Since we’ve been talking about spam the past few days, I’m going to toss out this little bon mot for you to chew on :

A friend told me that aliens make spam (the food).  That’s why no one knows what it is made of.

I’m gonna open this up to the readers (sorry, more “exercise”), because I figure some of you might know of some research on this, or maybe some crazy hypothesis will come to mind.  Any thoughts?

Occasionally I glance through the comment spam that Akismet catches from my blogs, just to see if any valid comments slip through.  All comment spam is dumb and stupid, because they’re trying to hijack our discussions to promote their website or products.  But some of it is especially dumb, which I decided to share, just for your amusement (or dismusment).

Hi,

Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade free download
More cheaply will not find

Yeah, you probably can’t find it cheaper than free…  although, really, the cost is that you may go to jail, since it’s piracy.

The following comments all came from same IP address, mostly on the same post:

• I hate spammers! (
• No more spam, man!
• Spammers suck a lot
• Delete this spam!
• Spam really sucks( delete it
• So much spam (
• You have so much spam in here.. (

The irony is obvious, isn’t it?  What’s the point?  Will their rambling cause people to click on their website link?  I know it wouldn’t work for me…

That last one is really humorous to me, because the person saying there’s so much spam here is the one trying to put so much here!

One of my friends told me the story of a guy they know who fixed lasagna for his family the other night, and then his wife said, “But I’m tired of mexican food…”  🙂

True story.

On a site that specializes in randomness, you’d expect something on April Fool’s Day, but somehow it didn’t happen here.  I could make excuses for that, or I could just say, “I had stuff to do.”  (I’m choosing the latter.)  And so there was no post yesterday.  But there’s no need to be discouraged, because we provide randomness every day (almost), so you don’t have to wait until April 1 next year.  Our R&D department is hard at work developing new products which may or may not exist, and you’ll be hearing about more of them in the future.  (One of our more famous ones was a new shampoo made from real cocoa.)

A good source of April Fool’s Day hoaxes is Google.  They’ve had some really innovative products that happened to get released on April 1.  I found a listing of them all, if you want to peruse them : Google’s April Fool’s Day hoaxes.  Here’s a listing of them, to refresh your memory (or stir your curiosity) : Google MentalPlex, Pigeon Rank, Google Lunar/Copernicus Center, Google Gulp, Google Romance, Gmail Paper, Google TiSP.

I like the new ones (the last two listed).  Google TiSP offers free wireless Internet access through existing lines in your house : the sewer lines.  It interfaces with your toilet to provide access to the Internet.  And your packages can arrive through the sewer lines, so you don’t have to depend on UPS or FedEx.  I signed up…

And the Gmail Paper option is neat, too.  You can have your e-mails printed and mailed to you.  This is helpful for those people who miss sorting and filing their papers in cabinets and drawers.  And some people like having piles of papers in the floor of their bedroom, too, so this is really handy for them.  I’ve thought of adding a similar option to this blog, creating a “Print Blog” link, for everyone’s convenience, so you can read it while you’re on the toilet or on a long flight, or you can give a copy to someone who doesn’t have Internet access yet.