Recently in the Spam Category

As noted in my main blog, I've been clearing out my spam mailbox lately.

Here are some of my favorite subject lines from spam messages I've seen recently. I'm especially amused by some of the creative euphemisms that spammers come up with for "penis," but I've mostly left those out of this entry, except for a couple I particularly liked.

• You can't rent a big friend in your underwear but you can gain it forever.
• Barak Obama is a woman!
• Weeding invite [I'm pretty sure this was meant to say "Wedding invite," but I like the idea of sending out weeding invites.]
• Obama Proposes Trade of AIG Executives in Primitive Swaps
• Maybe Spam I am missing you [OR MAYBE NOT!]
• Smoking ruins! And if you desire to stay alive,ask us for our help. [Now I see that this is meant to be an anti-smoking ad, but on first reading I thought "ruins" was a noun.]
• No Jail Time For Man Arrested In Capptain America Costume
• Empower your pollinator
• Terrorists used cats! Iraq

My main blog has been receiving a lot of comment spam lately. Annoying, but the upside is that some of the comments are mildly entertaining: they're posted by a spambot that recognizes key words but doesn't know that words can have multiple meanings.

So, for example, an entry of mine from back in 2002 has the title "Phrase dating and the New Wave, which contains the word "dating." So a spambot posted a comment on that entry the other day that said "Is it ok to bring flowers on a first date?"

And several of my entries that contain the word "girls" (referring to young female humans, as in "On Girls, Boys, and IT Careers") get spam comments about "girls sex movie" and such.

And then there was my entry "Writing challenge/exercise: Unamerican," which just got a spam comment that says "Love this blog, love fitness and life, thanks for a good read!"—presumably because of the word "exercise."

And though this isn't quite the same thing, whenever I mention recipes, as in an entry on "Recipe law," I get comment spam pointing me to recipe sites or saying (for example) "I am looking for a lot of different meal ideas. If you are willing to recommand another page I would honestly appreciate it. Thank you!"

Best spam subject line of the week:

RE: BE CAREFUL OF THE HUDLOOMS

I thought perhaps a HUDLOOM was a weaving device containing a Heads-Up Display. Or perhaps some kind of magical thingy from a Harry Potter book.

Sadly, it appears to be simply a misspelling of "hoodlum." Still, I was entertained, and thought you might be too.

Also of note is this line from the body of the message, which caught my eye during the two seconds in which I briefly glanced at the email looking for more hudloom info:

The above listed names are been traced/investigated by our team and some of them have elope the country[....]

A nicely poetic way of describing someone fleeing the law, I guess.

I know it's not good form to mock non-fluent English speakers. But I sometimes can't resist.

Just saw a spam subject line that said:

MONEY OR LOVE? WHY NOT BOTH?

Only at first glance I misread the first word, so I thought it said:

MONKEY OR LOVE? WHY NOT BOTH?

My favorite spam subject lines of the day:

First:

the social networking site no one else knows about

Now I want to generalize that to a sort of a game: take a positive attribute that one might use to praise one thing, come up with a different thing that turns that attribute negative. "shimmering vermilion milk," say, or "waterproof breakfast cereal."

Anyway, the other spam subject line of the day, in a totally different vein:

Women will be your resigned slaves

Somehow I think "resigned" isn't really the word they had in mind, but I'm amused by the image. I'm thinking of a harem full of women sitting around, bored, rolling their eyes at every command given them by the hapless slave master. "~Yes, 'master'~," they say sarcastically. "I suppose I'll wash your feet. If I must. Sigh."

The interior of that one was funny, too:

Your woman will be shocked by your fang's astonishing progress.

Go, fang!