“I Left my Aunt in Vegas”: Left Vagus nerve goes Anterior descending into the thorax.

• ITEM! I have no floor. Specifically, the floor in the dining/living/kitchen area of my house is being removed and replaced. This means that this space is now a cavernous echo-filled furniture-free Weirdness Zone. There are deep furrows and cracks in the slab which people are filling with orange goo. Later, tile will be put there.
• ITEM! I have ordered, from Powell’s, one of the great books available about Opera. I eagerly await my reeducation.
• ITEM! I’m bitter about almost everything. Not quite everything. But almost.
• ITEM! There is no force, however great / To pull a wire, however fine / Into a horizontal line / Which shall be absolutely straight.
• ITEM! I mean really fucking bitter.
• ITEM! null

In a nucking futshell, here.

Boy that brought back a flood of erm.. um.. memories. Yeah.

Specifically of trying to dun an “editor” named Yayva out of $75 and her not wanting to pay me because I spelled the name of someone wrong when that was the way it was spelled in the press kit. And being told that I had to pay to get into the show I was reviewing because “we need to keep the guest list spots for VIPs”. And having to sit through 8 bands with names like Bloody Rosehips and Fyre and Jackass 101 to see the headliner to get paid $25. And interviewing such musical luminaries as “King” and the Unforgiven.

Okay. Whew. Better now, I think.

worth it just for the headline

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/07.07.04/king-arthur-0428.html

Spam received today:

Become your employer. Very exciting profession. Your office and be anywhere. Work part time or full time. A substantial number of our members earn 5,000US to 12,000US per mo. Outstanding customer support and assistance. Here for more info

In the distance he heard loud shouts and sound of renewed strife, warning him that the Turks were recovering consciousness and engaging the Tatars with great fierceness The latter had scattered throughout the town, thinking themselves perfectly secure, so that not only were they unprepared to fight, but they became panic-stricken at seeing their foes return, as it seemed, from death to lifeTheir usual courage forsook them, and they ran, terrified, in every direction, only to be cut down by the revengeful Turkish simitars discontinue Orange stad, and then mail stop 1.200 B, followed by A rub a Rob was sitting upon the edge of a marble fountain in the center of the square when a crowd of victorious Turks appeared and quickly surrounded himThe boy paid no attention to their gestures and the Turks feared to approach him nearly, so they stood a short distance away and fired volleys at him from their rifles and pistols Rob glared at them scornfully, and seeing they could not injure him the Turks desisted; but they still surrounded him, and the crowd grew thicker every momentWomen now came creeping from their hiding places and mingled with the ranks of the men, and Rob guessed, from their joyous chattering, that the Turks had regained the city and driven out or killed the Tatar warriors

The Fourth at Liam’s

FIRE! Fire in the grill, that grilled the corn, that grilled the beef, that grilled the pork, that grilled the sausages, that grilled the fish. Fire, beautiful fire!

FIRE! Fire that launched the Roman Candles, that pushed the glittering sequins of rocket spew across the sky, that heaved great bombs out of mortars to sail up and detonate and rattle our windows!

FIRE! Fire in the belly from three or four glasses of good wine and a few hours of good conversation.

And now rest.

CELEBRITY ANUS BLEACHING!.

Now you’re not going to click. I should have labeled the link text something like “How cute is THIS kitten?” or “Goatse” instead. Don’t worry, no pictures.

I am also going to have my ileocecal valve bronzed.

“Kojic acid” sounds like something extracted from the bones of Telly Savalas. Hell, maybe it is.

Link courtesy Chuck Shepherd’s News of the Weird, to which you should all subscribe.

Lately there are a lot of news stories about various U.S. governmental and “industry” officials discussing the “problems” and “controversy” about spam and spyware. The impression given is that there are legitimate businesses doing reasonable things who will be harmed if spyware is made illegal or if attempts to regular spam are made. A typical quote will be something like “We want to make sure that companies with a legitimate need to contact their customers and market their products don’t suffer from the actions of a few bad apples”.

To me, this is curious. I receive a pretty good volume of spam, maybe 300 per day at my main address. Looking into my spam filter folder I see that almost all of the unsolicited commercial email I receive is in some way already a violation of law.

The main categories include

1. Solicitations for illegal pornography. Almost all of the porn spam is for pornography that is specifically forbidden by law: acts involving minors, bestiality, or other activities almost universally prohibited in the United States.
2. Offers to sell illegal prescription drugs, most of them Schedule III opiates. There is a lot of penis pill stuff, which is either illegal or gray area, but the ads for prescription pain killers are not legitimate in any way. These are what we call “drug dealers”.
3. Fraud. There are lots of password phishing attempts, contests you’ve won that require a payment, 419 scams, illegal lotteries, and pyramid schemes. Most of these are well-known mail fraud scams now done via email.
4. Loan-sharking. A tremendous number of “unsecured loan” offers with interest rates far above the legal limits.
5. Fraudulent medications. “Herbal” remedies for everything from impotence to cancer, all of which are violations of law.

When you strip it down to the actual legal (if annoying) uses of spam, I’m left with a few pitches for coffee, collectibles, electronics, and other consumer products and a big load of mortgage ads. If my spam only consisted of this category I’d get maybe 40 a day.

So what’s the controversy or the problem? Only BOFH would complain if we got a few ads for Gevalia Coffee or miracle cleaners a day. It’d just be like the mail we get in the box that we throw away. The problem spam that chokes up the inbox and annoys is almost all completely illegal for reasons unrelated to email.

Who’s making money off all of this emetic porn, wire fraud, drug dealing, and loans at 35? Who’s hiding behind the respectable guys, hmm?