Attack of the spambots.

It's possible my blog has a better spam filter than most, but I've not yet felt a need to enable comment moderation or the supremely annoying word verification that sometimes makes me skip commenting on a post rather than try to decipher the squiggly letters and numbers. It's not that I don't get my share of spam, it's just that the filter catches most of it and the rest I mark as spam in the dashboard to help Blogger learn what to weed out. But I do read them in my email, and they are often comical. Like when my post called "Stretched a little thin," about feeling emotionally wrung out, elicited spam about diet tips.  Or the post on baking bread that pulled in a comment that included, "I think you should write more on this issue, it might not be a taboo matter but typically folks don't discuss these subjects." Because, you know, bread-making is such a secret activity!

The comments offer effusive, if not grammatically correct, compliments. One told me, "If someone wishes expert view on the topic of blogging and site-building then I recommend him/her to visit this weblog. Keep up the fastidious work." Indeed, I'm widely know as the fastidious blogger. Or the weirdly time-warping comment, "Lucky me I found your site by accident, and I am surprised why this accident did not took place in advance." My favorite may have been the praise of my "remarkable writing" on a post with only photos and not a single word. At times, the writing is downright incomprehensible: "Its such as you learn my mind! You seem to grasp a lot as approximately this, like you wrote the ebook in it or something. I feel that you simply could do with a few percent to pressure the message house a little bit, but instead of that, that is wonderful blog." Um, okay. I'll get right on that.

One spambot told me "You ought to be part of a contest for the highest quality websites on the internet! I am going to highly recommend this website!" Of course, the "finger arthritis" remedies he was linking to must have prevented that, because I have yet to receive my award. Does anyone actually click on the links for the things they sell?  I hope not.

And then there's was today's gem: "Thanks for one's marvelous posting! I genuinely enjoyed reading it, you're a great author. I will be sure to bookmark your blog and may come back later in life." Later in life? Perhaps after he retires? And what was Mr. Spam offering? An "ejaculation trainer." Perhaps I'm naive, but all this time I was under the impression that it wasn't one of those things men had to learn how to do. Maybe I haven't been paying close enough attention? Or maybe women are the ejaculation trainers.