Spam, Thy Name is Joe

So, apparently, I'm spam.

I logged onto Blogger.com to do a little post – about what, I'm sure I've forgotten – and discovered that the service had automatically locked my blog. I'm suspected of running a Spam Blog.

No shit.

What the eff, one wonders, is a spam blog? Well, according to the nice folks at Blogger:

As with many powerful tools, blogging services can be both used and abused. The ease of creating and updating web pages with Blogger has made it particularly prone to a form of behavior known as link spamming. Blogs engaged in this behavior are called spam blogs, and can be recognized by their irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text, along with a large number of links, usually all pointing to a single site.

Spam blogs cause various problems, beyond simply wasting a few seconds of your time when you happen to come across one. They can clog up search engines, making it difficult to find real content on the subjects that interest you. They may scrape content from other sites on the web, using other people's writing to make it look as though they have useful information of their own. And if an automated system is creating spam posts at an extremely high rate, it can impact the speed and quality of the service for other, legitimate users.

Nice, huh?

Talk about the ultimate in editorial commentary. Blogger thinks my posts are "irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text, along with a large number of links, usually all pointing to a single site."

Ouch.

Certainly it would never occur to them that the site I'm pointing to so much is my own Flickr account, and the only reason I use it is 'cuz – as someone who has a passing familiarity with HTML code – I find it quicker and easier to simply hard code images into my posts rather than using their ever-so-fabulous-for-neophytes-but-unnecessarily -complicated-for-me image import tool.

So here I sit, with a locked blog. It's about 11 p.m. on Wednesday night, and I'm told I have to wait up to two business days for Blogger to look at my blog and decide if I'm a spammer or not.

Let the countdown begin!

I'm not angry that Blogger locked my blog and I have to wait a couple days to get it unlocked.

I'm angry that their fucking spam detector judged me an inadequately sensical writer.

This is My New Anthem

Am I a Geek?

Why, yes. Yes, I am.

Hello Again, Naturally.

I noted this morning, with dawning horror, that I've not blogged at you in quite a while. I fawningly beg forgiveness.

I'm not entirely sure if it's that I've been uninspired, or if I've just felt that there's nothing too exciting going on in my world, but for some reason or another, I just don't seem to be able to get it together to blog.

I'm sure it has mostly to do with the fact that I have absolutely no time at The Velvet Prison™, where (I shouldn't be admitting this) most of these things are posted, if not written. Since I've been without a computer of my own at home, a lot of this stuff gets written on the computer of Betty Boop, but I'm loathe to over-use her computer, just because I don't want to be the computer-using version of the house guest that overstays his welcome.

So, how to catch you up?

Well, many of you know that I applied for a permanent position at The Velvet Prison™, looking, as it were, to extend my employment incarceration indefinitely.

Alas, that job, though I thought it was perfect for me given my years of working with small arts organizations, was one for which I was not even worthy of an interview. Go figure.

Undaunted (okay, maybe really daunted for a little while, but then later undaunted), I decided to apply for a position in the very department I'm now working, as one of its members had decided to move on to greener pastures. Well, maybe not so much greener as pastures that weren't fenced in. He decided to go freelance and pursue other (read: incredibly less corporate) interests.

This past week, I interviewed with HR, and now the wait has begun. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Happy Valentines Day, Fozz

Inappropriate Crush #557

It's been a while since I've had an Inappropriate Celebrity Crush, but I think I've remedied that. I've kinda fallen for Dave Annable, late of ABC's Sunday night soap Brothers & Sisters.

He's got all the earmarks of the perfect innapropriate crush:

How old is he, you ask? Oh, my friends, this handsome little devil was born in 1979. Which makes him fifteen years my junior. Definitely inappropriate.

Is he available, you ask? Hardly. His show films on the other side of a vast continent, and he don't have much reason to hang out in my neighborhood. Tres inappropriate.

Why, is he even gay, you wonder? Well, that's a little moot, ain't it? The whole point of an inappropriate crush is that it's fantastic in the truest sense of the word! Who cares if he's gay, he's cute!

So once again I'm moon-eyed over a perfectly perfect, perfectly unavailable man. They're so easy to fall for.

Kill Me Now, Please.

Who says Americans are stupid?

Dios Mio

I really don't know what to say about this. It can't possibly be real:

Public Service

So I'm out to do my bit to help the Reunion Committee for the West Allegheny Senior High School Class of 1982.

There's a whole list of people we've completely lost track of, so I'm going to list their names here in the hope that they – being every bit as vain as I am – might Google themselves sometime soon and find that we're looking for them. If that's the case, here's hoping they'll figure out how to contact me and get me to pass their information on the interested committee members.

And yes, I'm horrified that it's been a quarter of a century since I graduated high school:

Sandy Arrigo
Dee Banks
Ernie Banks
Renee Barrett
Dale Bistarkey
Dave Blum
Tina Bruno
Virginia Celich
Gary Conti
Lisa Czak
Bob Dayton
Chris DeMarco
Deborah Devine
Tom Ehle
Ed Feller
Jim Frankel
Scott Gardner
Sean Gardner
Darlene Gazda
Patti George
Diahn Gill
Lon Grant
Tim Greck
Kathy Hart
Sue Hart
Lorraine Hayes
David Healey
Guy Holeva
Kim Ickes
Allan J. LeGrande
Russ Leonard
Linda Liggitt
Jim Mannas
John Marlatt
Jeff Mayo
Keith McGregor
Gary McMurtrie
Carrie McVay
John Meneskie
Bob Partin
Michelle Perok
Joyce Peters
Dee Ramsey
Lou Rance
Linda Reilly
Maryann Riley
Essie Robes
Gary Ryan
Pat Schienle
Mike Schwalm
Dan Scott
Ed Sheffield
Sean Sullivan
Tresa Toward
Mary Beth Urso
Emile Vettorel
Sylvia Volle
Linda Wilson
Sherri Wilson
Scott Yingling
Elaine Yost
Tom Yost
Mara Zankel

Keep your fingers crossed.

I'm Just Kidding

Will success spoil Rock Hunter? Now that the Barats & Bereta guys have a development deal with NBC, suddenly I don't find them as funny.

It's probably just sour grapes: