Spam

Everyone who uses email is familiar with that inescapable scourge of the internet, spam. Some of you may receive such junk email on a weekly or even daily basis.

This is my spam box five hours after I cleared it:


Where all this spam is coming from and why it's coming to me is still a mystery.

I have no intention of purchasing Canadian ED pills, finding hot online sex chats or receiving money from my long-lost nephew in Nigeria, but I'd hate for all the spammers' hard work to go to waste.

But what do we do with meaningless writing if we don't want to waste it?

That's right! Rhetorical analysis!


Let's begin with a piece by Sylvain Noris entitled It took Rand a moment to realize he was laughing, and on the edge of hysteria.

I'll give you a little excerpt from it:

I'll point out where the other modes are different, but I've not
looked into them in as much detail, so there are sure to be errors in
the discussion. And sythen he mace hym as mery among the fre ladyes,
With comlych caroles and alle kynnes ioye, As neuer he did bot that
daye, to the derk ny3t, with blys.
...
However, there is no impact during run time, and the controls appear
correctly in test mode and while executing. Double-click on the error
in the Build pane, or Use the error navigation buttons on the toolbar.
But Wolf Larsen was the man-type, the masculine, and almost a god in
his perfectness. I forgot my holy water, and skeletons and ghouls and
the like are so persistent.

The juxtaposition of technical language and Old English poetry is, in a way, a reference to our modern fixation with the ancient. This is emphasised by the inclusion of a numeral within an Old English word ("to the derk ny3t"), a practice only used in today's electronic communications.

The last paragraph challenges our perceptions of programmers as geeky shut-ins by showing us that error-prone Wolf Larsen, the clear protagonist of this work of spam, is "masculine, and almost a god", and is undaunted by "skeletons and ghouls and the like".

The included image wants to sell me Canadian drugs.


Noris's work is heavily influenced by works of proper literature, to the point that I wonder if he just copied lines from a Java manual, the Canterbury Tales and Biffo the Werewolf Slayer.


Next, we'll move on to Valorie Garren's Puppy Swallows Stick Nearly A Big As Itself. SURVIVES!

It reads:

Q L U P s 8
ONLINE CASINO! REGISTER AND GET $1800 FOR FREE !!!
Click here

At krishna and uttered a leonine roar. That ironmouthed functions could hardly be the same and there were after the largo in a symphony. She was youth and ago, the prospect was often shut out by the thickets fell down from that vehicle. The three worlds.

The sentence structure in this one blows me away. The first sentence doesn't even need a subject. A prepositional phrase and the latter half of a compound predicate are all that the sentence needs.

And what a spectacular ending! What about the three worlds? I'm eagerly waiting for her next spam to hit shelves.

Truly, Garren is one of the most innovative spam writers of our time.


Derrick Daly's spam, !I want sale you rolex ? Do you want? 0tdgu9 is written under the pen name Ann Vargas (see email below).

This is Daly's way of more convincingly portraying the feminist themes that are prevalent in the spam. His narrator, Ann, asks us toward the end:

> !Do you want rolex or other brander watch under 250?
n6f0plkdya-

This use of diction is a metaphor for the prevalence of American feminism in early 2008, when the spam was written.


I'd like to take a look at one more work, this time by acclaimed spammist Jasmine Shaffer. She is known for her straightforward, unashamed statements, so it comes as no surprise that her newest spam is entitled Significantly increase penis length.

It reads:

Become the man you have always wanted to be

Become the ultimate pleasure machine

People judge your dick size by your shoes size.

A few inches can make a real difference

With Xtra Size+ you dont have to wear
bigger shoes to make women think you have a huge dick.

over 1,500,000 bottles sold worldwide

You can actually have it.
No more embarrassment!

http://minkmag.cn

Life changing herbal pills, just a few clicks away

I applaud Shaffer's blunt, honest spam. None of this "!i want sale you rolex ?" crap. She gets in, gets the job done, and gets out.


Some noteworthy titles that didn't quite make the list were:

• Archaeologists find evidence for ancient version of 'Girls Gone Wild' by Ostroski Prochazka
• Paris Hilton likes them big by Kristie Guy
• turn your member into a leader by Yon

So take the time to read some of your spam. Some of it can be a good way to waste time when you're supposed to be writing a biology lab write up.

The Shaun Kunce Error

Randolph High School has a very illogical way of giving us our yearbooks.

You see, most High Schools come out with their yearbook at the end of the year.

But here at RHS, we release it three weeks into the NEXT year. Seniors get them in the mail.



And so here it is: my yearbook from last school year.

While looking through the Class of 2010, I noticed something odd:



Is that PD, from the class of 2009 in the bottom right?


Why yes it is! And an extremely bad picture of him at that!

But apparently PD's picture was replacing Sean Kunce's picture.


See...Shaun Kunce.

So I looked up this "Sean Kunce" in the index.

The page numbers said "22 and 92." We were just looking at 22, where his school picture SHOULD have been.

So I flipped to page 92.



Page 92 was the "Girls Track" page.


Can you find Sean Kunce? The answer is no, unless he had a sex change.

Interestingly enough, PD also made the Class of 2009 page.

Where I found his picture from 2 years ago.

It appears that the yearbook editor wasn't on very good terms with Shaun Kunce. He never appeared in the yearbook.

Fortunately he got one measly picture in the yearbook from two years ago.


Better luck next time, Shaun.

Still Wondering Who to Vote For?

Q: What's the differance between Republicans and Democrats?

A: Guns.


McCain: "Oh...where's your little hat now, PD?


McCain: "Vote for me or never vote again."

What more motivation do you need to vote for John McCain?

The Race is On

In response to Jake's recent post in which he shooped himself into a picture with Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, I offer these inequalities:

Fireworks MX > Photoshop

Obama > McCain

Yes, I am wearing an Obama party hat.


I > Jake

And so the all-important shooping race for the White House begins. May the best man (me) win.

shoop
shoops, shooping, shooped
-transitive verb
To alter an image using Photoshop or a similar program
-noun
An image which is shooped
[Origin: 2003-4; from "to shop", a derivative of "to Photoshop"]

And remember to vote Obama 2008!

Yay for Me

John McCain and Sarah Palin congratulate Jake Ritter for outstanding photoshoping.

By the way, vote McCain 2008!