Not A Dollarshort

The Estrogen levels are rising.

Me, elsewhere: Doolittle at The Morning News.

A new and improved way to procrastinate!

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."

All that sparkles...

Has anyone, besides me, been offered items from Amazon's "gold chest?"

It's basically a promotion where, for one hour, you can purchase five pre-selected items at special discounted rates. In the top-right corner of the Amazon homepage, a little illustrated gold chest counts down the minutes remaining before the offer is discontinued (forever!)

I was offered five different cooking products, including a George Foreman mini-grill, some BBQ supplies and a rice cooker.

I turned them all down (forever!)

Now, it appears that either these are completely random items or, the fondue pot on my wish list was weighed really heavy in determining what I'm interested in buying. It's funny that none of these deals were books or dvds -- the items that make up the bulk of my Amazon purchases. Oh Amazon, play your cards right and offer me past purchase-related items and I'll buy the contents of that entire gold chest.

I like things that sparkle.

Apparently, another gold chest with new offers was supposed to appear within 24 hours. It didn't and now I'm starting to think I imagined this whole thing.