Join the Fight!

I went to my mom’s blog the other day to find that she had ten new comments on a post no more than an hour old. Not that I think she shouldn’t be getting comments mind you, in fact this was her best post ever, it’s just that she rarely gets any but mine. So I check out who has been leaving notes. They all started kinda like “Hey, I’e been reading your blog. I think you have a great writing style…” or “Wow that sounds really great. I really like your blog…” but then they start talking about how you need to check out their site to find out more about a new diet pill or on-line dating or whatever. It was like opening a cupboard and finding rat feces, yes the telltale sign that blog-spammers had been there.

I don’t know if any of you have been troubled with this insidious advertising scheme yet but I guarantee that you will. I was pissed when I saw it. I know it wasn’t my page but still she had TEN spam comments in just about an hour! I felt like the sanctity of blogers everywhere had been violated. Maybe I am naïve because I didn’t realize what a problem this was. Well, now I’m pissed and I’m going to do something about it.

If you are having this problem on your page then you can add what is called “Word Verification”. I am not sure how well this will work but I did link back to several of the spammers home blogs only to find that they use it so it must be worth it. (Yeah, spammers who don’t want to get spammed…fuckers.) Anyway, another thing you can do is called flagging. This is where ever vigilance comes in. YOU the blog community must police yourselves. When you press the “Next” button on the blogger nav-bar and stumble across a spam blog you need to flag it so that Blogger will know to come back and look for it. They will delete spam or illegal materials. Remember this is not about censorship this is about keeping this space sacred and free. We all have to work together to keep these fuckers out. If you find a spam page make some rude or mean comments then flag the bastard, I know I will.

If any of you find a better way of knocking back spam or of fighting it then please post a comment to tell us all. I found some but they were rather tech and script heavy. Frankly I don’t have the skills required for any of that. There is no legislation against it so as to make it punishable by jail time. I guess this is just another one of those things, if you own a mailbox you’ll get junk mail, if you have a phone line you’ll get sales calls, if you have an email account you’ll get spam, and now if you have a blog you’ll get comment spam. Dirty motherfuckers.

The End is Nigh

I passed my last class for college graduation! All I have left to do is some stupid exit counseling and an exit exam. The exam is called the CLAST, it’s a basic math assessment. I am a little stressed about it but not much. See, I can take this test as many times as I need without it affecting my GPA or being on my record at all. How bad-ass is that? I mean I passed Spanish II and Primatology so a little skills evaluation is nothing; especially with no pressure for a good grade. Its pass/fail! Hahahahaha!

So, now I’m looking for jobs. LJ has been looking in the national parks system for any openings for a while but nothing has come up. Not to mention its balls hard to get a job with them. Its like “Yeah, we want to hire only people with five years of experience, medical training, a masters degree, military service, and oh yeah, we’re only going to pay them 20,000 a year. So fuck off all you young recently graduated go-getters.” You have to be the smartest idiot in the world to get a job with the national parks system. I just think they want more than they can honestly pay for. So, I am still hoping to get a job with them but I don’t see it happening. I am however seeing a lot of jobs in the archaeology field. Now those people I can relate to.

In the end LJ and I just want to get the hell out of Florida. God, this place sucks. Hurricanes, thunder storms daily, crazy over zealous Christian fanatics. This place is a zoo. I am tired of working retail and I am more tired of having to cater to redneck morons who think its ok to be dumb because its being true to their roots. Damn you Jeff Foxworthy! Am I being an elitist? Hell no! I’m sorry but if I could suffer through reading some books and self-tought computer skills then they can too. Is it too much to ask that the general public know enough to be able to talk about things other than what was on TV last night and their wacky-ass views on theology? It’s like Inherit the Wind down here. I dunno maybe I’m just being mean. On the other hand, more and more I find myself thinking of what Sartre said, “Hell is other people.”

Are You Asking for a Challenge!?

I was working the other night when the strangest thing happened. This dude walked in wearing a Street Fighter II T-shirt. Casually I told him I liked his shirt and then asked, just to confirm, “So you like Street Fighter, eh?” He and I start to talk about it and almost an hour later he leaves. In the course of our conversation he tells me that he has played in some tournaments and that he still plays with friends. Then he invites me over for a game some time. That was when the problem occurred.

To fully understand my love of this, now ancient, SNES game I have to explain high school. I did two things in my four years and studying was not one of them. I was either at the cliffs rock climbing or glued to a TV in my friend’s basement playing Street Fighter II or the turbo edition. I played it so much that I got not just good, but freakin’ amazing. I didn’t know anyone, until yesterday, which had gotten to the secret ending. I played my friend and though we started as equal I soon learned that I had untapped skills that made me almost impossible to beat on even terms. My friend Mike is much the same as it applies to Mortal Kombat. We both however are very rusty.

So now I’m asking myself, should I call this dude up? Should I step outside my comfort zone and really test my skills? Or, will this hurt my ego too much. I don’t know. I would like to think I can compete in something where I am certainly the underdog, I’ve done it before, but for some reason I am more apprehensive about this. Maybe it’s because Street Fighter is one of the only games I have always been the best at, and I just want to go on feeling like I’m the champ. The other side of me though wants the challenge no matter what. This opportunity could tell me whether I am truly a contender or just a wanna-be. I think I’m going to call this dude up and prepare for the challenge.

Sty in the Eye

Sorry for my last post. I was just lazy that night. For now, however, I want to tell you all about my horrible affliction. If the title didn’t give it away I have a sty. This is nowhere near as exciting as finding my first gray hair a few months back. This sucks!

Let me tell you that before today I had absolutely no clue what a “sty” was. I woke up with my eye in major pain and decided that I should go to the university clinic to get to the root of the problem. I go and sit for forty minutes in the waiting room. Then get a nurse who decides she needs to check my vision. Then wait for another twenty minutes before I see the doctor; who comes in takes one look at my eye and declares that I have a sty. “A stile”, I ask. “No, a STY”, she replies as though talking to a confused third grader.

That was it; I called work telling them I had an eye infection so that I could go to the clinic and when I show up my boss diagnoses me as quickly as my doctor did. I am the only person at my age, apparently, who has never had one of these little bastards. I feel like a kid who has discovered farts for the first time. Plus, Mike and LJ have had them and I guess I kinda feel like they were hidding something from me. Like I'm the only one not in the sty club.

So what can I do about it? Nothing. I have to sit back and let nature take it’s course. Damn, I hate when my body double crosses me and makes me look like an idiot. I'll have to plan a devious revenge like sitting in an uncomfortable chair or something. Back on topic, at some point I’m going to stop asking people what things are so I won’t look stupid. I can see myself going into a physical at the age of seventy and the doctor leaping away from my back because there is an arm growing out or something equally Outer Limits. “What, that’s not normal?”

More Title than Content

See?