1) The spam comment wars on old entries of my blog are getting heated. In response to a particularly damning attack by the Cialis faction, Viagra responded with a world-weary "Look, medical science has shown that, when used correctly, Viagra is very effective." Propecia felt moved to jump in with the out-of-context but inspiring, "Get your hair back and get laid." Soma just wants to thoroughly relax tired, stressed muscles. The real question is, what is the appeal of a brief entry from Thanksgiving 2002 on a not-that-widely-read blog? I do not know.
2) Someone called work this morning, apparently with the sole goal of playing Bang a Gong (Get it On) over the phone to us. Thanks man! (And here's a bonus link about Marc Bolan's tragic life.)
3) The stupid new checks that were supposed to arrive from the stupid bank so that I can start paying off some of my dad's stupid bills (and really, you just have no idea how stupid some of them are) failed to be in the mail again today. Commence to seethe!
4) Dad (finally, after two freaking months) got his eyes checked this afternoon, after much comic relief provided by a van driver who is going to get a complaint filed about his ass first thing tomorrow. Everything seems to be working, so that's good, although I sincerely hope that needing newer, better-fitting glasses proves to be the explanation for reading problems he's been having, and not something more ominous.
5) I began to consider whether I might want to get a new haircut, possibly with a "style," and maybe even "layers." That thudding sound you hear is every hairdresser in a twenty-mile radius fleeing for his or her sanity.
Posted by hilatron at March 30, 2004 07:02 PM | TrackBackDoombot is sorely confused by item number 1. Doombot went so far as to check Thanksgiving 2002 in the Blogatron archives, without finding anything remotely resembling item # 1. What is Doombot missing? It is not April Foolish Day until the day after tomorrow.
Also Doombot is unimaginably pleased to find itself first in line, for a change, in comments. Admittedly, things have been a bit slow for Doombot of late.
Posted by: Doombot at March 30, 2004 08:28 PMDoombot, spammers have seen the rise of the blog as a window of opportunity. Through technology murky even to me, they scatter throughout the web, seeking out comments forms where they can leave a generic message. Sometimes it's a straight-up sales pitch for the drug or service being offered. Sometimes it's an enticement like "nice blog," or an intriguingly inappropriate quote. Their goal is to get unsuspecting, if self-absorbed, bloggers, or innocent readers, drawn into their diabolical commercial webs.
However, nimble-fingered robots can delete the offending comments and ban the IP addresses of the evil spammers faster than you can say "To Google for an archive search!"
Posted by: Hilatron at March 30, 2004 11:35 PMMaybe the spammer has a monthly quota and was just getting desperate?
Posted by: She-Dork at March 31, 2004 08:46 AMIf only that were all. The idea is that through putting links out there on the web to their service, in old posts that are less likely to be seen, they are effectively googlebombing.
Sites that link to other sites effectively raise their rating on google.
Now Movable Type versions 2.somethingI can't remeber exactly, started making it a redirect link, in a way that it doesn't affect the google rank.
But I guess the comment bots don't distinguish or check if it's a modern MT blog or not. They just find sites that have some level of google ranking themselves, and hit them with comments. And I'm sure it works. Comment spam is really a growing problem and no one has a fantastic solution yet.
Some sites that are very popular make you log in before you can comment, but it's really a shame that it's getting to the point where people can't just have a simple unmoderated comment interface on their site for fear of comment spam.
I know this is way too serious for your blog, but just...fyi.
Just started reading a week or two ago...very nice. You are a sweetie...why no about page?
Posted by: Daniel Talsky at March 31, 2004 09:46 PMMs. Hilatron, I just yesterday wrote about my experience this week with my hairdresser; if he sounds like your kind of guy, drop me a line and I'll hook you up.
Also, if Bang a Gong Guy calls back, can you have him call my work?
Posted by: nikita at April 1, 2004 09:43 AMyou can put anti-google scripts in your html or whatever, and i think that might help the comment spam, but then you won't get random hits. i used to get some really weird and pedophilliac ones at my old blog. also "ally mcbeal" and "spanking" was popular. ick.
Posted by: j at April 2, 2004 10:09 AM