Why Forwards Can Go Fuck Themselves: A Lament

I have lots of spam.
It has been exactly one month to the day since the last time I cleaned out my spam folder in my e-mail account. 31 days. 140 spams. That works out to 4.5 a day.
I don't enter my e-mail address on any suspicious websites. The websites that I do give my e-mail to are reputable sites that guarantee that they won't sell or share my address.
So why do I get spam? And why do I get so fucking much of it?

Because of those bleeding forwards. Forwarded mail is how spammers get e-mail addresses. You know how most of the time when you get a forward, it's usually got about a hundred e-mail addresses at the beginning of it? This tells you the history of the e-mail. It shows everyone that it's ever been sent to before it got to you.

The sons of bitches who clot your inbox (or, if you're lucky/a gmail user, your spambox) with spam harvest these e-mails like ripe fruit. Eventually, they get the forwards sent to them, and then you get 140 pieces of spam in 31 days. Arg.

Not helping things is the fact that most of the forwards, well-intentioned though they may be, are lies. Dirty, stinking, filthy lies. Bill Gates does not want to give you any money. Ashley Flores is not missing. Barack Obama is not "a radical Muslim." Nobody is trying to take the words "In God We Trust" off American coins. Illegal aliens are not stealing your social security. There is no powerpoint virus called "Life is Beautiful."

They lie to get your e-mail addresses and the e-mail addresses of all your friends and family members. Fuckers.

But all is not lost! We are smarter than them! Yes, we are! We can beat them in two ways. These are the two ways. There is a slightly more difficult way, and there is a brain-dead easy way.

1. The Slightly More Difficult Way:
The slightly more difficult way is, as soon as you get a forward, go check it out on http://www.snopes.com/. Snopes is a rumor-debunking/-confirming website that investigates the origins of many of the forwards that show up in your inbox from your well-meaning friends. Most of them are hoaxes.

2. The Brain-Dead Easy Way:
The easy way is so easy, it makes easy things look hard. You know when you get ready to forward something? Well, stop for a minute to delete all the e-mail addresses at the top of it. Boom, bad spammers foiled. Then, to protect everyone you care about, enter all their e-mail addresses in the "Bcc:" field. (It's right there, under "To:" and "Cc:") Bcc stands for Blind Carbon Copy, which means that everyone still gets your mail, they just can't see all the e-mail addresses. Boom, bad spammers foiled again.

Thus endeth the lesson.

In other news, the project I'm working on at BookLinks is nearing completion and everything is very hectic and insane. After March 21, I expect to have all kinds of free time LOLOLOLOL. Sure I will.

If I was awesome, I'd be able to do what this guy does:

Americans have Toffifee, too. They just don't know how to spell it.

There was a rat in the subway. While itself not a remarkable occurence, the fact that this rat was running around on the platform rather than the track makes it noteworthy. Still better than Taiwan.
They have pizza vending machines here. I feel like I'm living in fucking Star Trek: The Next Generation here.

And I swear, I am going to stop ranting about Super Smash Bros. Brawl. As soon as I own it. Not before.

We're expecting a new addition to our happy little house in the form of a shiny new iMac. I anticipate this will make posting interesting facts about our lives much easier. This poor groaning beast of a laptop will be honorably retired. There may be a medal for distinguished service.

And to prove that we are not liars and that we 1) have friends and 2) are willing to share our meager space with said friends, we will be entertaining guests next weekend. Katie's step-sister Abby and her lover, Matt, will be visiting from Alexandria (near Washington - astute readers will recall that we visited them before Christmas). Further, my sister and father will be coming (albeit separately) in the coming months!

I leave you with a flash game. Samurai Movers involves hurling furniture at a little old lady's house. With a catapult (which may actually be a trebuchet). Some call it a mindless diversion. I call it high art.

You may laugh, but the aforementioned laptop is literally gasping its last as I type this.

So, exit quickly.

Now fuck off.

Love, Adam

I have nothing else to say right now.