I decided to revisit this post since I have been getting aa lot of comment spam on one of my other sites. Seems you write one little post about Cialis and you’re doomed to a lifetime of deleting comment spam. I finally gave up and closed the post to commenting.

Anyway, over 4 years ago I wrote a little essay about spam. Seems it still applies:

Sociologists or future Anthropologists are going to think we are a bunch of depressed people obsessed with penis enlargement, home mortgage rates, and gambling.

Spam. Hate it. First time I hear about a guy who goes off the deep end and hunts down and kills a spammer, I am going to hope I land on that jury. Or, perhaps I will hope my jury is indeed made up of my peers.

The only solution to Penis Enlargement LIMITED OFFER: Add at least 3 INCHES or get your money back!

I lived with a bi-sexual roommate (was going to write I had a bi-sexual roommate, but didn’t want the relationship misconstrued), he used to say all things being equal he preferred a big penis. So why stop at 3 inches? Why not charge by the inch? Why make it a limited offer? A foot? 18 inches? Where does it stop? Dirk Digler ain’t got nothing on me.

From a logistics standpoint, I don’t know why men would want to have something huge down there. I have enough trouble with mine getting into places it doesn’t belong. I have enough trouble getting comfortable, often requiring me to unobtrusively shift around just to get it to dress right (a tailor term).

Well, I’m still getting these emails (and more). On the day I was originally going to repost this, Eddie Davidson, convicted spammer, decided to escape and kill his wife and daughter, proving what I’ve suspected all along. Spammers are at the same level as child-killing cowards. The world is a better place without this waste of a human life. Too bad he didn’t come to this conclusion himself sometime back around when I first wrote about this topic.

Just once, I would like to track down the person responsible for one spam post and punch him in the teeth. But I know, if everyone did this we’d have anarchy. Oh, wait, I meant to write that we’d have a much better world to live in.

Have you punched a spammer today?

p.s. I have 24 new mugshots to post with these articles. Isn’t that great!

I have some things I want. I like to image I am not a materialistic person, but all the same, I have various items I would like to own. I thought I’d make a list of them, so I fired up iWeb, since I’ve never used it before, and threw together this website: asking4stuff.com. Doing this is always interesting to me. You can tell a lot about a person based off his desires or just the crap he’d like to own. These types of lists are fun in another way. In a year I can come back, see how many of these things I have actually purchased, and laugh at some of the items, thinking, Why would I have ever wanted that? And five years on a list like this can be even more amusing.

I remember doing this in college. I came across it like ten years later, and it had, “Get a computer,” as one of the items. At the time I think I owned 3 or 4 computers. I have no idea how many I currently have. Three for sure that I use on a regular basis not counting work machines, and a couple more that would function if I still had a use for them.

Anyway, here’s the first item on the list:

http://www.dodge.com/en/2008/magnum/models/se/index.html

I figure if you’re going to dream…dream big. I’ve pretty sure I will go the rest of my life without buying a car like this. Not because ever affording one is outside of the realm of the possible, but because I am too practical to ever pull the trigger on a purchase like this. Even if someone gave me one I’d probably end up selling it and buying something more modest. I am pretty sure I will always be able to find something better to do with my money than sink it into a car like this, but every time I see one go by I get a little twinge of jealousy. This car is just too cool. Like a stylish hearse. Oh so very Addams family!

But let’s come back to reality for a while, focus on something I can actually imagine buying.

Tibetan singing bowls of various sizes. Yay! I’ll be adding this to the site as soon as I get my laptop back from Apple. Guess that’s one bad thing about using iWeb. Anyway….

http://longplayer.org/

The first time I heard one of these I thought the tone that came out was so amazingly clean and soothing. I was, of course, hitting it with the little mallet thing, not at all how they are supposed to be played. Basically, you are supposed to run the mallet along the edge which causes the bowl to vibrate and the speed can be changed to change the note. I’d like to pick up several of these. I just like things that make noise, but I can imagine recording poetry over the top of one of these. It would make even my hack works seem cool.

