Since I began RtB, I’ve received 1,139 spam comments. Cool thing is, you will never see them. A dandy little piece of software called Akismettakes care of all of them for me. It’s the flippin Holy Grail of blog comment protection.
If you’ve ever seen comment spam, you know it’s vile. And stupid and dumb and full of poop. Here’s a sample of what Akismet caught yesterday. Click on the picture for a closer look:
All those URLs lead to nowhere. Email addresses, too. So….WHY post garbage like this? Needless to say, this bozo’s IP is blocked, and he/she gets a big ol’ boot to the head. Or should I say, bota a la cabeza, since the IP traces to Panama?
I’ll still fight the battle, though. They’re like cockroaches. They can survive anything, including IP blocking, because they’ll just go get another IP.
==== Mad Men – Emmy Winner, Outstanding Drama Series. Nice. ====
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I need to design an award for this. I call it Boot to the Head. It refers to things that are so cosmically dumb, I can’t think of any other response than to kick the people responsible for them.
Boot To The Head: Ghost “Reality” Shows
Uh-oh. Somebody got a chill in the basement. Call in the Sci-Fi Channel Ghost Hunters or the frightful folks of the Travel Channel’s Most Haunted. The night vision cameras make things look spooky, with people’s eyes all glowing & stuff. And the script is riveting: “Oh, my God!” and “%$(&^%!!” and “the energy in this room is very angry…”
Sheesh.
My personal fave is when they record things. They gather around the laptop and exclaim, “It sounds like he’s saying ‘yes!‘” *GASP *
You know…if you’re going to have a ghostie show, then show some friggin’ ghosties. Each episode ends like it begins: the mystery continues.
The Thriller defends the programs (which he watches regularly) by saying, “These people often come in to disprove claims.” Well, boys & girls, you are batting 1.000 so far.
To me, all these “horreality” shows point to a singular inspiration: The Blair Witch Project. Has that cow been milked dry or what? But the little home-movie-turned-blockbuster did bear out what old-timers in filmmaking (and people like M. Night Shyamalan) have always known: The power of suggestion can be frightening.
Blair Witch used no CG, no whirlygig special effects. So what did the deed? What scared folks to death in an age when 10-year-olds watch movies that realistically depict limbs being sawed off? It was the unknown; the monster in the closet that you know is there, but what never shows its face. The pure terror of a group of kids supposedly “ghost hunting” brought everyone’s closet monsters to life. “A-haaaa,” said the movie and TV producers. Scary reality programming = truckloads of cash. And the copycats began, eventually resulting in gems like Most Haunted.
The point is, this stuff is treated with almost a religious reverence; a macabre sense of wonderment. Like it’s all real, and we’re just along for the ride, when in fact, none of it has *ever* been caught on film to the exclusion of all doubt by researchers, or in any way scientifically proven. If you watch these ghostie shows for their entertainment value, then cool. If you watch because you expect something to be “revealed,” then you gots a long, long wait.
James Randi, a magician and paranormal skeptic of considerable renown, has offered a cash reward every single day since 1964 to anyone who could prove the existence of paranormal activity or gifts. This amount has grown from $1,000 in 1964 to one million dollars today. No one has ever done it, even though over a thousand people have applied (and are still applying) to win it.
I know, I know…the same could be said about the existence of God. But the God folks don’t claim to be “scientists,” using all manner of infrared meters and temperature sensors to monitor what may not even respond in the least to those instruments. If you want to say it exists for scientific purposes, then put up or shut up.
I personally wish they’d all select B.
BTTH!
PS – Here’s a clip of a docu about the time when James Randi outed Uri Geller back in the 70s. This is footage of his appearance on The Tonight Show when Geller meets his match. Uncomfortable, to say the least…
Boot To The Head. Not you, Gracious Visitor/Patient Reader. I’m talking about the goofballs (mostly spammers and strikingly unaware journalists) who continue to hang onto the annoying, outdated web-speak that clearly died a calm and quiet death in 1997. Think Ron Burgundy of the Internet.
Pretty much, nobody looks at something amazing and says, “Aw, radical!” anymore. Just sounds kind of silly, right? Well, so does the following. Please don’t say these words, or even think them.
Phrases That Belong in the Boneyard, or
If I Hear You Say These, You Get a Boot to the Head
Prosumers – combination of “professional” and “consumers.” Bad, bad word. Because it’s dumb and lazy. And dumb.
Webinar – this is the last time I will ever type that idiotic word.
The ‘Net – if you say this, I will hit you.
Surfin’ the ‘Net – see #3, except substitute “strangle” for “hit.”
E-commerce – Actually, “E” anything should be outlawed. Bring back public floggings – that’s what I say.
Information Superhighway – Ooo, yeah. Let’s think up something really 21st century. Meet George Jetson.
“Cyber” anything – I mean it. I’ll pound ya.
Blogosphere – BTTH.
Podcast – yeah, even that one’s getting tiring. Can we just say you uploaded a sound file?
Killer app – I say we find the woman who invented this phrase, and killer.
It’s amazing how many modern journalists still use this tripe to describe activities on the web. It makes me wish they’d spill their nonfat sugar-free double marble mocha iced macchiato all over their Blackberry earpieces (and I hate those, too – can you say “unbearably pretentious and ugly?”). Ugh.
And that’s today’s rant. I hate those ridiculous words. They’re almost as annoying as saying, “Boot to the Head” over and over.
Uh-oh. Somebody got a chill in the basement. Call in the Sci-Fi Channel Ghost Hunters or the frightful folks of the Travel Channel’s Most Haunted. The night vision cameras make things look spooky, with people’s eyes all glowing & stuff. And the script is riveting: “Oh, my God!” and “%$(&^%!!” and “the energy in this room is very angry…”
To me, all these “horreality” shows point to a singular inspiration: The Blair Witch Project. Has that cow been milked dry or what? But the little home-movie-turned-blockbuster did bear out what old-timers in filmmaking (and people like M. Night Shyamalan) have always known: The power of suggestion can be frightening.