Poetry From The Spam Filter: Seven

spam

Another entry in my ongoing series of taking the complete, unedited text from an email caught in my spam filter, and formatting it’s gibberish into poetry…  strangely, they seem to make sense when you read them as a poem.  And, as a service, I perform a reading of the poem as well:


 

Seven

Tyya’s dad
won’t swallow anything good
at the depend on –
no ice cream, no sweets, no cookies.

But when
the saleslady puts a valuation sticker
on Tyya’s nose,
Daddy is decisively stiff to suborn
something high-minded

Things That Make Me Laugh #8

This may not be the funniest thing you’ve ever seen.  Probably not even close to the funniest thing you’ve ever seen.

I present this as a test, of sorts.

One, the fact I find this hysterically funny should give you an idea of my weird sense of humor.

Two, the fact that if it takes you longer than a minute to get the joke, we’d probably not be close friends in real life, because you wouldn’t get me.

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Battle: Lost

It’s been a struggle.

It’s been more than that.  It’s been a battle.  Of near epic proportions.

I’ll admit that I didn’t always play fair:  I evaded the question, hid the remote, even flat out said “no.”

But, in the end, it was all for naught.

I’ve lost the good fight.

fox-news-logo

My mother has now become a member of the Faux… I mean Fox News audience.

Please, join me in a moment of silence to honor this tragic loss.

Poetry From The Spam Filter: Five

spam(A new entry in this series of poetry, composed of actual messages caught in my spam filter, then formatted poetically, in an attempt to add some understanding to the gibberish language of the original spam.  All words and punctuation are left intact.  Formatting as poetry is the only change I have made)

This time around, I’m adding a new feature: a reading.  Poetry is meant to be read aloud, so, I figured these, too, needed to be read out loud, in hopes of extracting further meaning from their gibberish.


Five

See the law of similarity?

The contestants
showed endowment
and ability
that made cut-rate sale
with dissimilar designs and colors to choose from.

In May,
he introduced
get something proper
than do it rapidly
also molded the roll-out of HOS.

Yes,
I like look decent,
o, but In that respect
are merely so

Here,
but how can you in truth
interrogation his results?

There is a honorable trail,
but some
enticed by the winning streak.

next calendar month’s
“monthly motive”
will be on the ground casinos

except that the players
are ineffective to count cards
as they mightiness do in the casinos.

The media instrumentalist
of Samsung languages
that the great unwashed are struggling to understand
is the Chinese oral communication.

A unrecorded feed of
were the Diachronic favorites of the times.

Remember,
the number one feeling
is e’er the Topper
and if you are wearing away
one of these polos during games

because I don’t have apple mac
pc in my place.
sedition at home
rather by punishment
of prominent examples
than by 17.5 deaths/1,000 live births (1994 est.)

Then,
inconsistently leaving that promise of security,
he reviewed homage for his crown?”

and on be justified now,
but these are the only ones

Poetry From The Spam Filter

spam(A new entry in this series of poetry, composed of actual messages caught in my spam filter, then formatted poetically, in an attempt to add some understanding to the gibberish language of the original spam.  All words and punctuation are left intact.  Formatting as poetry is the only change I have made)

Four

I needed to draft you
one bit of note
to finally say
thank you

once again

for those pleasing knowledge you have featured above.

It is
certainly
strangely open-handed of you
to deliver publicly all

a number of people
would’ve offered for an ebook
to help make some profit on their own,

primarily
now that you might have done it if you ever decided.

Those advice
as well acted

like the great way
to fully grasp
that other people online
have the identical interest
just like my very own
to realize more pertaining to this issue.

I believe
there are millions of more
pleasurable times

up front
for individuals
who examine your website.

The Subject Line

subjectI often wonder why, when writing a blog post, the subject/title line box comes first.  I find that it creates too much pressure.  The subject line should be at the end.  So many times when I start writing, I have no idea what I’m going to say.  I’m sure I’m not alone in this.  Sometimes it’s a flicker of an idea.  Sometimes just a sentence. Sometimes (very rarely), it’s actually a fully developed idea.