I won’t link to any other instrument images, but I also want other analog noise making things. Maracas, drums, whistles, a metal or wood recorder. Pretty much anything that doesn’t require batteries. I prefer non-stringed things, but even these can be cool.

Let me make one thing clear. I do not play music, don’t know one note from another, and could never repeat something I did, but I still like creating soundscape to go behind spoken word pieces, and I have managed to create one or two recorded “song” that I enjoy listening to.

Rather than making this into a really long post, just keep an eye on the asking4stuff.com website. Updates will happen as soon as I get the access to my iWeb files again.

As some of you know I launched a website less than a month ago, but all the domain names I think best fit what I am doing are taken.

I posted asking for suggestions for a rename for the site over on metafilter.com, but since I included the current site URL, it was seen as through I was trying to promote the domain I want to get rid of, and the post appropriately deleted (if they indeed believed this, ignored my track record, and disregarded the stupidity of the idea of trying to suck people into a site I intend to re-fucking-name!). But I still have the problem, still hate the name.

The site consists of me sending questions, concerns, observations, or plain old ink soaked stupidity to companies, individuals, institutions, and luminaries of various sorts, then posting my original letter, the reply (and image of), and commentary on both.

This is not a new idea, nor am I pretending it is. I’m running with the premise from the Lazlo Toth books, the “Letters from an Idiot” books, with a bit of “Thanks for the Memos” and “The Yes Men” thrown in.

I would like help renaming the site. I prefer a .com site, but will consider others. The domain has to be available (obviously). Due to self-imposed constraints it can only be one of the following TLDs: .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, or .us, since these are the only ones pairNIC.com handles. Ok, so they also do .cn and .ws, but since I am neither Chinese nor Western Samoan (that I know of) I think these would be kinda crappy.

Tweaking the noses of entities with a bit of power or fame is nothing new. There’s a long tradition of this, but invoking the “Yes Men,” “Michael Moore,” or “Lazlo Toth” might make it seem like I am pretending I play in their league. I’m not. I don’t. All the same, I invite you to check out jackassletters.com.

I would like to say the URL says it all, but since I don’t really believe it does, and I intend to change it soon, not giving a better description would be a jackass’s game. There’s work to be done, but I think it’s good enough to show.

Currently I am running a contest to rename the site. I want to get this done as quickly as possible, since I would like to rename it before it becomes the #1 destination on the internet for young and old! Or, well, before the Cease and Desist letters start to arrive. If you have an idea for a name, that you don’t mind me registering, drop me an email (click my name pretty near anywhere on this site), or visit the jackassletters.com and use one of my feedback forms.

I fired up a contest there, but since it’s a new site, it really doesn’t have that much traffic yet, so have had no response from that. I tried to do a better job of explaining why I want rid of the name on the contests page.

I still have a bit of work to do before I am ready to promote the site.

And for the record, there are no ads on the site, there is no membership fee, or any other money making scam that will suck you in just by visiting. This of course will change some day, and with the proper domain name I will take over the internet and you will work for me!

So my jackassletters.com site is pretty close to done. Oh, I have a lot more planned for it, but the base functionality is there. I’ve gotten around 15 responses, and I’ve been having a blast. I still need to enable commenting, need to make the gallery look a bit better, need to come up with a contact form, and need more logos, but at this point the bottleneck is typing in the responses I receive.

I don’t intend to have this site be as busy, complex, or cluttered as some of my previous projects. This will be an exercise in minimalism for me.

I’m not really sure what my long term goals are with the site. I guess to just have some fun, see how long before I end up in jail, and keep writing! How many people do you know who have written the President and Vice President, one of his Senators, his Governor, the Queen of England, the ATF, the FBI, the CIA, the NYT (New York Times), the NAACP, Rev. Wright, Casey’s, Budweiser, the American Kennel Club, Red Lobster, The Cheesecake Factory, Jehova’s Witnesses, the Church of Jesus Christ and the Later-Day Saints, Scientologists, Des Moines Art Center, Steve Jobs, Wal-Mart, and some 60 other people or companies in the last three weeks!

