Monthly Archives: September 2017

Announcing: The First Annual Spamster Awards

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Announcing, the First Annual Spamster Awards

After reviewing the spam messages on my blog over the past five years, I have appointed myself to be the founder, administrator, adjudicator and guardian of the first annual Spamster Awards. I’m now taking nominations for blog Spam above and beyond normalcy, literacy, legitimacy or usefulness. To submit your nomination for worst spam of the year, check your spam folder on your blog and then copy and paste the message you wish to nominate into a comment on this blog. If it does not fall into one of the below categories, do not worry. We’ll make up a new category. Spread the word, but please be sure to send nominations only to this particular blog posting. Also, feel free to submit new category suggestions.

“Spamster” Nominations

 

For the category of most incomprehensible:

* “Help make your subject matter more at ease by presenting some form of a prop. Give you a lady a blossom to try out with or a gentleman a basketball. Give you a happy couple some bubble periodontal and get them blow bubbles jointly. You may not need to include the prop inside the frame in some instances but there may be photographs that actually work out properly together.”

* “Usually do not anticipate to you should every person using the selections you will certainly be producing. This day is designed for you, which is depending on what you like. Usually do not let anyone who may criticize get you straight down or make you improve your brain. Do what definitely makes you pleased since you will keep this in mind day time for an extended time then anyone else will.” Followed by a URL for an “images” site. ?? (nominated by Christine Goodnough)

For the category of most likely to have used a translation app for the message:

* “There is noticeably a bundle to realize about this. I assume you made specific good points in functions also.”

* “Should you suffer from a type of ringing in ears that is certainly causing a frequent “visiting” sound with your the ears, you might have a condition brought on by jaw joint misalignment, or TMJ. Watch your dentist to discover if this is your trouble.”

+ “Hi there, simply tuｒned іnto aware of your weblog via Google, and located that it is truⅼy informative. I am going to be carｅful for brussels. I’ll be grateful when youcontinue this in future. A lot of рeople might be benefited from your writing. Cheers! (Marilyn Armstrong)

For the category of comments most unrelated to the blog posting to which they were a comment:

* (In answer to my posting of a photo of a flower) “It has never been easier to judge between the transportation services, as all bloke opinions and testimonials are gathered in identical see fitted
you to pick the best. Bolt injurious supremacy and as a culminate miserable face by consulting any paraphrase website reviews.Thoroughly written testimonials purpose influence you including the approach of selecting the one and but change checking that will-power fit your needs.”

*  (spam comment to the following haiku “Fly by Night,” posted by Christine Goodnough:
Wings over hayfield/ moonlight in the hunter’s eyes;/the grasses tremble) ” I wish to express my appreciation to this writer just for rescuing me from such a situation. Because of looking through the world-wide-web and seeing advice that were not productive, I assumed my entire life was done. Existing without the presence of solutions to the difficulties you have sorted out by means of your entire guideline is a critical case, and the kind which might have negatively affected my entire career if I had not noticed your blog. The competence and kindness in handling all the things was very helpful. I don’t know what I would have done if I had not discovered such a subject like this. I am able to at this point look forward to my future. Thank you very much for this professional and sensible guide. I won’t think twice to recommend your web page to anybody who requires guide about this topic.” 

* (In answer to a posting entitled IS IT HOT OR IS IT ME? WHAT?  which is about the temperature in her house, Marilyn Armstrong got this spam message:)  “welcome you XXXX me and fill me mouth with his sweet XXX my nickname (XXXXXXX)I Want a lot of sex like role-playing games Copy the link and go to me … XXXXXXXXXyou porn gay XXXXXXX compilation gay porn of indian men tegami bachi porn porns filthiest mature ffm porn resi

For the category of editing services I’d be least likely to accept:

 * “I loved as much as you’ll receive carried out right here. The sketch is tasteful, your authored subject matter stylish. nonetheless, you command get got an shakiness over that you wish be delivering the following. unwell unquestionably come further formerly again as exactly the same nearly very often inside case you shield this increase.”

* “I cherished as much as you’ll receive performed proper here. The comic strip is tasteful, your authored material stylish. however, you command get got an nervousness over that you want be handing over the following. unwell certainly come more before once more as exactly the same just about very steadily inside of case you shield this increase.”

 * “ . I don’t call up I’d edited that line of reasoning, but i’m always editing when I reckon mistakes after posting so no one’s flaw that we can check and why would we want to anyway?”

For the category of most hilarious:

  •  “For those who have an extensive ab, your entire armoire will need to have folks gentle clothes in addition to darker coloration. Soft shades usually strengthen all of your big mid-section. Be certain to make sure make use of an actual jacket when it forbids freely flesh approach using transpiring. Rather long sleeve T-shirt can be the right kind just for you. Sidestep minimal midsection jean.” (nominated by Christine Goodnough)

Very important!!! Please be sure to substitute XXXXXXXXX for any product names, sites or other information that would identify the spammer as well as extreme obscenties.