  • Side note: As I was writing that last sentence, I was going to say that sometimes it’s a ‘fully fleshed’ out idea; then I wasn’t sure that was correct.  Is it “fully flushed” out idea?   So, now I’m not sure if it’s fleshed or flushed.  Then, as I think about it, neither word actually impresses me.  I mean “fully fleshed out” seems really creepy, all sorts of Silence of the Lambs images come to mind.  When you make a suit out of human flesh like the guy in the book/movie, and you try it on, I guess you could say you were ‘all fleshed out’ instead of being ‘all decked out.”   On the other hand, ‘fully flushed out’ seems more like some sort of polite reference to an enema.  So, instead, I went with ‘fully developed.’   And, while there are many things that can be fully developed, I can live with the word choice in this instance.

Most of the time though, when I sit down to write, whether it’s here in my little blog, or in a notebook, or on my laptop’s Word software, I have no subject in mind.  Most of the time it’s just me and the empty page, staring at each other.  It becomes this Psychological Staring Contest – who’s going to look away first?  Me, or The Blank Page.  As the page has no eyes, it’s usually me that looks away, while the blank page still stares straight ahead.

It’s not until the words start appearing on the page that the idea begins to take shape (to develop!) into something.  Sometimes it takes many lines of nothing intelligent before something catches in my brain and the words and ideas begin to flow (perhaps not always intelligently, but at least their flowing and developing into something cohesive).

It’s not until I’m many, many, many sentences into it that I even have an idea of what the subject is.  So putting the subject line right at the beginning seems daunting, almost making me not want to write at all since I can’t come up with a subject.

  • Another side note:  don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against having the subject line at the top when you’re reading something.  It’s a good way to get a quick glimpse of what’s coming up.  It let’s you decide if you want to read it or not.  But, when you’re writing in your blog, the subject line should be at the bottom of the template.

If the subject line were placed at the end of the template, it would be psychologically less intimidating.  By the time you get to the end, you already know what it is you’ve written about.  The obvious retort (I can hear many of you making it) is that you skip the subject line, write your little blurb, and then go back and type in the subject.  Which is, of course, the most logical of workarounds.  However, that still doesn’t make that blank box labeled “Subject:” any less daunting.  Besides, it’s a logical workaround, and I’m more … artistic, yes, that’s the word.. artistic, rather than logical.  Artistically, the subject line, in the writing phase, would be a little box at the bottom, or, even better, in a pop-up window.  After one clicks the “publish” button, one would get a pop-up that said “Please add a Subject Line To Your Post”, and would have a blank to fill in.

Yes, it’s an extra step, but, again, what better point to add a subject to the line than after one has already written something.

I suppose some people see it as a challenge:  “Oh, there’s a blank space! I need to fill it up before moving on to the text part!”   And to those people I say: “Take a pill for your OCD!”     If you’re that obsessed with filling in blank spaces in order, then you and I haven’t got much in common.  If that’s your thing, fine and dandy, and more power to you.   Me, I am not compelled to fill in the blank space right away, even though the blank space of the Subject line sneers at me, laughs at me, dares me to come up with words to fill in its blank.

And, that’s ok, because at this point the idea development has come to a screeching halt.  I had no idea when I started this post what it would be about, and, perhaps it’s not about much of anything.  Either way, the post seems to have come to an end.

At least I can say though: I now can fill in the subject line.

My Midlife Crisis: Part 3 (And, The End, For Now)

So, I haven’t needed a convertible Porsche to have a midlife crisis.  I’m too much of a nerd for that.  Now, maybe a convertible Fiat, or Mini Cooper…  maybe.

But, really, I’m not a convertible kind of guy.  I don’t enjoy bugs splatting onto my head.

