We had a nasty email crisis today. Some lowlife spammer sent out about 1,000,000,000 spam emails with our email address as the “reply to”. All the bounces — “Delivery failed”, “Invalid address”, “Sender must confirm address”, etc., etc., came to our box.More than 9,000 of them were there at one point — 225MB of mail in one day, according to our ISP. The box had to be cleared out, and then we started over.
So… If you emailed us in the last twenty-four hours or so, and don’t get a reply within a couple of days, send it again (if it’s important). Some of the emails came in, but we’re probably missing a lot of others.
To add insult to injury, our satellite connection has been down most of the day.
Another lost weekend.
18 comments:
It wasn't all *that* bad. You went to church with me and then, ta da, got some light bulbs at Lowe's.
OTOH, it was embarrassing that I was wandering in Barnes and Noble after they closed and the policeman wouldn't let you in to get me. It didn't look closed to me.
Oh well, not much on entrances, but I sure can make an exit.
And let us pray for those spammers we got a contract out on. In fact, they'd be a good jihad target. "Putting hatred and mayhem to good use."
Quite right, m'dear.
There's also all that seafood we ate...
ln--
Leave another comment bomb like this one and I'll send your grudgy soul into Limbo on this comment thread.
How dare you decide what is important and what is not? Who made you God when no one was looking? What this small group of very dissimilar people is attempting to do is important and your sneering dismissal of their efforts does not affect that.
However, it affects me, and I will not put up with your ugly talk. "Nonsense" indeed! These people are making an honest effort and you are out of bounds in your condescension and moral righteousness.
Any more ugly talk and I'll delete your words. I put that post up as a Christmas piece, and that's all it was meant to be. Go be your bah-humbug Scrooge self where I don't have to see it.
You can insult me and my post, old man, but I can also delete you, and I will. Want to be snarky and mean? Then start your own darn blog and do it there where I don't have to see your insults. DO NOT track your muddy boots thru here or I'll mop them up.
dm60462--
Nope, everyone spoke English, including the Hispanics. The service was great and the mixture of employees was white, Hispanic, black. The Hispanic employee told me where to find the light bulb we were looking for, the young white woman cut the window shade and advised us to measure each window separately before having any more cut; she also found the correct hardware for the installation, and a pleasant black woman checked us out. Definitely a nioe mixture of people.
I love Lowe's.
So that's where all my "Santa" mail went.......!!
exile--
What a bummer. Maybe you could send it again. Santa also reads minds, which helps.
Just to be sure, leave him a note, though. Make it large print -- his bifocals interfere with his reading.
dm60642 - Lowes here in central VA may not be what you are used to. I used to live in a more urban area, and both Lowes and Home depot were awful there. I remember witnessing an encounter between a customer and a vest-wearing employee (labeled "I'm her to help") in which the customer asked where she might find tarps and the vest-wearer had no clue what a "tarp" was. Pitiful. Here in the sticks they still hire people who are both knowledgable and helpful (and who speak English)
ln - really, don't try to be an editor on someone else's blog. It's very bad manners. Personally, I was pleasantly surprised to see a little optimism and good cheer here to leaven the recent crop of gloom, doom and apocalyptic yowling ;-}
Remember Ron Reagan - it's possible to be dead serious about opposing evil and still be cheerful and optimistic and enjoy life while you do it.
Besides, it's the season to lighten up.
Wally,
They don't do "lighten up" in Sweden. In fact, I don't think there's a Swedish translation for it.
Run "lighten up" through a babelfish translation into Swedish, and then back into English, and here's what you get:
"Become somewhat less morose and relax a bit on the stern countenance."
That's the best they can do...
God Jul och Gott Nytt r, LN!
Baron - Hey, it's your blog. if you think "ln" is fit for company, that's up to you. I'll keep my opinion to myself. I think Dymphna might object just a wee bit to his latest spew, though. But I won't speak for her, either. God knows she doesn't need it.
Robert --
No, it's just ordinary commercial spam, for Viagra and pr0n and penny-stocks, the usual crap.
I don't want to get into the security aspects of it, but our ISP is certain we weren't targeted specifically.
Here's what happens: the spammers use someone else's email address as the "reply to" on a spam message sent to millions of people.
They don't give a s**t where the bounces end up, so our mailbox fills up with them.
Our ISP now has a way of fixing our account so it won't be so horrendous in the future.
It's happened in the past, but we've never seen one that bad before.
ln -
Get stuffed, you pretentious twit. How's that for well-bred?
And please stop trying to speak beyond your vocabulary - "ballast giving refulgence", forsooth. Is your thesaurus broken?
If you're spewing anything, it's not grains of truth, it's pellets of goose poop. Get over yourself.
Ln - lugna ner dig!
ps: my knowledge of idiomatic swedish is miniaml at best, but my wife assures me that's a fair approximation.
Lets not criticise people for their language, please, folks. Most scandanavians tend to use very archaic english because that's what they're taught at school. It's taken me nearly five years to educate my wife in proper english like what we talk right, and she still comes up with words I've never even heard of...
My dictionary has gone to bed, but I got the general meaning. :P
I think everyone needs to step back for a minute. LN has his priorities, Dymphna and Baron have theirs, and it's only natural that they won't line up all the time. Or even most of the time.
LN, I don't believe it's fair for you to demand that GoV follows your agenda all the time, or criticise postsrs who don't have a full appreciation of what you're after.
Everyone else, I equally don't belive it's fair to jump on LN for what he said. From what I've seen it's likely he's not having the best time of things in Sweden right now, and his priorities will be focused on that. Given the language difficulties involved, and bearing in mind certain posts higher up on the blog, is whacking LN for (admittedly very strident) requests for more focus really the best example to set?
Jeez, most of that went right over my head.
I thought this blog was a kinda hodgepog collection of random thoughts and ideas. But I now know it's the den of a secret cult that is determined to see America become the Nation it can and should be.
Either way, I like it here.
Lowes is good for some things, Home Depot for others, but when I really need something fast, I go to Ace, it's not as big, but I can find stuff there by myself and get out faster than in those giant stores.
Just like Walmart, I go, but only under protest.
Papa Ray
West Texas
USA
Actually, I shouldn't have made personal remarks about poor little ln, although I really don't like being called "sanctimonious" (nor am I a "lurker"), but what really did get my dander up was his insufferable comments about Dymphna (in "Peace Oil"?) where he accused her of being an uppity old lady. I thought he sounded like an ignorant pig. Probably just my mistake - maybe those attitudes are enlightened in Sweden.
I don't mind poor English - I mind trying so hard to be eloquent in a language at the idioms of which you are less than perfect that you are incomprehensible.
In fact, I think his English is excellent, if he just wouldn't try to push it so hard.
After all:
Q: What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
A: Bilingual
Q: What do you call someone who speaks three languages?
A: Trilingual
Q: What do you call someone who speaks only one language?
A: Monolingual?
Q: No, American!
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