Saturday, July 22, 2006

Today is Rebecca and mine 6th anniversary. It hasn't gone as well as we'd like; she didn't sleep well last night, so we didn't get to see the Cardinals play tonight. Also, on the way back from my parents, I got nailed for speeding on I-66 just inside the Beltway. No speed trap or "police brutality" anything of the sort, just carelessness on my part, I let the speed get away from the low 60s to the low 70s.

So today hasn't been the greatest day for either of us.

Tomorrow, we might hang out with a friend, or go see The Devil Wears Prada, in addition to the church-y stuff. Monday, we'll be helping out with a Lions Youth Exchange cookout -- it'll be at a Lions camp off of Route 50. Hopefully the students won't be late in arriving like they were last year ...

Here's the spam count since the last time I posted.

Male performance 22-53 total
Cheap stuff 18-65 total
Loans 16-55 total
Free stuff 15-72 total
Stock tips 14-57 total
Self-improvement 8-22 total
Porn 3-18 total
Casinos 3-10 total
Meet women 1-8 total
Blank 1-8 total
Offline scams 1-6 total

Subcategories:
Spanish 4-23 total. The weirdest one yet was an advertisement for a Chilean sushi restaurant. WTF?!?
Chinese 1-5 total
Undetermined Asian 1-5 total
French 1-1 total. My first spam in French.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

My vacation is beginning! I went out to the Malibu Grill Steakhouse for lunch and then went grocery shopping. I couldn't do that much since I slept until 11am and Rebecca was working but tomorrow we are headed out to her parents.

Here's the spam count since the last time I posted. I got my first Portuguese spam, which is kinda fitting, since the Malibu Grill is a Brazilian churruscaria in which the workers come by your table with skewers of meat. I'd recommend it only if you skip a meal. :-)

Total 52 - 279
#1 Free stuff 2 - 57
#5 Male performance 3 - 31
#2 Cheap stuff 17 - 47
#4 Loans 11 - 39
#7 Self-improvement 6 - 14
#6 Porn 4 - 15
#9 Meet women 0 - 7
#3 Stock tips 4 - 43
#11 electronic scams 2 - 6
#12 offline scams 2 - 5
#10 Casinos 0 - 7
#13 Political 0 - 1
#8 Blank 1 - 7

Spanish 7 - 19
Japanese 0 - 3
Chinese 0 - 4
Undetermined Asian 2 - 4
Portuguese 1 - 1
Gender-inappropriate 0 - 0

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Well, my vacation will start soon. At 7:30pm today, I am off until the 1st of August. So my spam counting will be a bit sporadic, hopefully I can make a few posts while I'm off work.

Here's the count since I started this on Saturday.

Total 226
55 Free products 13
39 Stock tips 8
28 Mortgage/loans 7
30 Low cost products 6
28 Male performance 6
8 Other self-improvement 1
7 Meet women 1
6 Entirely blank 1
3 419/offline 1
10 Porn 0
4 PayPal/eBay 0
7 Casino/gambling 0
1 Political 0

Subcategories
12 Spanish 2
3 Japanese 0
4 Chinese 0
2 Undetermined Asian 0

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Hey all. Fark is a-buzz with discussion of a suspected viral marketing campaign. What fun! Let me see if my knowledge of HTML tables still applies. 25 spams since the last update and a total of 182.

Total so farCategory# since last update
31Stock tips4
24Low cost products4
22Male performance4
21Mortgage/loans3
10Porn2
4PayPal/eBay2
42Free products1
7Casino/gambling1
7Other self-improvement1
6Meet women1
5Entirely blank1
2419/offline1
1Political

0

Subcategories
10Spanish3
3Japanese1
4Chinese0
2Undetermined Asian0
It's day 2 of the East Coast heatwave. It's a Code Red day, but I figure I can try to brave it out walking. Or, maybe, I'll just wuss out again and take a cab to and from work.

Well, two more days until I am on vacation, which will last until the end of the month.

I saw an interview with Elizabeth Smart on Good Morning America. It was kinda sad, really, she just seemed so nervous/robotic/scared ... she didn't have terribly much to say. I wonder if she is going to have a "true confession" some 15 or 20 years down the road.

