viiaaggrraa and Ciiiiaaalllllliiisss, and someone else wants to give you Free Pics Of Hot Babes Humping Robots.

Spam is a sad fact of life, and its existence is not my complaint (although I do wish my .edu address had better (read: any) filters). No, my complaint is, quite simply, that the quality of spam I receive has shown a marked decline. Stock tips? Free Rolex watches? Where is the humor here? Where is the Ig Nobel-winning prose asking me to handle the finances of the exiled Nigerian elite?

No doubt the stocks these people are attempting to sell would allow me to retire in comfort by the time I turn thirty, but a spare paragraph advertising Hott Stock Pixx followed by a nonsensical paragraph composed of sentence snippets that are intended to mimic a discussion of politics, world events, movies, sports, culture, etc., provides me with absolutely no entertainment. It's fortunate that I have other forms of amusement, because if I relied on my daily ration of spam for that purpose, I'd be out of luck. Messages from Adolph with the subject pharmacyStuff [aITh7CFqX1pbs2qviRiqBPJwB8... have no value of any kind.

There is, however, a ray of hope. A Mr. Masuda Shinyaku, MD/CEO/PRESIDENT of Masuda Chemical Industries Co., Ltd. Japan, wants me to act as his international representative due to unspecified monetary policies that are crippling his business. In order to take advantage of this opportunity, I need only provide him with various personal information, including but not limited to my phone number and marital status. In a separate communication, Ickenroth LaRouche is pleased to inform me that I have won an international lottery. (Sadly, I have probably made myself ineligible, as Mr. (?) LaRouche requested that I keep the award from public notice until the process is complete and the funds remitted to my account. Perhaps I can still enter the drawing for the 13 million euro prize at the end of the year....) It's small, but it's a start.

I mean, stock tips? What kind of spam is that? If I want stock tips I'll look for them in the Wall Street Journal. I expect more from my email.

posted by Just Me @ 22:02