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"Taking the Piss: Spam mail"

I have a Hotmail account. Yes, startling revelation I know. The thing is though, I only got it so I can use MSN, so I never check the mail I get from it. This also means that no-one in the whole world knows my hotmail address.

Except, it would seem, the spam merchants.

I should never have to check my Hotmail inbox, I know I'm not going to get anything worthwhile, but the constant reminders whenever I get onto MSN that my inbox contains 153 billion unread messages kind of irks my tidy mind, so I have to go in and delete the whole bally lot of them. This does so piss me off. I'm so pissed off with the whole thing I think I'll take a few examples and take the piss out of them. Enjoy.

>From : mike_sullivan@northumbria.ac.uk
>Subject : CONGRATULATIONS! YOU WON!!!

This, I think, is the most recent mail I got, utilising, as you can clearly see, devious tactics to grab my attention. The 'mike_sullivan' address makes me think this came from a genuine person as opposed to a steam-powered spam-distributing machine, and the 'CONGRATULATIONS! YOU WON!!!' part would surely catch my eye if I had entered any competitions in the recent past. However, since I haven't entered any competitions in the recent past, and since I don't know anyone who uses three exclamation marks in a row, I was not fooled.

>"CONGRATULATIONS! YOU WON!!!

>----------------------------------------------------------------

>YOUR FREE MEMBERSHIP, FREE VACATION, AND FREE CELL PHONE !!!

>Looking for a secure and legitimate online home business?
>One that WILL bring steady, dependable monthly checks
>EVERY month and in the shortest amount of time??"

So how does the free vacation and cell phone come into this again?

>"How about if we gave you info on a FREE VACATION and a
>FREE CELL PHONE just for looking over our FREE info
>about this terrific opportunity to work from home as
>your own boss?"

Oh, I see.

>"What a GREAT OFFER!"

It kinds of undermines the statement that they had to say this themselves. Put these in the words of some other bloke and you've got your very own infomercial, but say it yourself and it just seems ridiculous. This is like Paul McCartney saying "Yes, I believe Paul McCartney's latest album is quite brilliant."

>From : Easily_Attract_Women
>Subject : Get all the women you want easily

It's that kind of impersonal e-mail address that just stops me from adhering to these people. They should take some lessons from Mr. mike_sullivan, above.

>"Limited Supply And Selling Out Fast

>Try This POTENT Pheromone Formula That Helps Attract Women"

I Already Figured It Attracts Women, MATEY, You Told Me Twice In Your Return Address And Subject LINE. And Ease Off The Capital LETTERS. It should be noted that I have turned on the Spam filters on my MSN inbox and this lot still made it through, so either the filters don't work or they're very easily fooled.

>"Because of all its exacting and expensive ingredients,
>Pheromone Concentrate cannot be mass-produced.
>Only a limited supply is left and it may not be available weeks from now.
>It's selling out at a record pace, re-orders are flooding in."

Oh well, suppose I'd better place an immediate order for your particular brand of funny-smelling deodorant if they're flying off the shelves this fast. Something tells me that either this company's CEO and all his mates have boxes full of the stuff in their garages, or they're lying through their extremely attractive teeth.

>"Don't lose out. Get all the women you want easily,
>excite your mate like never before...GUARANTEED!"

Excite my mate? What am I now, a panda? I don't know, something tells me that if you really had discovered the secret of making women fall at your feet then you wouldn't want to share it. I certainly wouldn't, but then I've obviously got a worse code of ethics than the spam people. Damn, that depresses me.

>From : yourresponse@163.net
>Subject : RE: your inquiry

Funny, I'm sure I would've remembered inquiring about something to someone called Yourresponse. Is that an eastern european name?

>"You were referred to me today as someone who is seeking
>a financial miracle. If this is true please continue - I promise
>this will be worth your time!"

Actually I'm not so much seeking a financial miracle as I am seeking money. I suppose I'd quite like it if a huge bag of money materialised in front of me, and that sort of counts as a financial miracle, so yes, I'm seeking a financial miracle. This means I can now read on. I feel so priveleged. Also, please tell me who referred me to you so I can strike him or her off my Christmas card list.

>"I can help you make $2,000. per week from your HOME with
>your computer and phone. This is not some scam or mlm opportunity.

>Are you Serious about earning an excellant income at home
>starting Right Away with a simple system where people contact you?"