Here's the Spam list for today. 26 spams since the last update, 157 in total.

41 Free products 9 today
27 Stock tips 5 today
20 Low cost products 4 today
18 Male performance 4 today
18 Mortgage/loans 2 today
8 Porn 1 today
5 Meet women 1 today
6 Casino/gambling
6 Other self-improvement
4 Entirely blank
2 PayPal/eBay
1 419/offline
1 Political

7 Spanish 1 today
4 Chinese 1 today
2 Japanese
2 Undetermined Asian

Monday, July 17, 2006

Spam update. I got 25 spams since I last posted. 132 total so far.

Categories:
#2 Stock tips 8 (22)
#3 Low cost products 5 (16)
#1 Free products 4 (32)
#4 Mortgage/loans 3 (16)
#5 Male performance 2 (14)
#7 Other self-improvement 2 (6)
#9 Entirely blank 1 (4)
#6 Porn 0 (8)
#8 Casino/gambling 0 (6)
#10 Meet women 0 (4)
#11 PayPal/eBay 0 (2)
#12 419/offline scams 0 (1)
#13 Political 0 (1)

Sub-categories
#1 Spanish 3 (6)
#2 Chinese 0 (3)
#3 Japanese 0 (2)
#4 Undetermined Asian 0 (2)

Gender-inappropriate 0 (0)
I was talking with Randy and Iad (two co-workers) about my spam collection. Iad suggested that in the blank spams might have white-on-white text. The odd thing about those is that the subject and even sender fields are blank. Randy suggested that sometimes a spammer will include a link to an image -- but the image host's account got cancelled. This too could lead to issues.
Interesting. I notice that stock tips seem to have surged up today. We'll see if this a Monday-only thing or if weekday spam is different from weekend spam.

Spam categories (107 total)
Free products 7 (28)
Stock tips 9 (14)
Mortgage/loans 5 (13)
Male performance 2 (12)
Low cost products 3 (11)
Porn 2 (8)
Casino/gambling 4 (6)
Meet women 1 (4)
Other self-improvement 0 (4)
Entirely blank 1 (3)
PayPal/eBay scams 1 (2)
419/money-based scams 0 (1)
Political spam 0 (1)

Sub-categories
Chinese 1 (3)
Spanish 1 (3)
Japanese 0 (2)
Undetermined Asian 1 (2)
Gender-inappropriate 0 (0)
Well, I am checking my email once more. 35 spams, a few bills, but only a couple of real emails. Spam diary in the next post.

It'll be hot today. I'm probably going to drive up to the Ballston Mall then take a cab in this morning. Tonight it should have cooled down a bit by 7:30pm, so I'll walk to the Metro and then drive back home.

At small group, we debated the meaning of Revelations 20:11-15, the Final Judgment. How can we compare Paul's insistence on salvation through faith and this passage's assertion that "each person was judged according to what he had done?" Perhaps we might be comforted that we should not be dead at that time, but instead sharing in our new life in Christ.

My own opinion -- we all begin with our names in the "book of life." When we accept Christ, we stop trying to erase our names, and instead accept His gift -- part of which is having our names in that book. I would think that any God capable of infinite mercy would be capable of handling relatively minor (on a God-scale) problems such as the virtuous unbaptized. Even C.S. Lewis in the Last Battle allows for the possibility that the unbaptized might enter Heaven; and so, too, should we as Christians.

My continuing prayers for those in the Mideast.

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Oh yeah -- one more thing. When I heard about the shiznit going down between Israel and Hizbollah/Lebanon, I bought 100 shares of the US Oil ETF. I've made about $70 on it so far, and we'll see what happens from there. I made a bet on some S&P puts when Ben raised rates another 25 basis points at the end of last month.

Of course the next question: Is it immoral to profit off of instability thusly? Would the misery that'd occur if Syria or Iran were somehow directly involved be worth me making a few hundred (or even a couple grand) extra dollars? Or am I merely an observer of world events, and since I am not the cause of this misery, any money I make from wise (for that environment) investment choices merely astuteness on my part?

