My website does receive a certain amount of spam, as most do.  I always check them out to make sure the spam filter is working right (so far, so good).  I came across this one the other day, and it made me laugh.  I have to applaud the spammer’s ingenuity:

“I’m currently being held prisoner by the Russian mafia [redacted reference to body enhancement click through] and being forced to post spam comments on blogs and forum! If you don’t approve this they will kill me. [redacted reference to body enhancement click through] They’re coming back now. [redacted reference to drug for body enhancement click through] Please send help!”

I still didn’t click through, but I appreciated the effort at dramaturgy.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Being home sick and watching weekday  TV makes for some interesting chains of thought.  Have you ever noticed the patterns of commercials on shows? 

So I turned on one of the local syndication-dominated channels to watch a show about a psychic, but I was a little early.  Cops was still on.  Bad boys, but whatcha gonna do?  I was treated to the usual sight on Cops:  some belligerent drunk who'd been beating up her boyfriend in her sheer cotton nightgown biting and beavering the cops as they hustled her into the squad car.  Cut to commercial:

First up - a come on for the next show, the one about the psychic, featuring a discussion on finding your soulmate.  Cut to:

A commercial for Players, another of those syndicated "reality" shows.  This one features thirteen guys trying to hook up with a beautiful model.  The snippets shown all play to the most venal aspects of dating and relationships.  Cut to:

A commercial for a detective school, then one for car insurance for people with bad driving records.

Once the psychic came on, the commercials changed:  Prevacid, V8, Bryman school for medical support, cheap family auto insurance, Jenny Craig.  In other words, we've switched from "male-oriented" to a transition zone of "men haven't turned this off yet, but women are starting to tune in." 

The second round of commercials a solid twenty minutes into the psychic show included:  cookies, carpet cleaners, hair conditioner, toilet paper, Hanes tagless T's, and a candy ad with a heavy emphasis on the pleasure aspect.  This was followed by a come-on commercial for a tacky UPN sex show.

So, what does this tell me?  It tells me that the people who advertise on Cops think its fan base is composed of horny out of work guys with bad driving records who are looking for a career change into something more macho and exciting.  Perhaps law enforcement.  And it tells me that the advertisers think the only ones who watch shows about psychics and soulmates are women.  Women who are overweight, heartburn-ridden, trying to save money, doing  a lot of housework, looking for a little titillation, and also possibly looking for a career change.  Perhaps as a medical-dental assistant. 

Which reminds me of a theme that often flits through my brain when I'm clearing out my spam folder:  What do my spammers think of me?  They think I'm a deeply in debt, overweight, horny guy looking both for hot meaningless sex and serious dating—but cursed with a small penis.  Only sometimes they also think this horny little putz is itching for a fake degree at some offshore university—maybe to impress the ladies since his physical attributes...well. 

Or maybe he's looking for a career change.  Perhaps to a fake lawyer?  Nah, I think this horny little putz would prefer the career as a detective.  Maybe I should tell him to start watching Cops during the daytime.