And yes, I did receive a spam letter in response to this posting.  Of course, it was totally unrelated to the subject.

 

 

 

Spam I Love to Hate

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Ever go through your spam comments folder on your blog? If so, you must have a “Best of Spam” list—those messages so audacious or poorly written or inane that they invite a response, and yet how dare you? Any reaction at all is sure to invite more spam.

Today, I wrote this Skype message to okcforgottenman: (Remi is my alter-ego name.  If you really want to be my friend, call me Remi!!!)

[9/24/17, 2:30:41 PM] Judy/Remi: I love it when I get spam that says my blog could use some fresh content— like I haven’t posted in the last five minutes. Who posts more posts a day than I DO? I am sometimes embarrassed at the number of posts I make.  People must think I just sit around blogging all day and I have no life at all. Only way they know I do is that somehow I manage to have events to post about.

[9/24/17, 2:31:27 PM] Judy/Remi: People post a one-liner and get a million views. No one works harder for fewer views than I do!!!

[9/24/17, 2:32:29 PM] Judy/Remi: I quote : “I see your website needs some fresh articles. Writing manually takes a lot of time, but there is tool for this boring task, search for: XXXXXXX* tools for content.” 

[9/24/17, 2:32:34 PM] Judy/Remi: (Expletive deleted) !!!

*(Site deleted—why give them free advertising?)

Do you have Spam you love to hate?  If so, please share it.

Initial Diaper Duty

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New fathers often balk at tampering
with their newborn’s inaugural Pampering.
But though he’d rather be out boozing,
He’d better learn, ‘cuz Mommy’s snoozing.

The prompt today was pamper.

Sunday Trees, Sept 24, 2017

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This lone tree, seemingly miles from nowhere, is actually very near the Ajijic pier.  Good rains this season have swollen the lake again and will soon overtake this tree as they’ve overtaken the fence line further out. Here’s the rest of the story:

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See Becca’s tree and others here:  https://beccagivens.wordpress.com/2017/09/24/sunday-trees-306/

Orange Hibiscus after Rain, Flower of the Day, Sept 24, 2017

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See Cee’s luscious tulip and other flowers HERE.

Grandma’s Sneakers–Friday Fictioneers, 9/20/17

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My grandmother’s afternoons were written on her shoes––insides rubbed to fine parchment, once shiny trim worn down to dull cowhide, shoelaces loosened for easy ingress and escape, tongues swollen, vamps dusted from her habitual circling of gravel streets in search of treasures. Her pockets told the rest of the story–discarded Cracker Jack prizes, severed limbs of dolls, lost marbles, toy soldiers, single jacks separated from their families. Lined one slightly ahead of the other as though she had just stepped out of them, they told her last story that morning they carried her from her house without them.

 

To participate in this photo prompt, go here: https://rochellewisoff.com/2017/09/20/22-september-2017/

In the Catbird Seat

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Accumulated
My view to the side, overlooking the spare lot and lake.
My garden

jdbphotos. Click on first photo to enlarge all and read captions.

If you aren’t familiar with the term, “in the catbird seat,” it means to be in a position above the action or perhaps in control.  This is what I am when I’m in my studio, which has one wall entirely comprised of windows looking out on my garden and another window to my right that looks out over my spare lot down below and ultimately at the lake spread out on a lower plane with Mount Garcia and Colima Volcano behind it on the other shore.

In the Catbird Seat

After a year of no time at all in the studio, I’ve spent 4 days there in the past few weeks. It feels wonderful, even though the last day I spent there was entirely spent organizing, sorting, putting away, reorganizing.

My studio is a separate small building I had built in the garden below my house. My dogs, unaccustomed as they are to my being there, followed me down, no doubt remembering I keep a bag of dog biscuits down there. Fortified, they wandered off, but eventually returned to spend the morning outside my door––Morrie plastered horizontally across the base of the locked screen door, Diego perpendicular to him, stretched out along the brick walkway.

The kittens, relegated to the front yard and house, have seen neither the back yard nor my studio. I fear what my dogs, intent on doing away with every soft fuzzy creature that enters my yard, would do to them, even though they’ve been seeing them for almost four months now through the glass, bars and screens that form most of the walls of every room in my house.

That is why I was so distressed when I heard the plaintive meow of one of the kittens coming from the wrong direction. Not from the side of the house where they have a walled-off outside run all their own, but seemingly from the street behind the studio or from the empty lot down below me. I listened closely, hoping it was just my one hearing-impaired ear that was misdirecting the direction from which the sound was coming; but, when I stepped out into the yard, I could hear it clearly.

I called out to Pasiano, telling him I thought one of the kittens had made its way out of its safe zone.

“No, senora,” he insisted.