I will donate 50% of any capital gains to causes devoted to ending the suffering on both the Palestinian and Israeli sides. Peace will only come when people are tired of the violence (Northern Ireland) or if one side is beaten into submission (World War II.) In either case -- there will be suffering.
In other good news: at the Uplift camp at Harding University over the 4th of July, seven of our teens chose to be baptized. I am praying that their faith can remain strong as they grow as Christians. I like to say that I am a practicing Christian; one day I will get good at it.

In other good news: Arlington church has hired a minister, Kurt Norton. He accepted the position earlier this week and it was put into this week's bulletin.

Well, right now it is off to the small group -- this week's topic will be faith vs. works. Rebecca and I got the book we are studying yesterday. See you guys soon! The next entry of my spam diary will be tomorrow. I also typed up the original article referred to in my last post, but I forgot to email it to myself (I typed it on the downstairs computer, which I prefer using since it has all the cool games on it but only a dial-up Internet connection.) I'll copy and paste the original French article in here as well.
Hello everyone! It's Sunday morning. My sister told me yesterday that she is engaged to her boyfriend. Rather ironic, since both sisters-in-law have been dating their boyfriends longer than Rebecca and I have been dating -- and Abby and John got married last year and now Dave and Jennifer will get married, probably this fall.

My wife and I are going to go out to eat before going to church and I figured it was time to check my email. No legitimate emails, of course. But 30 pieces of spam since I last posted and that makes for 72 total.

I had to add a new category, completely blank, since two spammers were so completely incompetent they could not send even an advertisement. Also, there was one piece of spam that was porn as it had a picture of some girl's cleavage, but the ISO coding was so munged that I couldn't figure if it was Japanese or Chinese. I can usually tell the two apart by seeing the hiragana or katakana symbols in Japanese.

I've got a little side project, too. If any of the two souls reading this blog (I don't even think my mom reads it) can figure out anything about the French singer Danièle Dupré, let me know. I saw her singing on Youtube a few weeks ago. I thought she was attractive. My wife didn't have an opinion on that, but she (like me) loved the voice. I have another pic of her taken scanned from an EP cover I found for sale on Priceminister and will put it up as soon as I figure out how to post images.

Don't look on Wikipedia, I wrote that after a few hours of Googling. Yes, that's all I could find, even pages in French.) And the magazine cover on there? Yes, I spent $17 to get that (it was something like $16.50 when I placed the order. By the time the order cleared all the hoops, it was $17. Stupid exchange rates...) I ordered another magazine that claims to have an interview with her; it should be arriving any day now. It'll be interesting to see, basically, "what happened" to her. As far as the Interweb is concerned, she fell off the face of the Earth.

Now, she obviously wasn't a superstar on the level of the Platters (multiple #1 hits, etc.), but certainly a Eurovision performance would count as a Top Ten hit, warranting some page somewhere dedicated to her. (Look, for instance, what comes up when I look for the Bobbettes, who had essentially one big hit "Mr. Lee" and a few minor hits.) From what I can dig up, it seems she released several EPs on Polydor -- at least five -- so I figure she probably had a couple of songs reach the bottom of the French Top 40.

But my point is that I am slowly translating the article. It's a nice piece of fluff you'd expect from a radio/TV weekly (La Semaine Radiophonique, to be exact) from 11/19/1957.

I got about halfway through when I realized I probably should just type it all up in French first and save *THAT* as a file. Then, I can enlist the help of French scholars to understand idioms and alternate meanings of words ... and quickly cut and paste any references. BTW, Babelfish alone is useless, but I'm sure you already knew that. Wordreference seems potentially useful.

On to the spam count.

Free products 10 (21)
Male performance 3 (10)
Mortgage/loans 4 (8)
Low cost products 2 (8)
Porn 4 (6)
Stock tips 3 (5)
Other self-improvement 0 (4)
Meet women 1 (3)
Entirely blank 2 (2)
Casino/gambling 1 (2)
PayPal/eBay scams 0 (1)
419/money-based scams 0 (1)
Political spam 0 (1)

Sub-categories
Chinese 1 (2)
Japanese 1 (2)
Spanish 0 (2)
Undetermined Asian 1 (1)
Gender-inappropriate 0 (0)