Heh. An interesting tale of banner ads…

I was surfing along and happened to see this banner on a software site that covered multiple platforms:

Thinking nothing of it– and thinking it was awfully interesting that they were specifically targeting Mac users– I decided to go ahead and click on the banner to see what they were selling… and I was met with this:

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I got my graduation present early and haven’t even blogged about it. Which is odd, considering that I’ve been using it for the past several days.

What is it, you ask? A PowerBook G4, with 1.67GHz processor and 15″ widescreen display.

Yep, it’s official: I’ve made the switch to the Mac platform. I love Mac OS X… all the stability, extensibility and configurability of Unix combined with the user-friendliness of Apple, with all my favorite proprietary graphics and music software available in a native format to boot. ^_^

Both of these were actually spotted in my spam trap this morning. The actual body of the message was a ridiculously HTML-obfuscated ad for a mail-order pharmacy (not surprising, really).

Subject: Re: spatangoid about it
From: “Gunfights C. Constructions” <kash@adacomputer.com>

Apparently a spatangoid is a type of starfish. Given these absurd headers, I wouldn’t be surprised if the spammers responsible for this had the relative intelligence of starfish.

Subject: re: unjointed info
From: “Packed D. Swamped” <smobley@adcomfg.com>

Mr. Swamped, the name is probably appropriate given how many gullible people must order from you, but I prefer my information to be jointed, thank you very much.

Edited to add: How did I miss this one while scanning through my spambox?

Subject: re: milked info
From: “Gesundheit M. Subheading” <don@1acredit.net>

I suppose you ought to milk the info for all it’s worth. And Gesundheit is a wonderful name for someone selling medications!

There are times when having a driver’s license would really be nice– like when your network card and USB hub get zapped by a sudden unexpected thunderstorm. ::sigh:: Not that having them immediately would be of much use still, as the Ethernet port in my room was similarly struck…

I would’ve unplugged my network cable if I’d known it was coming! It was rather sudden, though, so I didn’t have the opportunity– and of course, the storm had to start up when I wasn’t able to get to the computer. ::grumble::

(And if you’re wondering how I’m posting this… two words: internet café. On campus, of course…)

I always knew the stock spammers and medication spammers had to be in cahoots…

As usual, I’ve obfuscated the domain names to avoid drawing any undue attention to the spammers’ sites. Everything else, of course, is verbatim as usual.

Subject: HOt penny st0ck pick fue|ed by high demand
From: “Harlan Beach” <harlanbeachre@neo.rr.com>

SAVE-BiG 0nl|NE Ph4rm4cy
We sell Brand Name FDA Approved Meds At Aff0rdable Prices.
S$ve up to 80% compared to normal rates.

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I’ve been a bit busy lately, but some fairly good news came in a couple days ago: I was accepted for graduate study at the University of Georgia.

I’m still waiting to hear from Georgia State before I finally make a decision. I could probably survive in Athens (where UGA’s located), but its bus system is even more confusingly mapped out than Macon’s, and it also doesn’t run on Sundays. Plus, the campus is really big, and I can see myself getting lost way too easily. I’d much prefer to be at GSU; not only is the campus somewhat smaller, there’s also a lot more in walking distance in downtown Atlanta, as well as a public transit system that actually runs 7 days a week with more frequent stops.

So… well, we’ll see. I might, by some freakish chance, actually end up getting over my lack of confidence in my (in)ability to drive, though that still seems like quite a longshot…