Or sunburn.

I’ll stick with the sensible car.

I don’t need a 20-something boy toy, because, they’re really only good for looking at.

I’m too practical, and boring, because instead of asking myself the questions one would think to ask a boy toy, like “Will you sign a pre-nup so you can’t take anything of value from me?”, I, instead, think of questions like “What could we possibly have in common? What could we talk about?”

So, no. No boy toy.

I’m quite happy with Julian, and, well, since he is 3 years older than me, technically that makes me the boy toy, so….

I jest.

I’m happy, content, and really not having a midlife crisis.

It’s more just coming to terms with the fact that my HIV didn’t kill me, like we assumed it would, twenty-four years ago when I was diadnosed, because, that’s just what people did back then, when they had HIV: they got sick and died.  Now, that looks like it’s not going to happen, and I’m trying to figure out things like “What do I want to be when I grow-up?” and, “How the fuck am I going to survive when I’m in my 60s and 70s, because I have no savings, because I wasn’t supposed to be here?”  I’ve been unemployed now for five years, in order to stay home and be with my mom, who’s 89.  She won’t be here forever, and I’ll have lost all that time in the job market, and I’ll be even that much older, and, we all know that it’s tough finding a job as a college grad in your 20s, so what are my chances as a high-school drop-out in my 40s, or 50s (or whatever age I am when mom’s number is up.).

It’s not really a midlife crisis.  It’s more of a midlife WTF!?

Anytime I’m having a WTF moment, I find that shopping helps.  Yesterday I was sort of having a WTF-day, because I’m still frustrated about the whole mental healthcare provider thing.  The counseling center that I was referred to, that worked on a sliding scale in order to help people who lack funds, still, at the lowest end of the scale, charges $70 a session. My thoughts aren’t worth that kind of money.  Not until I’m famous, at any rate, then people can pay me to hear my thoughts.  So, I’m still exploring options.

However, the $150 shopping spree at Barnes & Noble, while it would have paid for two therapy sessions was, as a matter of fact, much more emotionally satisfying and helpful.  I mean, one of the books I got was the 1100+ page “Collected Poems of Allen Ginsburg, 1947-1997.”  How can you not feel better after Ginsburg?  Then, fittingly enough, among the stack of new books, is “Demons” by Dostoevsky.  Reading Russian literature one cannot feel depressed about one’s own life when things were so much more depressing for those poor Russians back in the day.

I’ve been trying to pretend to be younger by now owning Converse (a.k.a. Chuck Taylor All Stars) for the first time in my life.  The rubber smell always bothered me, and I had a friend, years ago, who wore them, and always had the funkiest, stinky feet, so I had no real interest in owning shoes that made my feet stink.  I have since discovered that wearing socks with Chucks is the solution to the funky feet smell issue, so, I had to own some.

My first pair, as I mentioned in the first post of this trilogy of posts, are Navy.  The second pair are high tops, an almost khaki, dark-army-olive green, with hunting vest orange accents.

The third, fourth and fifth pairs arrived today (yes, I had said there were a total of four pairs, but, I was a bit spacey when I wrote that).  There are a total of five pair.

Pair three, like pair one, are just the basic shoe, in a nice green color:

IMG_0479

By the way, I spent all of about 90 seconds taking snapshots of the shoes, so they’re not creative, or up to my usual photographic standards.  I just wanted some quick snaps).

Pairs four and five are where the issue of a midlife crisis comes into play.  I’m not entirely certain that they aren’t a cry for help;

I’ll leave it up to you to decide.

Pair four:

IMG_0475

And, finally, and, I think, my most favorite pair:

IMG_0477

My Midlife Crisis, Part 2

So, yesterday I admitted to the “I am now 47, and having a midlife crisis”.  And, I showed you how I was indulging in this midlife turmoil.

