Sharing in delicious

I know, I know. It’s been over two weeks since I’ve posted anything. I’d like to say it’s because I’ve been busy, and while that’s technically true, it has nothing to do with producing creative content for either my website or my portfolio. I designed a layout that I don’t like for my next picture book project, but other than that I’ve played my way through eight or nine Nancy Drew point-and-click adventure mysteries in my spare time. Yes, I’m still on that kick. Fortunately, I ran out of Nancy Drew games last night, which means I might have the time to start working on my novel. Again.

The one consistent duty I perform for my website is daily spam-trashing. Despite my radio silence I keep on receiving comment notices from the seventeen thousand spambots that have not yet figured out that I will never approve their comments for public consumption. Still, If I didn’t have 70+ comments to delete every day, then I would never have received this gem:

Wonderful site. Plenty of useful information here. I’m sending it to a few buddies ans additionally sharing in delicious. And certainly, thanks in your sweat!

 

In honor of this rousing endorsement, here’s some of my delicious sweat, first perspired out sometime during either my sophomore or junior year in college:

“He’s not…connected right.”

The man looked over at Yola sharply.  She was sitting calmly on the couch, no sort of chains or ropes in sight, though he knew she was bound with several of the strongest seals in the world.  Any other person (besides her two older siblings) and the binders themselves would have killed her.  He shuddered.   Unnecessary or not, he’d still feel better if they’d tied her to the chair.

“Not connected right?” he said with a frown, ignoring his orders not to speak with her.  What could she do?  “You mean he’s crazy.”

No!” she said angrily.  “Well, yes.  But no!  What I mean is…well.” She huffed to herself, trying to get the right words to come.  “Okay,” she finally said.  “You’ve heard that I have the most power, right?” He nodded. “Good,” she stated with a nod.  “And that I also have the least control?”

He nodded again. It made sense.  The girl wasn’t even a teenager yet.  She had little experience.  But her conversation was obviously leading him somewhere else… “You mean I’d be wrong?”

“No,” she said.  He saw her neck muscles strain for a second, the only sign that she was trying to break free. “You’d be right. And completely wrong too.”

He frowned, willing her to go on.

“I have the most usable power, but I screw up because I don’t quite know how to control it all.  It’s hard,” she added defensively, as though he had admonished her. He had done nothing of the kind, and would thank her to remember it. “Like holding electricity in your palms and trying not to let it escape while at the same time you’re using it to light a light bulb.  Sometimes you put too much in and the light bulb just blows up.”

He eyed her nervously, remembering suddenly what she was and wishing, again, that they had at least tied her up, if only for his peace of mind. She grinned suddenly and he got the feeling that Yola knew exactly what was on his mind.

“You’re really dumb,” she said cheerfully, “if you think blowing up a light bulb is the same as being able to escape the Flamish binds.”

Anyways,” Yola continued, and he missed the way her fingers twitched because some idiot, she thought with an amused crinkling of her nose, had bound her with her hands behind her back where they couldn’t see what she was doing with them, “it’s…it’s hard to explain properly. It’s like he has it, but no access to it.  Like, he has more power than me and Bethla combined, but he can’t use it like me and Bethla because…well, because he’s not connected right.”

The man frowned.  Again with this “not connected right” business.  Was he loony or not? That’s what he wanted to know.

“Just…don’t push my brother.” For the first time she looked afraid, and that freaked him out.

“What?” he demanded, with all the false bravado he could muster. How long ago had he lost the lead in this conversation? “You’re afraid he’ll kill me?  Kill my boss?”

“Oh no,” she said, her face calmly serious. “I’ll kill you myself as soon as I have the chance.”

Mouth dry, he tried not to step backwards, though it would do him no good.

“Funny.” She smiled and bared her teeth at him, suddenly amused again.  “You guys always forget that we’re not really human.  Kael tried his best,” she continued with a mock frown that didn’t reach her eyes, “but you can’t teach someone to care about a species that isn’t your own.  Funny thing is, he cares the most out of all of us.” She made a small movement with her head, indicating “loose connections,” which she should not have been able to do, but the man didn’t think such a small movement really mattered.  Yola smiled, glad her small slip had gone unnoticed.  Stupid.  Who put a guy who obviously had no experience with strong elemental binds in charge of guarding her?  They were so dumb.

The smile slid from her face. “No,” she said again, eyes darkly serious.  “I’m saying that if you push my brother, he’ll kill us all.”

