I love all the ways spammers use to get around spam filters. “Well, actually, I hate them, but you know what I mean.” I got one yesterday with the subject line, “Mën, Nö Sidë effects” I guess the umlauts have some sneaky effect, but it made me think the email had been written by someone from an ’80s hair band. Maybe Mötley Crüe’s former publicist is working for a spammer now. “Oh, yeah, if you need umlauting, he’s your man. He’s definitely the go-to guy for umlauts”
While I write this entry I am attempting to use EarthLink’s live chat support to ask how to get www.plooble.com “don’t bother going there” to point to this blog. The support page promises you’ll “get an answer in moments” If a moment is, say, ten minutes, then yeah, I got an answer in moments. Three of them. Anyway. My interlocutor appears to be Indian. His name is “AnilG” Kind of sounds like someone L’il Kim might hang around with, doesn’t it? I recognize that I am not fluent in any other language, and I hate to make fun of the way foreigners speak English “well, actually, I love it, but you know what I mean”, but I couldn’t help but laugh when his response to my question came back as “Okay. Kindly be on hold for a moment” And it was one moment. One EarthLink moment, a.k.a. ten minutes.
Chatting with my Anil buddy reminds me of the time I lived in London and got a really nasty reaction to an infected ear piercing, which I won’t describe in detail because what I just said is nasty enough. I went to the hospital and was attended to by an extremely charming and reassuring doctor from Pakistan. When I asked him what I could do to make the skin less rough, he replied, “Once the wound has healed, you may apply some Nivea cream, and your skin will become smooth and supple again” If there is a more elegant way of putting that, I can’t imagine what it would be.
Whoops. AnilG is back. “I see that your domain is not Hosted with the EarthLink” Oh, yes it is, ass-name. Kindly don’t make me come to Bangalore and slap you with a chapatti.
And now he’s gone again. “Kindly be on hold for a moment” It’s not so cute this time. Why do I get the feeling that AnilProbe is sitting somewhere in India surfing the same useless EarthLink support pages I was surfing before I resorted to this particular farcical time sink? And he’s probably on dial-up.
Oh, super. He’s just come back and told me to do something that didn’t work an hour ago. He asked me for my password, and I gave it to him. Why is the phrase “EarthLink will never ask you for your password throbbing in the back of my mind? Oh, no. I see it all now. AnilG has been attacked by thugs who have taken over this chat session. Now they have my password and can get into my domain hosting, my blog, just about anyth
Hello! This are your friend Mr. David of America, and there is nothing strange going on here. Please my Friends, I need the Monies very importantly for the urgent Surgery of the Head. Please fill the large Envelope with American Dollars and send them with all haste to my good Friend Mr. C. Mukherjee, care of General Delivery, Mumbai, India. Thank you very much, and have the Nice Day. When I return from the Head Diseases Hospital I will see you at the restaurant of McDonald’s on Main Street in our Town of America, and we will enjoy the fried Potato while listening to the music of Madonna and Michael Jackson together. Now I must go to my bed as my Head is very, very pain. Please to hurry!