Well, here is the second, of four pairs of Chuck Taylor’s…  the light was extra bright, so it’s tough to tell the exact color… a sort of dark, khaki green…   Pair Three and Four should arrive tomorrow.  You’ll definitely see the emotional turmoil I’m in when you see those pairs!

IMG_0470

Organized? Lists? LOL!

I have a love/hate relationship with lists.

More hate than love.

I suspect it’s tied to my love/hate relationship with organization.

I stand before you (ok, I’m sitting at a desk, but you get the idea) and proudly proclaim “I am unorganized.”

I’ve read helpful hint columns in newspapers and magazines.  I’ve read blog posts about ten things to get you better organized.  Once, I even read a book about becoming organized.  I don’t recall if I finished the book, or if it just vanished into some stack of something that got shoved into a drawer somewhere. I suspect if I did finish it, it wasn’t helpful.

All I can say is that I’ve tried.

Honestly.

Seriously.

For more than one day.

I once spent a weekend getting a filing cabinet, and labeling folders.  I put things in the folders.

I was, for that weekend, organized!

No one said that once you get organized, you have to keep up with things.  I think most of the things in the folders are things I no longer need, like the owner’s manual for the cassette recorder that I no longer own.

What’s the point of getting organized if one is going to have to keep doing it?  I mean, I have enough repetitive tasks in my life: I have to keep eating, I have to keep shopping for food, I have to keep sleeping, I have to keep showering, I have to keep washing clothes.  I can just about keep up with the absolute necessities of life, without having to add something else to keep up with, like organization.  If it piles up long enough, and I haven’t had to use it, I can just throw it away.  If it’s something that I need, it’s usually something that is needed reasonably soon after entering the house (receipts, etc.), that I just rummage around through piles until I find it.  This system works for me.  It makes me happy, as it takes up little of my precious time.

Also, it makes me feel superior, as it means that my brain is occupied with deeper ideas than just filing a receipt away.  Having to figure out what to do with a warranty card for a $30 appliance that will be cheaper to replace than pack up and schlep somewhere to fix is just too taxing, it interrupts the deeper, more meaningful thoughts in my brain.

I tell myself this, because it makes me feel as if I have deeper, meaningful thoughts.  Mostly, I just have thoughts about is there coffee ice cream in the freezer, or wondering if there are still peanut M&Ms in the container in the kitchen or some such thing that seems more relevant to me than some piece of paper.

One time, I tried the boxes and binders thing, creating labelled boxes and binders, to stack on your desk, so you can file things away quickly.  All that happened during this experiment was that the boxes and binders remainded empty and collected much dust. I finally threw them away, because I needed more room to stack stuff.

Then, horror of horrors, is the idea of lists.  Lists are supposed to help you get organized, though, I can’t see how writing “File papers away” is going to be any more helpful than the thought of “File away papers” has been.  I think the thought of filing, and don’t do it.  Seeing the words on a list isn’t going to make the action happen either.  Actually, what typically happens to the list is that it vanishes into some stack or other, only to be found months later, as the stack is making its way to the trash.  The list, because it’s paper, does, at least, make it to the recycle bin.  It may not  have been helpful to me, but, I can at least be environmentally responsible in disposing of the list.

I got an app for my phone, it’s supposed to be The App for organizing.  It’s called Clear.  It’s list making and organizing bought to the tech age, brought to a whole new level: easy and intuitive to use, and will change your life.  The fucking thing had a little instruction menu when you first installed it, and, once you move past it, there’s no way to pull the instructions back up.  I don’t know who it’s intuitive to, but, it’s not intuitive to me.  It’s a fucking annoyance.  It’s bright colors are supposed to each mean something, but, to me, they just mock me, saying “Bright color that you’re too fucking stupid to understand.”   I hate this app with a passion I cannot begin to convey.

