This was supposed to be mainly news about our novelty/oddity websites, and the novelty industry in general,
but then I got way into novelty music and set up Restless Mouse Radio, so now there's links for that, plus I post the ocassional joke, and, well,
it winds up like most blogs... a hodgepodge of nonsense.
Fortunately there are topic tags so you can find relevant posts easily.
He's stuck in 2003 and I can't help...
I got this email five years ago. It still haunts me. I feel bad because I did have a wrist-mounted dimensional warp generator, but it got mixed up with some stuff that Teresa was setting out for a garage sale, and you know how that goes...
Hello,
I'm a time traveler stuck here in 2003. Since nobody here seems to be able to get me what I need (safely here to me), I will have to build a simple time travel circuit to get where I need myself. I am going to need an easy to follow picture diagram for a simple time travel circut, which can be built out of (readily available) parts here in 2003. Please email me any schematics you have. I will pay good money for anything you send me I can use. Or if you have the rechargeable AMD dimensional warp generator wrist watch unit available, and are 100% certain you have a (secure) means of delivering it to me please also reply. Send a separate email to me at: (the guy's email)
Found this at the bottom of a "spam" message. Can I go too?
Be also notified that I will no longer be reading my emails or surfing the internet as I have retired completely from the outside world to my ranch, at this moment I have nothing to do with cars, emails and other luxuries
I have always had an aversion to publishing an email list, people are so, so very busy, and I don't want to irk anyone. "Smirk not irk" is my motto. Anyway, over the years we have accumulated almost 5000 customer emails, who have checked the box or filled out the form, to get emails from us. What have I done with them? Nada. Zilch. Zip.
Now I finally have a plan for specials to our loyal customers, a regular, useful, and hopefully entertaining bit of the restless mouse in your mailbox.
Unfortunately, as I did a little research, I discovered that every one of those email addresses is tainted with the stink of not being "double opt-in"; the system we were using did not email them to confirm the subscription. So, out the window they go. We are starting from scratch. If you would like to be a test pilot on this thing, I got special deals lined up from here to Scranton. Please use the green box, and then PLEASE reply to the confirmation email. If you don't get it right away, check your "junk mail" or "spam" folder, it might be in there. We'll, umm, leave the light on for ya. -John
One of my service providers has a "newsletter" feature, they sent me these interesting statistics. I blanked their names out because I like their other services and the people that run it.
* Since inception ***** has processed more than $500,000 of sales through the newsletter tool.
* Since inception the ***** newsletter tool has launched over 2,600 campaigns and send more than 100,000,000 pieces of email.
...According to my pre-coffee morning calculation, that works out to 1/2 of one cent in sales (much less in profit) per newsletter.
Personally, I think even a tiny sliver of my customer's time is worth more that a half a cent. A penny for your thoughts? That's always a good deal, I say that and people give me their two cents worth. Unfortunately what they say sometimes makes no sense at all!
I just got an email from a "Paul Smith" regarding "The Late Dr. Everett's estate" - It instructs to open a PDF attachment.
I'm sure everyone here knows not to open an email attachment even from someone they know, unless they had previously arranged and know for sure what's inside. Virus spreaders are always coming up with new technological and psychological tricks. I am ashamed to admit that I almost opened that one, but if I inherited something I'm sure that I would be notified by US certified mail as is the accepted procedure. Besides, with my luck I would have to spent the night in a decrepit haunted mansion as a precondition.
This somehow got through our "spam" filters. I read it three times, my conclusion is that Ed McMahon went to law school at some point.
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am conducting a standard process Investigation on behalf of our Bank an international banking Conglomerate. This investigation involves a client and also the circumstances surrounding investments made by this client with our Bank.
Our client died intestate and nominated no successor in title over the investments made with our bank. The essence of this communication with you is to request you provide us information/comment on this issue so that I can use my position in the bank to establish your eligibility to assume status of successor in title to the deceased.You must appreciate that we are constrained from providing you with more detailed information at this point.
Please respond to this mail as soon as possible to afford us the opportunity to explain further details to you.
Hardly an hour goes by I don't get some kind of forwarded junk in my email box, a guy I know is notorious about this. A few days ago he sent me something that claimed that if you were being forced at gunpoint to withdraw money from an ATM, punching your PIN with the numbers in reverse order would still dispense the cash and would also summon the police!
This had all the earmarks of an urban legend, which I quickly confirmed it was and notified him, against my better judgment (People hate to be called on their BS). Of course now he's irked at me for that. He called me a "wet blanket" to which *I wish* I had replied, "Sometimes it takes a wet blanket to smother the fires of stupidity".
He still insists that this reverse pin thing is in effect at some ATM's somewhere. I offered to go to a local ATM and give him 5 to 1 odds on a bet that it would simply say something like "invalid PIN". My plan was to actually punch in my PIN number as usual, very slowly as if I am not used to doing it "backwards". Then I was going to yell "you win the bet but I'm out of here!!!" over my shoulder and speed off, leaving him standing there waiting for the police. Oh well, those things never go as planned.
I get soooo tired of spam. Offers to make various body parts larger or smaller. "Make a fortune on ebay" (HA) - Nigerian royalty needing financial partners. poker, porn, (I will forego the obvious pun)
Recent spam to our site feedback address starts out "Hello! Thank you for your site. I have found here much useful information." - Now I know that's a lie! There's not a whit of useful information on our site.
I guess it's a small inconvenience, and at least it doesn't actually interrupt my day like telemarking, or waste paper the way junk mail does. Maybe if everyone forwarded all of it to their elected representatives...
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