And there was me thinking this was a scam. It clearly isn't, look! He says it isn't! I wasn't actually thinking this was an mlm opportunity, mainly because I don't know what an mlm opportunity is. Maximum Lasagna Man? Sounds like a superhero! Maximum Lasagna Man! Scourge of wrongdoers! The mightiest pasta-based dish in all Italy!

But yes, I am Serious about earning an 'excellant' income, starting Right Away. Does this require any selling?

>"No, this does not require any selling."

Jolly good.

>"Currently we are accepting new team members at this time. We will
>train you thoroughly. In addition, we are willing to provide you with
>Advertising Assistance to virtually insure your success!"

What the hell is Advertising Assistance? Is that where you get someone to walk around with you and point out all the advertising posters? Or is this assisting me advertise something? Well, I don't know, I suppose I could erect a big sign to hold up saying "I am Yahtzee, and I'm brilliant". I suppose I could do with someone to help me paint it.

>"Experience is not required. However, you must have a serious Desire
>for personal success."

I have a feeling they meant to capitalise the word 'serious' in this sentence but the retarded man they have to type this stuff up missed. Or maybe they have some computer program to randomly pick words to jam capital letters on. Either way, there's really no excuse for adding the capital to the word 'Desire' in this case, unless they were talking about the character from Neil Gaiman's Sandman books. Somehow I doubt that.

>"Call Mr Poopoohead at 1-800-CON-RTST Anytime" [phone number and contact name censored by management]

I like that 'Anytime' thing. Makes me want to stay up 'til three in the morning and ring them just to see if they're as desperate as I think they are. Well, it all sounds very tempting so I think I might - hey - wait a minute! That looks like an American phone number! Gah. That's my chances of making 2000 smackers a week blown out of the water. Aren't they supposed to check these things?

>From : ********@msn.com
>Subject : hi there

Jesus Christ, do my eyes deceive me? Is this really a mail from ... MYSELF? Good lord! Perhaps it's a version of me sending a message from the future trying to warn me! Wait a sec ... I always use capital letters and punctuation even in my subject lines! My future self must have had an accident that damaged his brain!

Looking at the mail, it would seem my future self wants me to go on holiday somewhere. Perhaps my house is going to explode. I dunno about you but this is the first piece of spam mail that I've ever paid much attention to! Man this has freaked me out. I'd better go and pack my bags.

[ADDENDUM - ONE DAY LATER - House still hasn't exploded. Good sign. Going to the Cayman Islands next week. Received another mail from my future self telling me to go see him and all his girlfriends play around in the shower at www.hotsexyschoolgirlslutwhores.com. It would appear in the future that I turn into a woman. Sounds like fun. I'll keep you posted.]

Spam-mail sucks!!!

Taking the piss 2: where god went wrong

Let's not beat around the bush here. The world is a load of shite. In this day and age, the only thing that encompasses the whole level of shiteness in the world is the world itself. And possibly Microsoft. Satire.

Now would probably be an appropriate time to ask God what the hell he thinks he's playing at. Now, some rather nasty, spiteful people might indicate that this might be on the same level as asking a glass of water for a complete listing of the Central Timbuctoo bus timetables from 1979 to 1981, but that's only because these nasty, spiteful people have realised how shite this world is and have decided that no-one could have consciously created it.

But I say, keep an open mind. Just because your local McDonald's Quarter Pounder with Cheese looks like it was put together by a brain-dead chipmunk doesn't mean that McDonalds relies on the completely random collision of atomic particles to make their products. Obviously God had good intentions when he threw our li'l interstellar home together. He might have spent quite some time over it, just as I spent a lot of time slaving over seven households on The Sims which all eventually fell apart.

So I'd just like to say to God if he's reading this, which he is because God is in all things, that perhaps you should take a look at the following references, for the next time you decide to make a world.

1. Bollocks on the outside

Most sensitive part of the male human physique, and he places it in almost the exact geological centre of the body, right between the legs, dangling down in it's own special bag. He might as well have painted them fluorescent orange and made the hair above it grow into the words 'your foot goes here'. Some might say that He in his magnificence deliberately made things this way to test his creations. They may be right. Some might say I nicked this joke from a Robert Rankin book. They would certainly be right. Who gives a s**t?