Not all lists are bad.  There are good lists.  Like the lists that tell you the top 5 places to eat Mexican food in whatever city you happen to be in.  Or, those lists with titles like “10 Ways To Annoy Your Coworkers” or “8 Ways To Lie Your Way Out Of A Traffic Ticket.”   Those lists have practical, relevant use to me: the inspire laughter, so they’re good.

I also like lists when I’m writing.  It’s a good way to convey information without spending lots of time writing lots of fancy words that bore the hell out of people.  Like my recent post about my desk.  The list let me tell you lots of things about me, without going on and on for pages and pages.  Sometimes, I wish that novels had lists, because some of them just go on and on about something, and nice little list of pertinent facts could eliminate pages of rambling writing.  (As someone who is currently writing a rambling post, I am well aware that I should take my own advice, and just make a list, and this post would be so much shorter.  But what fun would that be, if this were shorter?  You’d not get as much exposure to my delightful self in a list).  ”Clan Of The Cave Bear” would be a good novel to have a few lists in, as one can only read so many pages describing a tree without becoming suicidal. (On a bright note, of actual organizational triumph for me, I can tell you exactly where my copy of “Clan” is… the city dump.  I filed it, after about 250 pages, in File 13).

Someday, maybe, I’ll learn to appreciate the list as something that’s helpful for more than just remembering what to buy at the grocery store.

Someday, maybe, I’ll learn to be organized.

I had thought to make up a little graphic of my own, maybe with my new crayons, to illustrate this post, but, that would involve trying to find paper (yes, I just did buy some new colored paper too), and would involve taking a snapshot with my small camera, which would mean having to find it, and all of that sounds like too much work right now.  So, instead, I’ll recycle an image I created for a previous post.  (Don’t complain… at least I knew where the image was!)

BucketList

Poetry From The Spam Filter: Three

spamI know I am among the few oddballs who actually read the comments and letters that end up in my spam filter.  It’s an old habit, from back in the day, when spam filters were new, and, often, one’s important emails would end up stuck in spamland.  The filters are much better now, and what’s in the spam folder is usually spam.

However, just because something is in the spam folder does not mean it has no worth.  In fact, they can be a source of great entertainment.

The previous Spam Poems (here and here) have been short, unintelligible as sentences, yet strangely meaningful when read as poetry.  Today, however, we are moving into the realm of Meaningful Epic Poem.

We’re talking Homeric epic, folks.  The Illiad pales in comparison.

I won’t paste the original spam comment first, as I have with the other poems, because I want you to read it not as the Christmas Letter way it was written, but, as the moving, epic piece of poetry it is meant to be.

Other than the formatting, I have changed nothing: punctuation and spelling are exactly as they appeared in the original spam.  I will post the original version at the end, just because.

Three

Name: Jack
(Havent mande that mistake yet)
Wimberly Class of: 1987
Now living in: Juno, Alaska
Date: Sep 8, 2006

Comments:
Hello fellow class mates, friends, and ex-lovers,
I’m looking forward to seeing everyone at the reunion
coming up next year,
especially since I’ve been living in
an extremely cold environment for the past 12 years.

I’m also looking forward to the tropical heat of Florida.
I currently reside in Juno, Alaska
where i’ve been busy
working on a large fishing vessel
off shore in the Bearing Straits.
It’s hard work
but pays well,
and it’s all the fish you can eat!

I’ve changed a bit since school,
but then again,
alot of us have.

I’ve lost all my hair,
grown a beard,
and probably put on a good 200 lbs,
so i’m doing my best to slim down before the reunion.

It pays to be heavy in this cold enviornment,
(extra warmth!)

I’m also looking forward to getting a tan,
since it’s dark up here
6 months out of the year.

I’m still not married,
since no woman likes a man
that smells like fish!

Unfortanly,
I’ve lost a couple a couple of fingers
in a horrible George Forman “lean mean grillin’ machine” accident.

He aint kidding when he says “mean machine”.

