Subject: stevep , got a few minutes?
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 02 14:55:56 India Standard Time
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2462.0000
Sender: george@[203.208.16.222]

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Overheard in email: “Couldn’t drum up the necessary action to tip a cow.”

Hey, if you really like spam, you can listen to it being read by a computer voice, on top of nice ambient music, at www.spamradio.com.

Tags: spam, spamradio, voice

Another update from my horrific phone survey experience (Feb 17) – got an email today letting me know that “this particular interviewer has
been let go, effective immediately.”

Fast Company has posted some articles about blogging and blogs, the most relevant being this one which reviews the history and genesis of weblogs.

On Feb 17 (hey, if I was really cool I could link to the original story here but I dunno how to do that) I posted about a strange market research survey experience. Here’s the letter I received today from the ABC7 in SF, the sponsoring company or so I surmised.

Mr. Portigal-

Ellen Conlan
Marketing Research Director
KGO-TV
900 Front St.
San Francisco, CA 94111
415 954 7704
ellen.conlan@abc.com

Today’s interesting spam is not something I will share the details of, suffice to say that it is for the Kegelmaster 2000.

Folks, I don’t make this stuff up.

Tags: email, exercises, kegelmaster 2000, spam

I got an equally strange apology from Shelley Lowery explaing that her AESOP sent the email out without her permission. Uhhh, what?

I got this strangely targeted spam today:

For FreshMeat:
Hi Steve,

Here’s an article I wrote that I think might work well in your
newsletter.

Please let me know if you decide to use it.

Shelley

Shelley Lowery

http://www.web-source.net/cgi-bin/t.cgi?l=bl1

>>>>
New Meta Tag Driving Targeted Traffic to Websites

The “Sales” classification signifies that the purpose of a web
page is to sell a product or service. This includes any web
page that plays a role in the sales process or leads to a sales
page. This classification will provide those selling a product or
service with highly targeted traffic, as the search results will
display a sales icon. This icon will immediately let the user
know that this particular page is selling a product or service.
If they’re in the market to buy, they’ll click through.

[snipped because who wants to read the rest of the thing?]

Anyway, here’s my reply. We’ll see what happens!

Thanks for your article Shelley. You obviously have taken a good look at FreshMeat, because you’ve hit right on the core of what I’m communicating to my readers.

Thanks again,
Steve Portigal

And yeah, I’m being sarcastic. FreshMeat is so completely unrelated it’s barely even funny. Check it out.

Tags: aesop, freshmeat, response, spam

Here’s an event I won’t be attending:

A new men’s group is forming and the facilitator will be Saul Cohn, M.A. in
Sociology, who is also New Bridges participant. Come and join other Jewish
Men, 30 years of age or older, at their first meeting on Sunday Jan 13th at
6-8 p.m. in Cupertino. They will be discussing men’s issues, specifically
our relationships with other men women including our fathers, friends, sons,
and our male mentors and villians. We will be thinking about issues of male
competitiveness, dominance, and the warrior psyche in general in a relaxed
atmosphere free from the judgments of women(mothers, girlfriends, lovers).
No prior experience in men’s studies is needed only a desire to work on
yourselves, so you can make yourself and other men in the Jewish community
stronger. What better experience than the 30 years of maleness we have
lived? RSVP Saul at 408-xxx-6xx9.

Reminds me that a few weeks ago I went to a demolition sale, and saw their outbuilding, complete with faded posters on the wall from some male encouter session where they assigned themselves their various scores of “Knight” “King” “Jester” and “Goddess” – I’m really curious what particular flavor of male growth that comes from…

An important tort lesson from law school that deals with Polkaroo.

I don’t even know what to call this phenomenon: when you see a movie marquee and the titles (or portions of titles) create their own phrase?

Saw a great one the other night:

LORD
WE WERE
MONSTERS

If someone finds a website devoted to these, please email me (steve@portigal.com)

I wonder how well this works. It’s some experimental technology that creates new video footage extrapolated from existing footage. People say things they didn’t say.

I saw a sign for this product hanging from an overpass along highway 101. The name of the product is Vitabetes. Hello?

What’s next? Nutriphillis? Healthrax?