but we're trash, you and me...

I've been getting the most absurd spam.

I know that pretty much everyone gets spam, so I don't think this odd in itself. It doesn't much worry me either: after all, Yahoo is catching it and safely sending it into my spam folder. It's just that it bemuses me. I quite frequently check my spam folder to make sure that nothing has been sent in there by mistake (it still sweeps up the odd comment), and there it is. It keeps on coming. I get about one or two of these ridiculous emails every day.

As is the way of these things, I have absolutely no idea where this spam comes from. I don't know how they got my email address, and I don't know how to make it stop. But that's okay. It doesn't annoy me much, and it seems basically harmless. Besides, I don't even bother to open them up. Even so, every time I'm looking in my spam folder and I see that another batch has arrived, I can't help but wonder what its senders can possibly hope to achieve.

The thing is, this spam is utterly hopeless. Each email has a ridiculous subject header, and each email purports to come from people with the most obviously made-up names I have ever seen.

Here are some examples:

"cutlet affirmatively" from Natalia Krueger
"exploratory apprentice" from Ophelia Kuhn
"pooch toss-up" from Gwendolyn Holland
"ghostwriter astray" from Mima Camacho
"tidal wave flip" from Cecily Simmons
"gelatin graduate" from Bab Norwood

.... you get the general idea.

The emails themselves seems to be made up of a grid of images that forms a picture of a nonsense stock recommendation. There are no embedded links or code or anything like that (although possibly there might be some and they just don't work on my mac).

I just don't get it.

The only thing that I can think that they are trying to do is to get people to email the "unsubscribe" address, thus flagging that they are an active account. To what end, I have no idea. To send more spam?

In its own way, it's quite amusing, but it baffles me. What's the point?

Answers on a postcard....

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Shuffleathon update:

I'm going to keep updating this table and moving it around, I think, so we all know where we are. As you'll see, we've had a few early despatchers already. Good for you! Can you all let me know when you send / receive your CD so I can keep this up to date? If you get your review up, it would also be good if you can send me a link, and I'll add it on to the table.

[large and unwieldy table removed]