The birds sing sweeter and the sun shines brighter now that my iBook is licensed to kill. And, I'm grinning the grin of a stupid fool*.
In other words, I'm head-over-heals in love with SpamAssassin -- so much so that our daily conversations begin to resemble commercials for the software.
Before SpamAssassin
Mena: I can't take it! If I received one more unfiltered piece of spam, I'm going to throw this iBook and its sub-par mail program out the window.
Ben: I know. It's frustrating.
Mena: You want to know something? I shouldn't have to set up a rule to filter out mail containing the word "rape." I don't want to see that word in my inbox every day. Period. And frankly, I have no interest in seeing some guy's big, black, thro...
Ben: Okay, I get the point. Let's install SpamAssassin on our computers.
After Spam Assassin
Mena: Hit! Screw you Flash Joke of the Day!
Ben: Hit! Take that you herbal sex enhancer!
Mena: Hey, you're receiving (and blocking) more spam than me! You're so lucky.
Ben and Mena: Thank you Spam Assassin!
--
But all is not perfect in the Trott household.
The amount of time previously wasted on filtering and deleting spam is now wasted by our need to read all the entertaining spam headers and "compete" to see who receives a piece of mail with the highest number of hit points.
(Each positive test result receives a certain number of points. If the number is equal to or greater than a pre-determined number, it's considered spam.)
The current record is 37.6 hits and it's held by the perennial favorite, "Are you shopping for a MORTGAGE?"
*Since this post, we've been told by three different couples that this now their insult of choice. I think the new dollarshort.org tagline should be: "Proudly adding dysfunction to relationships since 2002."
Good god. Log reading and sniggering about it is one of the most distracting/engrossing activities ever. Spam Assassin is so perfect for this since your filters are by nature hilarious.
Lately I've been collecting all of the super old/weird browsers that hit my site and have decided that the apocalypse is coming soon because I had five people show up in the last week via a WebTV agent. It's chilling.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that combing their logs is (kinda) fun.
Posted by: goneaway | June 04, 2002 at 09:13 PM
Egad! You've discovered the latest game crazes to sweep the nation: Spam Slamming!
"Ha! I got more points than you...nyah!"
"Yeah, but I'm winning in the 'Spam: The Gathering' collectors game...so ha!"
Posted by: Solonor | June 04, 2002 at 10:49 PM
Spam:TG? Lord have mercy on our souls. :s
Posted by: kismet | June 05, 2002 at 02:17 AM
There was a little add-in for Doom (remember that game?) which allowed system admins to "kill" any processes that were eating away at resources. They would literally have to shoot the processes, which appeared as monsters, until they died. Then, the process would similarly die.
I just pictured Ben and Mena in wacky futuristic getups with enormous anti-spam guns shooting at spam.
Posted by: Paul | June 05, 2002 at 05:34 AM
thanks for my first LOL of the day :o)
Posted by: Patty | June 05, 2002 at 06:45 AM
Ben dressed in his best brown polyester getup from 1976 capped off by a heavy mustache and chops (recall that oh-so-special Beastie Boys video from a few years back)...Mena with a huge coif (Austin Powers style), pastel polyester dress and white leather go-go boots. Weapon of choice? Something similar to the guns/lasers used in the original Star Trek episodes when they were in battle on some distant planet. Surrounded by large, fake boulders. The battle rages on.
Posted by: kate | June 05, 2002 at 06:59 AM
Sorry, my post isn't funny... I just wanted to know how you're using Spam Assassin. Don't you need your ISP to install this? You don't host your own mail server, do you? Oh wait, you're the Movable Type Kids! You probably do!
Posted by: james | June 05, 2002 at 12:07 PM
No need to be funny :)
We're running SpamAssassin on OS X on our iBooks. We're downloading mail through a normal POP account using a Perl script, then passing it through SpamAssassin using Mail::Audit.
Nothing is custom; you just need the Apple Developer tools. (To install some of the needed Perl modules)
Posted by: Mena | June 05, 2002 at 12:15 PM
Mena -- Could you or Ben whip up a howto on this? I'm sure I'm not alone in wanting to try it....
Posted by: Derek | June 06, 2002 at 05:23 PM
well, I personally have a bizarre fascination with spam subject lines, especially those of porn spam. in my blog we're holding a contest as to who receives the funniest one. current number one: "your dick so huge you can hit people with it!"
Posted by: nippp | June 07, 2002 at 07:56 AM
recent spam subject line: “Witold, Bigger breasts -- Men Will Look”... bet you they will, I am a straight, married man. Imagine me with Bigger breasts? Oh boy... not only men would look.
I so not get to see most of my spam since I turned on Spaminator, the friendly spam killing helper provided by earthlink. (And maybe the only reason why I am still with them, among others.)
Posted by: Witold | June 07, 2002 at 08:38 PM
What insult? Stupid fool? Hehehe. Did you ever end up talking about it?
Posted by: Daniel Talsky | June 09, 2002 at 12:50 AM
Many people who took Blogger Pride! The blogger survey lauded both Movable Type AND dollarshort...you should read a few people's answers (people left URL's in the comments).
Posted by: Daniel Talsky | June 09, 2002 at 12:53 AM