2. Inconsistent orgasms

A woman's orgasm can take place over fifteen minutes, and she's ready for another five minutes later (I think - I'm not a woman). A man's orgasm, however, lasts about fifteen seconds (if you're lucky) and it takes up to half an hour to psyche yourself up for another one. What was the logic behind that? What was the logic behind women being capable of shagging, shagging, shagging, all the long day, and not actually be interested in doing so, and then making shagging, shagging, shagging all the long day every male's ultimate shag fantasy, but leaving them shagged out after barely fifteen minute's shag? This may also be a case of testing us, but if it is I wouldn't want God at my school teaching Biology. This may also be an attempt at the world 'most uses of the word 'shag' in a single paragraph without making any reference to carpets or tobacco' record. Who can say?

3. Unclear Text

No book critic has ever tried to assess the Old Testament. Maybe they should. I did once. It's a crap story and it's very badly written. The use of grammar and diction is precarious to say the least, quite a few verses are repeated needlessly, often over and over, and it can't stop giving out completely miscellaneous details which aren't relevant at all to the story. This all makes for a very tedious read and a very thick book. If God had thought to make the whole text a bit easier to read and a bit less impossible to understand then maybe we'd be spared all the murder, torture, slavery, genocide and televangelists little bits of religious mistranslation can cause. And if rewriting the whole thing's too much of a hassle, how long would it have taken to put an address and daytime telephone number in there?

4. The whole Garden of Eden thing

OK, so God makes the first two people, having spent an enjoyable week putting together their play centre. He then sets them to work coming up with nice names for all their furry friends. He also puts an incredibly dangerous piece of tasty fruit in full public view on a tree in the very centre of this brave new world, and tells his creations to leave it alone. Now, if I had been God, I'd have put this incredibly dangerous sweet treat in a safety deposit box, then buried it in some rarely-visited area of the garden. Thirty feet under. Then concreted it over and built a Laser Quest there or something. But then, if I had been God, Adam would have been called Rufus and the forbidden fruit would have been a forbidden bag of Liquorice Allsorts. Maybe some people just aren't born to the task. I'm not, but then God probably isn't either.

5. The whole flood thing

Look, if you want to be a serious architect, you can't just flood the problem and expect it to go away. Sure, this might work with ant colonies and nymphomaniacs (innuendo), but not with worlds. No-sirree by golly. If everyone was really as sinful as you make out maybe that would have been a good time to parachute in that layabout son of yours and get him to do some work for once. For one thing, the sheer impossibility of flooding the entire world is going to be the meat of quite a few atheist's arguments when the Internet is invented. I can just imagine that fateful night when Noah was given his great task.

GOD: Aloha, Noah! How'd you like to go on a little holiday?

NOAH: Don't tell me - Bognor Regis for the weekend. Again.

GOD: I was thinking more along the lines of a cruise for forty days and forty nights.

NOAH: Kick a**! How much?

GOD: Absolutely nothing at all!

NOAH: Well, let no-one say you don't reward your students.

GOD: There's just a couple of little sub-clauses in the contract.

NOAH: Small print, eh?

GOD: For starters, I'm sort of doing a favour for this animal lover friend of mine. You'll sort of be sharing the boat with two of every single animal in the whole wide world.

NOAH: I see.

GOD: And you'll have to allow for all the poo as well.

NOAH: Surely that's up to the ship's owner?

GOD: There you've hit upon the other sub-clause.

One lengthy discussion later ...

NOAH: I'm quite happy with Bognor Regis, you know.

GOD: No! You shall build an ark. An ark with space for more poo than is probably healthy to have in an enclosed space.

NOAH: I wonder if it's too late to take up Buddhism.

Take a lesson from me, God mate - if you want to be seen as a kindly patriarch to mankind and thus obliterate use of the phrase 'god-fearing', try bribery next time. Give everyone sweeties if they promise not to be naughty. It works.

6. Meatballs 3: Summer Job

Every time I say a little prayer I always finish it off with this: "Oh, and by the way, please turn up the gas in the special Hell you have created for everyone even remotely associated with the film 'Meatballs 3: Summer Job'. Also, when I die, please take my soul and plonk it in a ring-side seat, near the exit and never more than ten paces away from a snack peddler. Oh, and try not to make anything so shite ever again, even if you were only indirectly responsible for this one." I really hate that film.