Cold, Harsh Reality and Spam, Spam, Spam

Back in the land of 10,000 lakes… all of which are currently frozen solid. We were greeted by a balmy -4 degrees Fahrenheit on our return to Minnesota. That was the high temperature for the day…. the low is supposed to be -16. It’s hard to believe The Lovely Anna needed to get a sweatshirt when we were in Maui as it was ‘a little chilly’ with the strong breeze when not in the sun. That might have been all of 70 degrees.

While on the trip I kept up (more or less) with my e-mail. However I have my Macbook Pro set to not delete messages from the server, as I want them on my main computer when I get back home. The results of that is, while I am getting mail in chunks several times a day all week while away, they are all building up on the server. When I get home they are all downloaded and deleted from the server. The numbers that rolled up on my mail program were staggering.

After not having downloaded/deleted server mail since last week Saturday the 27th, it took some time to download it all. This number stood out in bold relief in my “Junk” filter mailbox, indicating the amount of spam I had recieved in that 8 day period:

3,149

That’s right. I got over three thousand spams in eight days. That is nearly 400 per day. I actually had a bit more as the spam filter doesn’t get them all, and I had a few dozen in my inbox. Thank the cyber-gods I had scanned and trashed that spam each time I downloaded on the trip, so I did not need to again here. That’s the worst part about this garbage… even the best spam filter doesn’t work perfectly, necessitating you taking the time to check no legitimate e-mails got zapped.

Pathetic. Are there really people out there in the world stupid enough to buy into these scams? Most of them are horribly cryptic in an effort to fool spam filters anyway, but even the ones that are coherent are obviously cons. I think the only way this spam blitzkrieg will ever end is when consumers completely stop responding to them, even the tiny % that do now, so no company will buy spam address lists and try to market their junk that way… as it has become ineffective. That will probably never happen. P.T. Barnum would have loved the internet.

Oops, I have to run. The lawyer of a deceased general from South Africa has chosen ME to assist him in transferring twenty five million dollars into the US, and I get a 10% commission! All he needs is my bank account number, routing number and password! I’m in the money! I’m in the money!