Spam

Pushing The Cart; Thank You For Your Kind Comment

First of all, I’d like to take a moment to thank my wonderful publisher Jane Cornwell of Jane’s Studio Press for nominating me for a Pushcart Prize for my short story “Mr. Death Comes To Town.” It’s a real honour to be nominated, especially for a story about a character that is near and dear to my heart and has appeared not only in both my short story collections, Feasting Upon The Bones and Dark Nocturnes, but is also featured in my novel The Devil You Know. If you’d like to know more about Mr. Death, aka Mort Sterven, you can get either of my short story collections here:

Feasting Upon The Bones

Dark Nocturnes

And now, on with the show…in which I respond to spam comments on my website:

1) Buy Adderall online

I don’t need to. I am my own speed. Have you not met me?

2) Buy weed online

I don’t need to. I live in Canada, dumbass. I can go to the strip mall and get all the weed I want. Also, my neighbour has two weed plants that rival my quince bush in size, which explains why I keep thinking I smell skunk in the backyard.

3) Buy African grey parrots for adoption

Why am I paying to adopt a parrot? Also, does it swear? If not, I have no interest…unless I can teach it to swear.

4) Great article

Thank you, ‘Benefits of CBD’. I didn’t reference CBD in my last post, but it’s nice to know that you’re following along.

5) i am a child who lacks knowledge but i always read your website. This website is very helpful in doing various homework that i do. i like your website.

Apparently your lack of knowledge resides in the realm of capitalization. Silly child.

6) Wonderful

Thank you, ‘RVs For Sale In Your Area’. I am.

7) On Monday, my sister and I went to the market to buy cakes and it would take 1 hour to travel from home to the market. During the trip, I watched content on this site which was very useful and entertaining.

You drove an hour to buy cake?! Is this some kind of weird math problem, like if my sister drove one hour to buy cake and I spent an hour watching a blog post, who wasted the most time? Also, how did you ‘watch’ my content? I literally just write what comes into my head. Wait…are you in my head? Do you have cake?

8) when I came home from school my uncle and I went to the city and would buy clothes at the biggest clothes shop in my city, from school to the mall selling clothes it would take 3 hours, while waiting for the trip I felt bored and finally I remembered this blog which can entertain me while traveling

Dude, you put the cake girl to shame. 3 hours?! No wonder you were bored. Tell your uncle to get a dvd player for his van or whatnot. Then you can watch my favourite movie Alien Vs. Predator. That one’s a banger.

9) 1 week ago I tried to go to a lake to clean it and let the fish live in peace and comfort, and that’s when I found this blog which helped me refresh my life.

That’s me—doing my best for the environment and refreshing all the fish.

10) 3 days ago I tried to find pleasure by going to the beach and feeling the sea breeze, but then I felt very comfortable because there are several things that make life more enjoyable, namely this blog to read.

Based on the number of you who are going to the beach to feel the sea breeze and then making your life more enjoyable by reading this blog (27 of you to be exact), I really think you should start a beach volleyball club and stop bothering me.

11) I went to a city 3 days ago with my partner and there I saw an inn that was exactly the same as the blog I read, and I finally read this blog again to make sure and it turned out to be true I was very happy.

My blog is an INN?! You need to hook up with that ‘Buy weed online’ dude—you’re smoking the wrong stuff.

12) Wow, it’s really amazing, finally I found information that presents unique news and is very interesting for me to read while drinking coffee.

How dare you?! If you know anything about me at all, you know I hate coffee. Blocked!

13) 7 days ago I went to a place to get various kinds of pleasure which started from seeing this special blog

I am NOT a porn site. Get your pleasure somewhere else, you pervert.

14) 1 week ago I tried to get some inspiration by fishing in the middle of the deep and wide ocean to get lots of valuable experience, and in the end I saw this blog which is very special for my entertainment.

So you were fishing in the middle of the ocean, and then you saw my blog? Dude, who’s your cellphone provider?! I need to get in on this—I can’t even get a signal on Township Road 2.

15) In the evening my friend and I decided to go hang out with my friends at a cafe and in the middle of that I opened my cellphone and started reading this very constructive blog.

Seriously? And when you looked up, had all of your friends left for a party because they knew you were more interested in your phone than hanging out with them? JFC, get a life.

There are literally THOUSANDS of comments like these that automatically get routed to my Trash folder on a daily basis. Most of them are from someone, or many someones, named ‘bokep’ and when I looked up what that meant, it’s Indonesian for PORN. So thank you, PORNBOTS for clogging up my comments with your weird families, friends, and outings to the beach, the mall, the village, the coffeshop, the lake, and all the other places you go to read my blog. What an incredible fanbase.

It Takes A Village

One thing about sites like WordPress is the sheer amount of spam comments that never seem to end. My spam folder used to be full of bizarre folks telling me how intriguing my site was, offering to detail my RV, and providing unsolicited medical information that looked like it was lifted out of textbooks. I finally managed to come up with the right keywords (or WordPress tightened their security), because I rarely get more than 3 spam comments a week now—the rest just go straight into the trash. But the other day, I was worried that I’d inadvertently deleted a follower’s comment and went to the trash to find it. I didn’t find my follower’s comment but what I discovered there was incredible. Apparently there is a village that people travel to every day, and MY BLOG is on the recommended reading list! People go to this village to visit their sisters, brothers, grandparents, and friends, and on the way there, which is a 1 to 2 hour trip apparently, all they want to do is laugh at the madcap antics of mydangblog. I have to say, it’s a true honour—like doing a reading event WITHOUT the crippling anxiety.

But it’s not even on the WAY to the village—once there, people are enjoying my content while they watch the beautiful evening sunset with their sisters, cousins, and grandfathers, increase their knowledge with my ‘solid content that is also solid’, go into the city to shop for clothes with their uncles and although that is extremely boring, amuse themselves with my outstanding content. I wish I knew how to locate this village where I am apparently a literary goddess because I have so much to tell them. For example, I’m sure they will be fascinated by the fact that my car just hit 150 000 km. and that I pulled off the road to take a photo of the odometer.

Also, I could enthral them with tales of my latest miniature, a glassed-in conservatory.

And I’m certain that there will be an incredible outpouring of emotion when I show them the stopwatch on my phone, which I started when I was doing a live reading last month (because each reader was only allowed 5 minutes and I was terrified of going over and being subtly admonished) and then completely forgot about—it chronicled the seconds of my life for over 23 days before I realized that it was still running. Oh, the tears we in the village would shed as we lamented the passage of time.

So do not despair, my village people—there’s no need to feel down. Pick yourself off the ground. There’s no need to be unhappy. You can make your dreams of going to a beautiful country in the centre of which is my beautiful blog come true.