“You don’t say ‘ham’, say ‘Spam'” –stupid Spam commercial from way-back-when

No, I’m not talking about your grocery-variety Spam, but rather the yucky kind that pollutes email inboxes all over cyberspace. Everyone’s been accosted by it. It’s not surprising it exists considering regular mail is (increasingly) full of it (junk mail, anyone?).

There’s even a newer type of Spam that’s not really classified as such, but it exhibits all the hallmarks: it’s rude, obtrusive, and invades your privacy. Months ago, when I had put up my pull-up bar, I was researching various wall anchors on the internet. The next day, when I was reading the paper online, what to my wondering eyes should appear, (No, you silly goose, not eight tiny reindeer) but an ad about anchors embedded in the article. These bots are slick, but not too bright: Fast forward six months later and I still see the same ad over and over again. If you’re gonna read my mind and invade my privacy, at least realize I’m over and done with the wall anchors and on to other things.

Another new form of Spam concerns my blog. Bots are programmed to leave ads as comments in my posts. As quickly as I delete them they fill up my inbox with messages informing me I have new comments, forcing me to waste time to delete them. Aside from the annoyance there is an insidious side effect. I’ve noticed that it is producing a negative association between me and my blog, which is about my brother. Every time I see an email notification about a (spammed) comment I grumble, instead of rejoice. How nice: spam my site so I can take away time from my thoughts about my brother and brood over the inhumanity of it all. Guess it’s high time I upgrade the spam filters.

I hate Spam, unless it’s served on the side with eggs over medium.