Spam on Rye

I selected this lazy attempt at a humorous title for two reasons.

First I have just started reading Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski. My buddy at work loaned it to me after he noticed that I always had a book in my hand.

I'm only a couple of chapters in but so far it's pretty good; disturbing but good. I had heard of Bukowski before, and I had thought that he was one of the beat poets (Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg) but then I looked it up and he's not. The style does seem similar though. It's a sort of a counter culture type of voice that is common in all those books. It was written in 1982 which is much later than the famous beat novels like Howl, On the Road, and Naked Lunch but it is set in the same time period of the late 50s or early 60s.

Anyway I'll try to write more about it after I've finished it.

The second reason is that as some of you know my email was hijacked by spammers over the weekend. Some of you have already seen the email that supposedly came from me: A blank email with nothing but a naked link in the body.

I've heard back from around 50 people who were in my contact list who received one of these BS emails from my address. Most people knew better but those who did click the link said it either didn't work or led to a website trying to sell them Viagra.

Sidebar: Are the people who make Viagra really not selling enough of the stuff?

Hopefully most of you that I email have spam filters that caught the message. For those of you who did see it I would like to apologize. I've since changed my password and emailed Google to let them know what happened. I'll continue to watch my sent mail folder to make sure this doesn't happen again (hopefully).

So, before this post gets too long I just want to talk about spam for a moment (unsolicited electronic messages or solicitations, not the canned meat). There are many different types of electronic spam but email spam is the most annoying IMO.

According to Wikipedia (the most reliable source on the internet) spam makes up 80-85% OF ALL EMAIL. That seems ridiculous. I understand why it's done and I suppose it's a necessary evil for all the benefits of technology but I have to wonder: does it really work? I suppose there are a lot of stupid people out there but really how often does someone click on a link in a spam email and actually buy something at the bizarre website it takes them to? I realize the sites may be supported by per click advertising or some model like that but still, those ads have to drive some kind of sales to make it worth it right?

Okay I won't rant about this for much longer but I honestly just don't get it. If you ever get an email from me or anyone else with nothing but a plain link in it - question it. Would someone you know really contact you this way? I rarely send people links in an email but if I do I certainly still say hello and explain what it is I'm trying to point you to. At least reply to the sender to confirm they sent it to you.

And if you're a spammer remember: what goes around comes around and karma is a beach.

So what do you think? Do you hate spam as much as I do? Have you ever read Ham on Rye or the beat poets? Please share your thoughts in the comments.