A Rare Steak in a Stark Blog

I have the most amazing series of spam messages in my website inbox. I’ve only deleted about 70 such comments in the last three days, but I couldn’t quite bear to trash these along with the rest of them yet. They are, in order:

I’m not sure what FIREFOX is – probably a browser. Is it similar to Netscape and Internet Explorer? What are its good features and its bad features?.

This one feels eerily human-generated, and the plea for information is itself in pretty good grammatical shape if you ignore the two punctuation points at the end. However, it’s written by someone with the unlikely name of “Borislava Gorbatova” in their email address. I smell a nefarious Russian plot to sell me a child bride. I think I’ll go ahead and just leave that one alone.

Sorry for off-topic, I am thinking about making an enlightening web-site for kids. May probably commence with publishing interesting facts such as “Banging you head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.”

While this sounds purposefully hilarious, Joe from farmaciapancino.it confuses what I thought were comedic intentions by immediately tacking on an additional request at the end: “Please let me know if you know where I can find some related information like here” (and yes, sans period). Uh. The last time I purposefully exercised was with my mother’s Zumba starter kit. On the other hand, I am curious about how long you have to bang your head against a wall to burn 150 calories. Not to mention how you go about measuring that sort of thing in a scientifically consistent manner.

If you’re interest in winning millions, then I’m here to help!

This was actually just an advertisement for a Casino website (¡Hacer giros para ganar millones!), but there’s something delightful about being welcomed into my inbox every day with an offer of millions. I feel better about myself each time I sort through my unmarked spam.

I am glad to be a visitant of this stark blog, thanks for this rare info!

Either nellOrex misplaced her compliment (and yes, that would be the same spambot that told me I was mistaken about my last blog; I’m understandably suspicious of her tonal change), or she’s onto the fact that my updates are rare. On my stark blog.

I’m putting that in as my new sub-header:

The Story Folder.
A stark blog.

Of mostly ramblings.

A burbling gibber of jabber

I’m going to hit up the random thoughts I have tumbling around in my skull this evening. Because content.

  1. Business update first. After sitting down at my computer to write yesterday, I spent three and some odd hours re-uploading content. My art portfolio is gone because I decided that that wasn’t what I wanted to showcase on my site. However, I have reorganized all of my category labels and now if you click “art” on the main sidebar, you can view all of my blog posts with art in them.
  2. I’ve been sitting here for half an hour happy-crying over puppy surprise videos. I’m not entirely certain how I ended up on this side of YouTube again. Every time I think I’m over it, they pop back into my viewing cycle. In another two days I’ll be onto the pregnancy announcements, because for some reason it is actually really fun to enjoy other people’s joy.
  3. I’ve been working my way through a collection of HP Lovecraft stories during my lunch breaks (and now over supper – apparently I read while I eat), and there is absolutely nothing like having a Portal parody of the song “Dumb Ways to Die” going in the background to really destroy the atmosphere. Why no, Mr. Akely, there’s nothing suspicious about the sudden tonal change in your letters coupled with an invitation out to your farm in the middle of nowhere. I’ll be there on the 4 o’clock train with all the evidence of foulest play you mailed to me six months before. Be sure to send the outside beings of Yuggoth to meet me.
    1. Sincerely, Mr. Wilmarth of Arkham, Massachusettes
    2. Professor of Literature, Miskatonic University
    3. Amateur Folklorist
    4. Sucker
    5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SSdTXNK2mo
  4. This is now the best comment I’ve ever received in my life: “Conceive this internet internet site contains some rattling amazing information for every person.”
  5. There is no where else to go but down.
  6. Hmm.
  7. There were other things milling around my head, but they’re gone now. I should probably go write a story.
  8. A rattling amazing one.

They found me. I don’t know how, but they found me.

I have absolutely nothing of interest to say, except that the Chinese have found me. I go through my unapproved comments anywhere from five to seven times a day, and there’s usually one to three comments written in Chinese waiting for my almighty hand to flush them down the spam hole.

Of course, now that I’ve linked a YouTube video here on The Story Folder (and yes, that’s a capital The), my spam folder should have a heyday with the sudden influx of bots. Ah well. It gives me something to do when I’m supposed to be working on my novel.

In other news, between privacy issues and echo-chamber shenanigans, I’m looking into Google substitutes. So far I’m

  1. Trying out Brave Browser (which has a built-in adblocker)
  2. Using duckduckgo as my search engine
  3. But
  4. With no real clue as to decent email alternatives.

