Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam…
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Sep 16, 2010
I was alerted to a post written by our friend Holly titled Spammerview. It’s a very witty representation of the problem most of us have with spam, told in a story form that, while you’re reading it, easy captures all the different types of spam we seem to be getting these days.
 No Spam by David Hegarty |
My mind harkens to last week when I keep thinking I saw a post titled something like “Does More Spam Mean I’m Successful”? I’ve been thinking about this one for awhile, and I’m starting to think that there almost has to be a direct correlation between spam and how well your blog is going. After all, does anyone get all that much spam if no one is visiting your blog?
I still get a few one liners here and there, but today’s spam is definitely getting a bit more sophisticated. As I wrote about spam back in July, some of it actually seems to be on topic sometimes, though if you read it well you can tell, especially when the same message appears on other posts at the same time. Another trick is its copying someone else’s comment on your post and using it as theirs, which might be hard for some people to remember if they have lots of comments on that post. And finally, now some of the spam actually figures out your name via the name of the author of the post, and that might make you think, at least initially, that it’s legitimate.
Days ago I had a review of this blog written by Forum Spotlight, which was very nice, and the first comment was a spam comment. How do I know? It never mentioned my blog, which it supposedly didn’t like, and it talked about all the images, and it said it liked images being transparent. If images are transparent you can’t see them, so it’s spam; by the way, I hope you drop over there to take a look at it.
I just think we’re going to be stuck with spam, but I’ve decided that, as much as I hate it, I’m going to do whatever I can to increase how much of it I’m getting, because that might eventually mean I’m rocking this mug! 
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Mitch Mitchell
The Harry Potter Series
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Dec 22, 2007
Harry Potter is the best selling series of books in history, and made its writer, J. K. Rowlings, a billionaire; absolutely amazing.
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Of course, like most adults who were open minded enough to give it a try, I got into the series the wrong way. I started with book #5, rather than from the beginning, before I had seen the first movie; don’t ask me how that worked. Then I listened to book #3 and #4 before I saw the second movie, and then book #6 and, finally, book #7. At that point I thought I was pretty knowledgeable about everything, but thought more about it and realized that there was no way I could have been, because in the last two books, there were names mentioned that I didn’t know.
So, I decided to start from the beginning, the first book, and work my way back through the entire series. And, instead of reading them, I decided to listen to them, since I like listening to books on tape, or CD, while I’m driving. The reader of the books on tape, or CD, is named Jim Dale, and he’s a supreme reader, one of the best I’ve ever heard, as I listen to a lot of books on tape, as I’m on the road often. I would recommend to anyone who really wants to see just how well these books were written, and what all the hubbub is about, should do the same thing. Yeah, the first book really is a lot of kid stuff, but after that, the books start touching upon some adult themes. You’ve just got to read this stuff; trust me here.
Here’s the thing. Rowling has done something that I don’t think anyone else has really done before. She has allowed us to not only watch these three main characters of Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley grow up over the course of each book, but she allowed all the other characters to develop as well, including the number one bad guy in the stories, Voldermort.
As she has given each character more and more depth, the stories have gotten longer, and yet, as strange as this might sound, it never seems like she’s giving us too much. I hated getting through the last book because I wanted more. I know she had to close the stories at that point because Harry Potter had gotten rid of the one guy that he was tied to, and unless she could figure out a way to bring him back, anything else he did would be anticlimactic.
I have to admit that I love these stories, and I love the movies as well. I can’t wait for the sixth movie to come out, and then the seventh as well. The books are very long, though; I wonder how the guys filming the movies will handle it all.
Harry Potter Book Series 1-7
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Mitch Mitchell
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