spam

GGF#74: Best “spam” e-mail ever

- Sheylara 5 Comments

Gamer Girl Friday

I haven’t been gaming the past couple of weeks due to work and some upheaval in my life, which I will talk about in a separate post soon.

So, I just want to share this e-mail I received today from an online game site which I used to play at but haven’t for a long time.

It’s the best advertising “spam” I’ve received. Kudos to the guy who wrote this.

 

Subject: Are you there, Sheylara? It’s me, Kingdom of Loathing.

Dear Sheylara,

Okay, I’m not good at this kind of thing, but I feel like I have to give it a try. So, here goes:

I was hanging out the other night, listening to some old mp3s, and I was just overcome with memories of when we used to hang out all the time. Remember? You were an intrepid, fearless adventurer, and I was the free-to-play, fun-and-funny online role-playing game that won your heart. Do you still remember those good times? I can’t stop thinking about them.

I mean, I know things got kind of messed up at the end, and believe me, I’m sorry. If I could take any of that back, I totally would. And I know people grow and change, and you’re not the same person you were then, but hey — I’ve changed, too! I thought and thought about how to win you back. I figured I’d make you a mix CD, but I couldn’t decide what “our song” was. So I just concentrated on becoming a better game for you, and here’s what I came up with:

Remember how much fun you used to have with your clan? Alternately, remember how you never joined a clan because you didn’t see the point? Either way, clans now have clan dungeons, group zones where your whole clan can work together. Crawl through sewers to Hobopolis, a vast underground vagrant vacation vista! Slide into the slime tube, and stir-fry sassy slimes!

I know I wasn’t the prettiest game when we were together, so I had some work done. Almost every interface got an interface-lift. You can even manage most of your inventory via chat commands! I also came up with a way for you to automate some of the things you don’t love about the game, so you can spend more time with the parts you do love.

Not only that, but there are way more animated .gifs than there were before. Don’t worry; I haven’t lost that low-fi edginess you love, but I’m a lot easier to play with now.

You can also have a custom title now, just in case you didn’t feel like I appreciated what made you unique as an individual.

I should also say
Haiku Dungeon’s been revamped.
See what I did there?

Maybe you quit because you got sick of always adventuring above the water. I admit that seems unlikely, but I fixed that, too — there are a bunch of underwater zones with new food, equipment, mechanics, and challenges.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, trust me. I’m still the silly, clever, deceptively-complex game you fell in love with, only with about 95% more awesome.

So, I’m just sayin’, if you can find it in your heart to give me another chance, I won’t disappoint you.

If you don’t drop by, I promise I won’t bother you again. I just really felt like we deserved one more try.

Love,

The Kingdom of Loathing.
http://www.kingdomofloathing.com

Google filters itself as spam. Haha!

- Sheylara 11 Comments

I recently signed up for this service called Google Alerts, which sends me the latest results of my specified search terms.

I’ve set it up so I get an e-mail when a site links to sheylara.com. It’s not 100% because I know some sites linked to me recently and I didn’t get an alert. But that’s alright because it’s just for fun.

Well, this morning, I went digging into my Gmail spam folder to find errant e-mails. Once in a while, legit e-mails get caught by the spam filter and that’s when you tell your friends to be more personable and stop writing like spam bots.

And this is what I saw in my spam folder.

[Spam folder]

See the Google Alerts e-mail in there? Hahaha! Google filters itself as spam! Hahaha! Great wtf moment here.

But I guess we can also take that as a sign of Google’s professionalism and credibility. Still funny, though.

Side note: Check out the link on top of the spam folder.

French Fry Spam Casserole! ROFL. One of the funnier instances of targeted marketing. I wonder what this guy will think if he knows that his ads are appearing in someone’s spam folder which is filled with disgusting junk selling services of a questionable nature.

I wish men would stop buying these online services to lengthen themselves or whatever. You are the cause of the endless flood of spam we’re getting every day!!! YOU don’t get your e-mail folder spammed by retailers selling you boob jobs and anti-aging facial creams or whatever, so I don’t see why I have to get spammed by rubbish websites trying to sell me lengthening meat-increasing gizmos which I don’t need!!!

Yes. I blame the consumers, not the retailers.

It gives me an indication of the number of desperate men out there.

Please, stop.

I’ve veered off topic but, actually, I have no particular topic. It’s a Sunday! And I’m going to play Rock Band later! =)

Have a great whatever’s left of your Sunday!

Sorry my blog ate your comments

- Sheylara 20 Comments

Okay, hands up who’s been trying to comment in my blog and had their comments eaten up.

I’ve found the culprit. The answer hit me suddenly.

It’s my wonderful, lovely, huggable spam filter plugin, without which I would’ve had to personally deal with 41,225 spam entries in the last six months. (Figure is accurate at the time of posting.)

The plugin automatically sends all suspect comments to the spam folder and deletes them after 15 days. I don’t make it a habit to check the spam folder, of course, because about 200 spam comments get caught each day and some of them are as long as a fresh roll of toilet paper, boasting endless strings of popular sleazy keywords and bearing tempting sounding links to excite the similarly sleazy.

So if your comment never made it to public view, and you never got a message saying that it’s being held in the moderation queue awaiting ransom, then it means you’ve been spaminated (made-up word) and your comment will lie dusty and forgotten in the spam folder until it’s called to meet its maker in 15 days (although that’s a really bad turn of phrase to use, seeing as the dead comment is likely to never return to you, ever.)

Well it’s not my fault that you people come up with dodgy names and e-mails that all but scream “SPAMBOT ALERT”!!!

For instance, I have this reader who calls himself A Suspicious Man.

What the hail! You walk around with a name like that, you’re just asking for spam filters to axe you!!! Wahahaha.

Okay, but A Suspicious Man seems harmless enough. Not that I know him personally, but I read some of his blog entries and found that he writes pretty well, so I made a comment in his blog, which led him to contact me through MyBlogLog, by the way highlighting to me that my blog didn’t allow him to leave comments.

A Suspicious Man isn’t the first “victim”, though.

Ruok has been a long-suffering victim who also happens to be a long-suffering friend. He’s been complaining to me about eaten-up posts since time immemorial but I never gave it much thought because I sometimes also have trouble commenting in other people’s blogs (only in blogspot blogs), and I always assumed it was some cookie/security error.

So I found out I was wrong.

I was able to fix things by wading thick into my spam folder to find the eaten posts and “despam” them, which tells the plugin that these jokers who got axed aren’t actually spambots, they just happen to have suspicious names/e-mails, but they’re friends no less, so please allow their comments in the future, no matter how dodgy they sound.

If you’re a spambot-lookalike who’s had trouble commenting, you now know why.

What can you do about it?

You can either use another name or e-mail address, or you can e-mail me to get your choice of name/e-mail despammed, after which you’ll be able to post like a normal human being and not get discriminated against by elitist plugins.

My e-mail address can be found here. I’ll just need to know which name you used to post your comment, and you must have posted something within the last 15 days.

Speaking of which.

Spam is the answer to the recent luncheon meat ban. But spam is not as tasty as luncheon meat, so I’m pretty upset about it. I love luncheon meat more than you can imagine.

Well, that’s all, folks. Back to work!

Me, not you.

Yes, I’m working. I’ve become a temporary corporate slave in order to set to rights the gross injustice I did to my bank account over the Christmas holiday period. So if my blogs are short or boring or late, know that I’m being held against my will in the evil clutches of corporate slavery.

Perhaps you want to rescue a poor damsel by donating generously?

Okthxbye.