Rant of the week

Sorry bout the lack of posts recently. The net here is getting so slow after the antennae-vs.-new-system fiasco, Blogger hasn't been able to open this thing up for a week. I'm also in the middle of my exams - one down, two to go. Only one month till Christmas and today is the Buy Nothing Day. Guess I'll have to get the Christmas calendar some other time...


To get to the subject...

Since I put my email address up on my profile I've been gettting lots of spam. Fortunately, Gmail puts it all in the junk folder so I've never really minded. The spam used to be exclusivly ads for Microsoft or Windows and I've been getting it for months. Common examples might be..


OEM SoftwareTop of the Line XP Software at Guaranteed L0W PRICES
Windows XP Pro $49.95, Office 2003 at 69.95 Adobe
Win XP Special Deals today 0nly
Windows software for 80% 0ff
Windows XP
Photoshop, Windows, Office


So imagine my surprise when I opened the junk box a few days ago. It had been filling up quicker than usual and curious to see what was going on, I looked and I found:


Other guys are improving themselves..are you?
Limited time special for leading enlargement product!
Hey bro, found this site
Don't be left behing- the enlargement revolution!
Don't be the "little guy" in the club
Don't be inadequate anymore!
Take advantage of special discounts now guys!


These started arriving on November 18th. Apparently I've become male again but what do you expect... Then a few days later I got some explaining the 'enlargement process' a little more carefully.


Wow check out this huge enlargement patch sale!
Massive PE patch sale
Last offer- Discount special for PE patch almost over!


-- PE? Patches? Apparently now you can buy patches, put them on your skin, and your penis will grow. How great is that?!? Just listen to this...

A top team of British scientists and medical doctors have worked to develop the state-of-the-art Pen1s Enlargment Patch delivery system which automatically increases pen1s size up to 3-4 full inches. The patches are the easiest and most effective way to increase your size. You won't have to take pills, get under the knife to perform expensive and very painful surgery, use any pumps or other devices. No one will ever find out that you are using our product. Just apply one patch on your body and wear it for 3 days and you will start noticing dramatic results.

-- This must really work because...

Millions of men are taking advantage of this revolutionary new product - Don't be left behind!

I checked out the other emails and found that, no matter the title in the subject field, it was patches they were trying to sell.

I'm also wondering if there's a new virus coming this way - 109 junk emails with a 75kb attachment have landed in my hotmail inbox the past 5 days. I usually get one or two a day so this seems a bit extreme... Of course it could just be that someone got pissed at me and gave my address out to anyone and everyone. It's happened before.

But what I find strange about these emails is the 'From' field. Usually there's some name or numbers, something that doesn't make sense, as in the patches emails. But these are different.

yahoo.com
yahoo.se
gmail.com
hotmail.com
hotmil.com
msn.com
netscape.net
t-online.no

e-trust.be
nero.com
volvo.com
fbi.gov
cia.gov

And many, many others. Subjects are usually something to do with 'password', 'registration', 'hi, I've a new email address' or 'Paris Hilton & Nicole Richie'.

There's nothing strange with this. We all get this stuff. But such an incredible amount, all starting last Monday. Then I got one from both the FBI and the CIA telling me I visit illegal websites. Needless to say, both emails remain unopened. I don't even remember signing up for anything or giving my address to anyone for a while.

Anybody else getting this?