Ok, how many people you know who wrote even one letter that used the actual US Post Office for delivery?

Not that I ever failed to look forward to the workday ending, and getting my ass home, but now I have something to look forward to when I get there. I always check the mailbox as soon as I pull into the garage! I am still optimistic and keep thinking “I’ll have 5 or more tonight!” My record is 4, but that only happened once or twice.

Yesterday I only got one letter, it’s 15 minutes too early to see if I got one today, so it’s coffee time.

Well, check the site out if you like, let me know what you think, and check back often. A new letter goes up every morning, M-F, at 7 AM.

I’ve started to write companies and individuals letters. I am wanting responses. For the most part the letters are stupid with a hint of something real. I plan to make a website out of the letters and responses. Mostly because I want to learn something new. I am trying to teach myself php. I could knock out the site I have planned with what I already know in a weekend, but this isn’t the point. I want to learn php. Just like when I taught myself html I needed a project to work on. I learn from doing. Well, I am doing. I’ve written the following people or organizations:

• apple
• archerfarms
• burtsbees
• bush
• cheney
• coke
• crackerbarrel
• creamcheese
• hobbylobby
• ihop
• kfc
• michaels
• oreilly
• pepsi
• perkins
• perkins school for the blind
• pizzaranch
• snickers
• benandjerrys
• boca
• buffett
• culver
• gardenburger
• gates
• iowalottery
• lacie
• melissas
• peta
• the pope
• annies
• conan
• hillary
• mccain
• obama

I’ll let you know who writes back. The above is pretty much in the order of who I wrote first (sorted alphabetically).

Rough Draft “About Page”

Is my motivation greed? Am I just clamoring after free stuff? No. Free stuff is cool, but I also intend to enjoy the process. I fully expect to enjoy the responses more than any of the swag. Daily I make the trip to my mail box only to see it stuff with junk mail and bills. I want to look forward to getting mail again.

I’ve come up with a few rules that I am surely to violate.

 
• All letters must not contain lies (they don’t have to be the truth, they just can’t lie).
 
• Letters (errors and all) will appear here exactly like the were sent.
 
• All envelopes must be hand addressed.
 
• I can’t ask for a specific item (the one will be sure to be violated).
 
• Letters must be pithy.
 
• Letters must be signed.
 
• When possible I will ask for an autographed photo.

In this day and age I decided email would be too easy. The art of the letter is nearly lost. This is a skill I have not bothered cultivating. I am trying to change this. This site is inspired by the Lazlo Letters and by sitting through English 302: Business Communication about 66 times. Back in the early 90s when 4800 baud was considered good, and the animated gif was the height of internet technology, I was a poor schlep forced to sit though this class some 5 times a week, 3 semesters a year, for at least 4 years. I was a computer lab monitor babysitting idiots and the immature. Not a lot has changed in my life since then.

From the ISU Catalog:

Engl 302. Business Communication. (3-0) Cr. 3. F.S. S.S. Prereq: 250, junior classification. Theory, principles and processes of effective written communication typically encountered in business and the professions. Extensive practice in many areas of workplace communication, including letter, memo, and email correspondence…

When I first started this project I was unsure which address I would be sending the letters to. I mean do you send it to the marketing department, advertising, corporate headquarters, or etc.? This problem was quickly solved once I learned it’s hard to find any address for most of these companies or individuals. They would prefer you contact them through email or a web form. Finding a physical address, in some cases, was quite the challenge. I probably will even get some of them incorrect, since I often had to resort to a third party’s website to find an address.

My handwriting is bad to say the least. My girlfriend says it’s like a Kindergartner’s. She’s being too kind. I am incapable of making a letter the same way twice. And this is when I print (even I can’t read my cursive if too much time has passed after I’ve written something down)!

Someone suggested that these letters will get me put on a “watch list,” and again, the overly kind girlfriend said they won’t bother doing that, they’ll “just come for you in the night!” Another friend doesn’t think anyone will bother writing back. Who knows what will happen? Not me.

But I aim to find out, aim to share, and aim to have some fun.

Christopher L. Jorgensen