“Yes! Listen,” I insisted as the loud meow came again––several times.

He shook his head, laughing, and gestured up into the pistachio tree, from which one bird was cawing an insistent bird call, another creature mewing back an insistent interspecies reply. It was a bird, he told me. He led me closer to the tree and as he did, a black bird flew down from that tree to a large castor bean plant in the spare lot. The bird in the tree cawed and chirped. The bird below in the spare lot meowed back,

It was a magpie that had evidently been hanging around the kittens for too long. A mother knows her kids’ voices and this was a perfect replica of my kittens’ bossy demands to be fed.

When I told Yolanda about this strange occurrence, she laughed and said she had done exactly the same thing two days earlier, sure one of the kittens had escaped.

Now this story, as unbelievable as you might find it, has a precedent in my family. When my 11-year-older sister was a tiny girl, she was in the habit of coming to the back door and calling out, “Mommy, Mommy! This occurred so many times during the day that my mother had told her that unless it was an emergency, she should come into the house to find her instead of expecting her to drop whatever household task she was doing to come to the door. Betty heeded this request perhaps one time out of three, which was an improvement, at least.

One day, my mother heard he calling out to her, but when she came to the door, no Betty! She went back to her work on the other side of the house, only to hear he call out again. Once again, she went to the door, but no Betty. This time she called her in from her play, gave her a scolding and told her not to do it again. But Mommy, she hadn’t done it, my sister insisted, but in that way Mommy’s develop, my mom just shook her head and said, well, not to do it again.

Barely had she gotten back to the kitchen however, when she heard my sister demanding her presence again. This time really angry, she stamped back across the house to the screened-in porch to see—absolutely no one standing on the front door stoop. This time, however, the mystery was quickly solved. In a large cage on that screened in porch was a magpie with a damaged wing that my father had brought in from the ranch. Even as my mother entered the porch, he had called out once more in my sister’s voice, demanding her presence.

Most mimics only get themselves in trouble due to inappropriate material. This mimic was most adept at passing the blame. True story, as is the more recent magpie story above.

 

 

This Prompt is Irrelevant!

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This Prompt is Irrelevant

Each morning I rise early and make a cup of tea.
I feed the cats, then feed the dogs and sometimes I feed me.
Then I check out the The Daily Post to see what I can see,
propped up in bed, my laptop perched upon my knee.
Today I’m waging protest, in all sincerity,
because the prompt word given us is such an oddity.
Just how much more irrelevant could a prompt word be?
I’m sure it is unanimous, and you must agree.
Yet how can we complain of it? They give it to us free!!!

 

The prompt today is irrelevant, but I’ll write about it anyway. Ha!

 

Hibiscus: Flower of the Day, Sept. 23, 2017

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Stages of Growth

(Click on first photo to enlarge all)

A bud one day, a flower in two days more. Watching everything grow so quickly during the rainy season brings the miracles of nature constantly to mind. The kittens of three months ago are now nearly cats.  The hibiscus of three days ago is now one more plaything strung out across the bedroom floor that is their playground. They bring in every one they find. I think they think they are little mice!

 (Click on first photo to enlarge both)

Peek under the blown leaves.

 

 

Now, go here to see Cee’s flirty dahlia and other flora!  https://ceenphotography.com/2017/09/22/flower-of-the-day-september-23-2017-dahlia/

Memory Games

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Memory Games

The only thing that makes my present memory lapses at all bearable is that all of my friends seem to be having the same problems. I lose my keys, find them and before I make it out the door, lose them again.  When I drive into town, I usually forget at least twice where I am going and end up repeating again and again, “Bank to get money. Bank to get money,” or “Pick up Glenda.” The other day, however, I reached a new low.

I was about to Skype a friend to tell him where I was going and why I wouldn’t be home for the rest of the afternoon. I was going to the awards luncheon for a local news magazine. I’ve been reading this publication monthly for 16 years and submitting work to it for nearly this long. Long story short, I am very very well acquainted with its name, but suddenly, I could not for the life of me remember what it was.  I shook my head, trying to shuffle and refile my memory, but nothing popped into mental view until suddenly, the word “ajo” popped up. Ajo what? “Ajo del Agua.” It sounded sort of right but something seemed wrong. Ajo?  Garlic? Agua? Water? Why would a paper be named garlic water? Yet it seemed so right.  Ajo. Ajo. It was driving me crazy.  Oh, wait, I was already crazy.

It was disturbing me greatly and then, suddenly “Ojo del Lago” slipped into the right slot in my brain.  Yes.  “Eye of the Lake” sounded much more appropriate than “Garlic Water.”  Oy Vey.  That phrase is starting to feel ever more appropriate to express the events of my life lately.

El Ojo del Lago is a cool monthly publication also available for free online. Here is the link:

 http://chapala.com/elojo/

If you have a story or poem you think might be appropriate, they are always looking for submissions.