As for YouTube, I’m not even go to try giving that up. Way too many cat videos to quit.

I congratulate, it seems remarkable idea to me is

My personal spam minx is only a few short compliments away from coaxing me into approving her comments. “I congratulate, it seems remarkable idea to me is” now officially ranks as my go-to commendation in any and all situations. Engaged? I congratulate, it seems remarkable idea to me is. Having a baby? I congratulate, it seems remarkable idea to me is. Bereaving the death of a loved one? I congratulate, it seems remarkable idea to me is. There is no end to the uses I have for this comment.

I have nothing of particular note to say, so have a piece of an idea I was working on the other day:

“What did you do?”

“I humiliated my CO in front of a superior. He blamed me for this assignment. Thought it was my fault he was passed over for promotion.”

Sanderson gave him a look. “Was it?”

Barnaby snorted, more disdainful than amused. “You don’t need to scuttle a sinking ship.”

“But you did scuttle it,” Sanderson clarified, grin starting to form around his mouth.

Barnaby coughed, trying to look less pleased with himself. “I did at that.”

I say “the other day” but that actually translates to “a couple months ago.” I should probably work on my focus.

Speaking of which, I’m not sure if I’m productive or lazy. A new poem, “Color this Land,” is the juxtaposition of trying to be both simultaneously.

No, really: THESE ARE NOT THE DROIDS YOU’RE LOOKING FOR

I receive three or four spam comments a week. The system default is set so that I have to approve any emails I don’t recognize, which keeps them from cluttering up my website with delightful offers for sexy videos (and/or POWERFUL and PRIVATE web traffic services). The strangest part of this isn’t the offers themselves – I’d be almost hurt if the spambots weren’t on to me – but that in the past three months every single one of them has been posted to either “These are not the droids you’re looking for” or “These are possibly the droids you’re looking for, but no money-back guarantee.”

In other words, my Jedi mind powers aren’t working. I’m not entirely certain how to get them to move along, but FOR THE LOVE OF PETE THESE ARE NOT THE DROIDS YOU’RE LOOKING FOR.

The best part is the amateurish attempts these spammers use to wholesale spam different blogs across the spectrum using the same canned response. I have received the most wonderfully generic compliments and/or criticisms this way. And yes, I actually received criticism from a spambot.”In my opinion you are not right. I am assured. I can defend the position. Write to me in PM.” And then a follow-up comment from the same fake email: “And you have understood?”

Uh…no. Not really. You disagreed with me on a post announcing that I had created an art portfolio on my website.

Spam is written with the same specificity that horoscope forecasters use to fake you into thinking there’s something particularly cosmic about the idea that it might behoove you to keep an open mind when meeting new people and/or opportunities that day. It’s worse though, probably because it’s written in second-hand English, and isn’t quite generic enough for one-size-fits-all. Mind you, I am a little tempted to have Vera at sexybang defend her position on why I shouldn’t have a tab for art on TheStoryFolder. She sounds so confident of her opinion. I do admire that kind of self-assurance.

In other news, this entire spiel is to deflect my two watchers from the realization that I didn’t feel like illustrating the next poem I’m uploading, but instead went insane with the gradient tool in Clipart. “Already Done” is a poem about the unfathomable depths of forgiveness, and if I’m not careful people are going to start assuming all I do on my website is write religious poetry. Scout’s honor, I really do write stories for The Story Folder. I’ve got a couple of excellent ones on the back-burner while I work on my novel, but in the meantime here is another basic tenet of my faith as written by Dr. Seuss.

https://thestoryfolder.com/poetry/already-done/

I meant to have a more intricate border to try and goad my watchers into thinking I’d put some effort in, but I’ve spent way too much time fighting with Clipart this morning as it is. It’s still a good idea to upload these poems as media files, just because it keeps the lines in each verse from spilling over into oblivion and confusing my readers about the underlying rhythm of the piece, but I just could not visualize a good design for this piece and it shows. Yes, that’s right folks; not only am I apathetic about my poetry this morning, I have the great gall to admit it.


Bonus fact:

“These are possibly the droids you’re looking for, but no money-back guarantee” is actually listed under the url “/this-is-not-the-update-you’re-looking-for-2” because there is actually a “/this-is-not-the-update-you’re-looking-for-1.” I actually used the same post title twice, not realizing that I was plagiarizing not only Star Wars in that instance, but myself. I disguised the incident by my usual methods: word-vomit.