What’s that old line about if you put a bunch of monkeys in a room with typewriters eventually their random keystrokes will turn out something intelligible like a novel or something?
Anywho, when I get spam from names like “rorsuc ezycam”, “ewskele enirtomcc”, “vywvmypwr gqvanrmsa”, or ”eszole dockuefor”, that’s the image my mind conjures up–a bunch of monkeys in a room somewhere randomly pounding away on computer keyboards and flooding my inbox with their nonsense. No offense to the people who actually do this for a living. I don’t even bother to read them. Obviously, it’s not going to be anything I’m remotely interested in, and I just sigh and roll my eyes while clicking delete, delete, delete.
Well, the monkeys struck gold with this one:
From: Patsy Stonecipher Subject: Don’t understand, hope u can help.
I’m intrigued! I mean, come on, Patsy Stonecipher?! What a name! Sounds like some kind of archaeologist/detective, travelling the world, saving civilizations from unknown evils–like Nancy Drew meets Indiana Jones or something. And here she is in the thick of some mystery and completely befuddled–she doesn’t understand and she hopes I can help! I can feel the sense of urgency–see how she abbreviated “you”? That must mean she has no time to waste! The fate of the world could be resting in my hands! I’m here for you, Patsy!
click. “I know you would love one of these replica-watches. You have never even said how much you wished you could buy one of these quality swiss look alikes. It is time for you to get something you have wanted for so long. ‘Cuz it is a solidly-built copy, there is no money concerns to worry about. I think you will also find their online tracing service is a great safe feeling for you. You’ll need to get one of the boxes for it too.”
A crummy commercial? Sonnuva…
But seriously, what’s the purpose of these e-mails? Who is actually reading them and then thinks to themselves, “This sounds like a reliable, reputable company. I’m going to click on this link that says ‘pills2support.com’ and get myself a quality swiss look alike replica-watch ‘cuz it’s solidly built and I have a great safe feeling.”?
I don’t get it.
Patsy Stonecipher is still a cool name, though. If I ever write a novel about a Nancy Drew meets Indiana Jones archaeologist/detective who travels the world saving civilizations from unknown evils, I’m totally using it.
Have you had any semi-intriguing or amusing spam make it through your filters?
4 comments
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February 27, 2008 at 5:25 pm
madhousewife
No need to apologize to the people; it really is just monkeys.
You’re lucky. The only spam I get is for penile enlargements and discount Viagra. Seriously, that is all it ever is.
February 27, 2008 at 8:13 pm
bythelbs
Well, I think I actually asked for it with my internet rx drug spam deluge. Last summer we received several e-mails addressed to a Susan Ross–they were like order confirmation e-mails or whatever. They seemed like legitimate e-mails that were just sent to our account by mistake (I know, duh!), so I responded and said that this was not Susan Ross’ e-mail address. (I know, idiota!) So that put me on the “Suc-kah” list, and now every stupid internet drug company on the face of the planet sends me their e-mails. They started out saying they were rx companies (usually from Canada), but lately they’ve led with other products like the “swiss look alike” watches. I never click on the links–I’m too afraid. I get like 100 of these a week. Chuck has figured out how to block a lot of them, but several still manage to get through.
Lesson learned.
February 29, 2008 at 10:33 am
Kristen
Not exactly the same, but I had to make a general annoucement in the church newsletter not to send out any emails with the words “adult”, “young men”, or “young women” in the subject line. People were wondering why their announcements weren’t getting into the bulletin, it was becasue my SPAM filters were set to block anything that sounded vaguely pornographic.
Hope it’s ok that I crashed your blog:)
February 29, 2008 at 12:08 pm
bythelbs
That’s awesome.
Hey, crash away–everyone’s welcome!