Reilly Grant

Somehow the spammers have figured out a way to post spam comments to this blog without getting an email notification sent to me.  (Since all comments have to be approved before they appear on the site.)  I’m not sure this is a win for them, since I didn’t even notice there were any comments to moderate until a few days ago.  This is probably a Wordpress bug and I’ll be upgrading to the latest version soon.

The funny part about all this was the different kinds of spam comments I was getting.  For those who don’t know how this works, the reason that spammers try to post comments on blogs is to affect search engine rankings.  If they can get many sites to include mentions of their product or even better, a link to their webpage, it increases their search ranking.  To this end most “link spam” you’ll see will include a long list of search terms (drugs, porn or both) and if the site allows HTML tags in comments these terms will be links.  Clicking through the over 250 bogus postings I found a breed that was much more clever.  Instead of random terms and links (which can easily be flagged by automatic filters) the comment body was one of a number of variations on, “Hi, first I want to say nice blog. I don’t always agree with your posts but it’s always a nice read. Keep up the great work.”  That’s right, my comment spam was complementing me.  Some other entertaining ones included, “Just got my new iPhone and this blog looks great on it.” and “Sory, delete plz. ”  How are these link spam?  Well, somebody figured out that Wordpress lets you specify a website and email address as the author information for the comment.  They still get their rank boosting link and all they have to come up with is a reasonable sounding comment and they’re more likely to get approved.  I must say, the tactic almost worked.  While the comments that say nothing but “VIAGRA VIAGRA VIAGRA” are easy to filter out, each of these required careful reading and a check against the posting they were replying to to tell the difference between a new loyal reader and clever spambot.

If any of you spammers are reading this: Good job, nice try, now GO AWAY!

Graders really should compare handwriting between homeworks turned in to prevent people doing other people’s homework, in case a different person does it every time. Of course, if you’re comparing handwriting you should do it in good light, such as outside on a bright sunny day. If the handwriting samples are on pizza, however, one mustn’t leave it out too long in the sun or else the writing may become difficult to read due to melted cheese.

My thought processes at 1AM… Who needs drugs when you can just be tired.

I was hanging out on IRC and someone posted a link to this comic from Sequential Art.  So far I seem to be doing well in the finding good web comics department.  Sequential Art is the story of Art, a graphic designer for an advertising firm, and his two room mates; Kat Vance a catgirl and photographer, Pip McGraw a penguin and comic book guy and Scarlet, a squirrel girl with a manic personality, but who seems to possess a detailed knowledge of science and technology; when she is not distracted by shiny things.  I’m only on comic 200, at some point there are 4 squirrel girls.  Either Scarlet finds some friends or gets put into a cloning machine, either would be par for the course with this webcomic.

Similar to MegaTokyo and Ctrl-Alt-Del this is a comic set in a gamer’s world.  (Which explains the cat and bunny girls.)  Along with dealing with the normal slice of life adventures one encounters when living with a catgirl, a perverted penguin and a lunatic squirrel girl, there seems to be a developing plot involving a small black evil thing dropped off by a random nerd in the first couple dozen strips.

That’s all for now, I have more to read.  Stay tuned for a review of D.C. Simpson’s new comic / graphic novel Raine Dog.

I’m noticing a similarity between the humor in Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire and Ozy and Millie.  A lot of panels are funny because the punch line is completely random, unpredictable, and in fact, makes very little logical sense.  Complete nonsense, but I at least find it hysterical.  Maybe I like it because it’s such a surprise.  Here’s an example: continue reading…

Now that I have a blog Rafi seems to be reminding everyone to read it in every other post.  Anyways, since this obviously means I’m going to get a deluge of traffic any day now, I might as well give you all something to read.

A list of websites I’ve spent way to much time reading in a single sitting:

• bash.org – This site is hilarious, and it never ends.
• en.wikipedia.org – I read the Japanese version too, but don’t understand it.
• tvtropes.org – Like Wikipedia, but better.
• dominic-deegan.com – >1500 strips in a week, oh yea!
• Better Days – midnight to 5AM, what was I thinking?
• mymomisafob.com – I wish this were my mom.

Edit:  I recall that at one point there was a Pokémon fanfic that I managed to click through hours and hours of.  What was worse than the writing was that weird feeling you get after staring at the screen for 4 hours straight in exactly the same position.