oooh snap

Best of Blog Spam

I switched the settings for comments a while back, mainly so people could link to their URLs in their names. It was a good tweak to make, but it has resulted in an impressive influx of comment spam. Whatever, Blogger generally does a good job of weeding out spam comments automatically, so I’m not going to change back to the “registered users only” setting.

The only annoying part is getting all the notification emails about faux comments, typically from “Anonymous.” Usually Anonymous is trying to get me to visit web sites about tribal tattoos, which is kind of random, or treat acne, which sadly is already a routine part of my post-teenage life. However, reading the comments has taught me a lot about a bot’s strange grasp of grammar and syntax. Behold, some of my favorite spam comments, with their original weird formatting, along with my imagined replies:

The entire glance of your web site is fantastic, as neatly as the content!  
I appreciate that you took the time for an entire glance.

I wish to read more things approximately it!  I hope to provide more things approximately it!

That is very attention-grabbing, You are an overly professional blogger.
I’ve
joined your feed and sit up for in the hunt for more of your
magnificent post. Additionally, I’ve shared your web site in my social
networks. 
That’s me: a true overly professional.

It’s amazing to go to see this website and reading the views of all
friends regarding this post, while I am also zealous of getting
know-how.
It’s a good thing to be zealous of getting know-how.

An impressive share! I have just forwarded this onto a coworker who
was conducting a little homework on this. And he actually bought me dinner simply because
I found it for him… lol. So allow me to reword this.
… Thanks for the meal!! But yeah, thanx for spending time to discuss this matter here on your web site.
Hey, any time a post gets a reader free dinner is a win, as far as I’m concerned.

Hi to every one, the contents existing at this website
are actually amazing for people knowledge, well, keep up the nice
work fellows.
The “fellows” and I thank you, and are happy to provide “people knowledge.” As opposed to robot knowledge, I guess.

Its like you read my mind! You appear to know a lot about this, like you wrote the book in it or something.
I think that you could do with a few pics to drive the message
home a little bit, but instead of that, this is excellent blog.
A great read. I’ll definitely be back.
Thanks for the unsolicited advice. I’m glad that despite the lack of pics, you will definitely be back. (Ironically this was on a post about the White House, and I did sort of write a “book in it.”)

Fortunate me I found your website accidentally, and I am stunned why this twist of
fate did not took place earlier! I bookmarked it.
I am also stunned why this twist of fate did not take place earlier for fortunate you!

bear grylls bear grylls bear grylls Dude: anyone who knows me knows that I watch I Shouldn’t Be Alive, not the Bear Grylls show.

Where we buy our books

I don’t care where people buy their books–indies or B&N or Half Price or online or Urban Outfitters or Target or the airport or your neighbor’s stoop–I just like it when people buy books. Yay, books!
With one exception: buy it where you found it.

If you discover a book in a bookstore, buy it there.

There have been a lot of trend pieces lately (and this article) about people using bookshops as showrooms–browsing the display tables and staff picks, then jotting down or taking pics of the titles to remember to buy them from an online retailer. I say: that sucks! Somebody working at that bookstore decided to stock the book, and liked it enough to put it out for you to find it. If you wouldn’t have known or thought to order it online without seeing it in the brick & mortar store, that store (and its helpful curators, the employees) deserves for you to buy the book there. Even if it costs a dollar or several more than online.
By the same measure: if you discover a title from an online giant’s email or newsletter or algorithm, great! Go ahead and buy it from them.

But a store is a store, not a showroom. It’s there to sell things and if it doesn’t, it will go away. Now that we have online retailers with no physical presence and mobile shopping apps up the wazoo, we have to protect the brick & mortar stores that help make our towns and neighborhoods vibrant places. Unless, of course, you want all the businesses around you to be banks and cell-phone stores. Nothing against them, but personally, I’d prefer a few bookshops in the mix.

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