I also joined the Foreign Legion after I got out of school
and traveled all over Europe and Africa
fighting against drug cartels.
It was very boring,
so I ran off to Alaska after receiving death threats
from people I put prison,
A (“witness protection program”) you could say.

I will be driving
down to Florida
from Juno
for the reunion
which is a long trip,
but i’ve hardly put any miles on my Yugo,
which I bought used in Yugoslavia in 1988,
seeing how i’m always on the boat
(her name is Lynn).

I’m going to stop and see the Grand Canyon
and take a mule ride to the bottem,
something that i’ve always wanted to do since I was 8 years old.

I still play golf,
but only when it’s warm enough,
putting in the snow is hard stuff.

So I hope to see alot of you
in July
at the reunion
and I hope my toupee
doesn’t look to cheesy!
*** *** *** ***

Here is the original:

Name: Jack (Havent mande that mistake yet) Wimberly Class of: 1987 Now living in: Juno, Alaska Date: Sep 8, 2006 Comments: Hello fellow class mates, friends, and ex-lovers, I’m looking forward to seeing everyone at the reunion coming up next year, especially since I’ve been living in an extremely cold environment for the past 12 years. I’m also looking forward to the tropical heat of Florida. I currently reside in Juno, Alaska where i’ve been busy working on a large fishing vessel off shore in the Bearing Straits. It’s hard work but pays well, and it’s all the fish you can eat! I’ve changed a bit since school, but then again, alot of us have. I’ve lost all my hair, grown a beard, and probably put on a good 200 lbs, so i’m doing my best to slim down before the reunion. It pays to be heavy in this cold enviornment, (extra warmth!) I’m also looking forward to getting a tan, since it’s dark up here 6 months out of the year. I’m still not married, since no woman likes a man that smells like fish! Unfortanly, I’ve lost a couple a couple of fingers in a horrible George Forman “lean mean grillin’ machine” accident. He aint kidding when he says “mean machine”. I also joined the Foreign Legion after I got out of school and traveled all over Europe and Africa fighting against drug cartels. It was very boring, so I ran off to Alaska after receiving death threats from people I put prison, A (“witness protection program”) you could say. I will be driving down to Florida from Juno for the reunion which is a long trip, but i’ve hardly put any miles on my Yugo, which I bought used in Yugoslavia in 1988, seeing how i’m always on the boat(her name is Lynn). I’m going to stop and see the Grand Canyon and take a mule ride to the bottem, something that i’ve always wanted to do since I was 8 years old. I still play golf, but only when it’s warm enough, putting in the snow is hard stuff. So I hope to see alot of you in July at the reunion and I hope my toupee doesn’t look to cheesy!

Browsing The History List: Anthony Bourdain

I’m not sure if it is really cool, or really frightening, or some shade of grey in the middle, that one’s viewing history

AnthonyBourdain_473911a_1

is tracked on YouTube.  One can go back hundreds, and hundreds of videos to see what one has watched. Some are just those odd videos that you click on from the list on the side, as it caught your attention while you were watching something you specifically went to YouTube for; others, like this one, are the specific video one went searching for.

It’s a small clip from an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s show “No Reservations.”  Not only is it quite hysterical, the question posited at the end is rather thought-provoking.

Crayons For The 21st Century

When I was going to school, in the 1970s, I always got a new box of Crayola Crayons.

The Big Box.  Sixty-four colors, and a sharpener on the back (which really did nothing other than break the crayons).  It was a status symbol, because not everyone got The Big Box.

I’m rather ashamed to admit to being a kid who looked around on the first few days of school, looking to see if anyone else had The Big Box, and, feeling rather superior to those who only had small boxes of Crayola’s.

As an adult, I would like to say to all my classmates, I’m sorry for my smugness.  Not having The Big Box of crayons really is not a reflection of who you are.

I think I was a bit slow to learn that lesson.

But, nostalgia aside, I’d like to share the following with you.  It’s slightly wrong, but, still, rather amusing.

photo