Reading for February, 2005

February is the shortest month.
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. #17 on the Modern Library list. A haunting story full of tragedy. Some amazing characterizations, where you get to see the character from both the inside and the outside.

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Jay the Marketer

I live in Los Angeles. Lately I’ve noticed a couple of billboards directing me to www.JayTheWriter.com. The billboards have black text on a white background, one I’m thinking of in particular says, “Hey Kevin Costner, I wrote ___ ____ just for you.” But the word “Costner” is crossed out, and “Kline” handwritten above it, so it now reads: “Hey Kevin Costner Kline, I wrote ___ ____ just for you.” As the weeks go by, the name is crossed out again and again, replacing “Kline” with “Spacey”, and now “Bacon”.
I assumed from this that JayTheWriter was, perhaps, a disgruntled Hollywood insider, who had been part of the industry and was sickened by the platitudes and back room deals that result in movies like, oh, The Big Bounce. I figure JayTheWriter has written a scathing commentary on Hollywood ethics — “Yes, you are the first person to read this script; I wrote it with you in mind.”
Sadly, JayTheWriter is actually just another vanilla writer with a bunch of boffo screenplays. He’s got a drama, an action thriller, a farce comedy, and a sitcom. Bleh.
One thing JayTheWriter does have is a clever touch for marketing. So here’s some free publicity for you, Jay. Good luck and all that.

the end of trackbacks

delete from mt_tbping where tbping_blog_name = “online poker”;
Fortunately this site is just the one blog, so when the comment spammers decide to start trackback spam there is no one to complain if I disable trackbacks. It is also nice to be able to write SQL commands to wipe out swathes of spam.
I know that when someone chooses to spam my site, it is nothing personal. But at the same time, when someone spams my site, it is nothing personal, and that is why it sucks. It is a kind of pollution, kind of like if the Coca Cola company decided for their next ad campaign to dump millions of empty Coke cans on the side of the highway. “Hey, look at all the Coke cans, that must be one fucking tasty carbonated beverage.”
Interview with a link spammer. Not much of an “interview”, but an interesting snapshot nonetheless.
UPDATE: I’m now getting 30-100 blacklisted comment hits per day. Pray the defences hold!

Hello 66.144.4.6

Between 5:46 AM and 6:18 AM, the computer at 66.144.4.6 posted 216 comments advertising various medical prescriptions to this site.
spam.gif