Oh, you spambots.  You get more creative every day.  Spam is one of the scourges of our technological age, but sometimes I almost have to admire the lengths you’ll go to in order to sell dating services in Poland or illegal prescription drugs.

Now, I’m not talking about all spam.  The ones that are straightforward ads — links to search engine optimization plugins and programs that Norton 360 tells me in the gravest of terms not to click on — there’s no artistry there.  Anyone can post a link saying “Cheap Prozac!!”  It’s the creative ones that I kind of enjoy.  I don’t mean, for instance, the comment in response to my recent post about publishing that suggested “jaw loosening” exercises in preparation for activities whose nature I’m sure you can guess.  Again, no subtlety.  I’m talking about the ones that thank me gravely for the important and useful information that I have conveyed to them in a post talking about how someone should invite Bruce Campbell to the Marine Corps Ball.  That, at least, is a nice try, if not actually convincing.  (I’d love to pretend that someone really finds that “information” invaluable, but, well, even I am not quite that deluded.)

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