I Considered Not Spamming You But Decided That Would Be Too Time Consuming

Got this e-mail from the Washington DC Online Marketing (SEO/SEM/Social Media) Group mailing list, which I apparently joined last year. I've never been to an event, and the listserv is mostly inactive, except for one bright light: a domain name broker of some sort who insists that his informative e-mails telling people which domains he's got available aren't spam.

Actually, that's what he used to claim. Now, he just says he can't be bothered to clean his lists, and you should just drive on if you're not interested. Here's the e-mail, redacted (against my better vengeance):

Hello Everyone,

I considered going through my emails one by one but decided that would be too time consuming [Emphasis added. He actually wrote this. And sent it. My interpretation: "Here's how much I care about my client communications: Fuck you."], so if after going through all my family ["Who I also used to annoy with my MLM knife sales pitches."] and vendors this email still finds you and domains do not concern you please feel free to delete or ignore this. ["I say again: Fuck you."]

Those of you who ARE in the domain industry ["Though I clearly have no idea who you are."], I will be sending out periodic lists of domains from here on out. ["I couldn't get anyone to subscribe to my ConstantContact trial account newsletter."] This will be a little unlike the other lists you receive where I will include generic domains at reasonable prices that I find but also traffic domains and websites I think are viable. ["I have no idea what I'm saying."]

Those of you who know me are familiar with my hard work and some sales such as R*******s.com, O*****g.com, F****R******.com, B****M***.com, V*****.com, F***S******.com and many more..

If you would like to be on this list please respond to this and I will add you ["Though, obviously, I won't keep track, as that would be too time consuming."], if this does not concern you or you do not care to see the domains I come across a few times a week than simply do not respond. ["In closing: Fuck you."]

Thanks for your two minutes and I hope to hear from you!

Regards,

[name similar to a famous golfer]

It should be noted that I do contribute to the Network Solutions blog, and they sell domains, so this is kind of a full disclosure, but seriously, this guy is just an unrepentant douchebag.

Late Night Shots, Backfence Bye-Bye, WaPo's "Porch Monkey" and Ratting Out Tourists

Some items of local interest from the past few weeks:

* The Return of Late Night Shots: I was just going to leave this one alone, but I'm seeing a spike of traffic to my Late Night Shots entry from last year. It's on the first page of search results for "late night shots", and the renewed interest is most likely due to the City Paper's feature story on them this week, which was picked up by Metafilter and god knows where else. (The City Paper's site was down for a while Friday, perhaps due to the increased traffic or maybe a denial-of-service attack -- who knows.)

If you hate over-privileged douchebags, the people who love to hate them, or both, check out the comments in the story.

* Backfence Gone: As had been announced, Backfence.com is no more. I'd had a semi-permanent listing in the local blogs section of the Reston version, as they'd pretty much stopped updating the featured blogs a while ago. Oh well.

* You Can't Reclaim Porch Monkey: A couple of weeks ago, the Post had a story about the resurgence of front porches, and how they get neighbors talking to each other.

It was a feelgood piece, which is why I was especially ambushed by the last paragraph:

"The porch sealed the deal for the couple -- she's a credit union retirement specialist, he's an Army translator -- because it strongly evoked her Midwestern childhood. 'I was a big-time porch monkey in St. Louis. Everyone was outside on the stoop until long after the streetlights came on.'"

I've never heard the term porch monkey used as anything but a racist slur against blacks. Regardless of whatever Clerks II has to say about it.

In an odd bit of timing, the Post's Howard Kurtz had specifically mentioned the phrase a few months earlier, in an item decrying the appearance of racial slurs in... comments.

Also, I guess it's one of those second-tier slurs, as it doesn't warrant "quotes" or the "PM-word" treatment.

* Throwing Tourists Under the Bus: I submitted the following item, which ran in Eavesdrop DC:

About 3pm, one tourist to another at the Folklife Festival:

"You're just looking for an excuse to take a picture of a black person."

True story, if slightly paraphrased, though it captured the spirit of the exchange.

One only hopes they were talking about the gospel or blues performers, say, and not a random DC resident.

Tags: eavesdrop dc, washington city paper, eavesdropping, slurs, late night shots

Have I Been Cool Hunted? You Better Hope Not.

Since I'm terminally uncool, this is a hypothetical, but Cool Hunter Street Team: Keep your stupid stickers off my stuff, you conspicuous-consumption, bleeding-edge, fashion-forward, cooler-than-thou hipster douchebags:

I swear, you start stickering my stuff as part of your stupid awareness-raising viral marketing campaigns, and I start channeling Francis "Psycho" Sawyer:

"...I don't like no one touching my stuff. So just keep your meathooks off. If I catch any of you guys in my stuff, I'll kill you..."

I do read thecoolhunter.net for a slice of design porn, even if I don't fetishize design like they do and I feel fashion should just fall off a cliff, since they occasionally feature interesting shiny things and frou-frou tchotchkes (when they're not fixating on over-designed concept boutique hotels and resorts which I will never, ever visit-- oh, and hey, while we're at it, a hip-cool advertising campaign is still just fucking advertising).

But if you ever start putting stickers on my stuff, things are going to get really hot and ugly, because the volatile liquids that are usually used to remove adhesive residue are very, very flammable.

Tags: coolhunter, hot and ugly, stickers, design porn

This Picture Speaks to Me

This AP photo from last week's Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans speaks to me:

It says: "Hi, I'm an unoriginal douchebag who copied a costume that I saw in an e-mail, and this is the closest I'm ever going to get to breasts -- even drunk, Bourbon Street breasts -- without having to pay."

Tags: bourbon street, free mammogram, joke costume, mardi gras

Boston Sucks, But Boston Mooninite Terror Victimization Apologists Suck More

More follow-on from this week's Mooninite terror attack dry-run.

Thursday night, I was listening to CBC radio show As It Happens; they were talking with Boston Globe columnist Brian McGrory, who was at the press conference/farce/performance art by The Mooninite Two, Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens.

McGrory was somewhat peeved, since the two clowns weren't sufficiently contrite at their press conference to soothe ruffled feathers caused by the ridiculous overreaction of the Bostonian homeland security apparatus.

However, he put this up in Bostonians' defense -- that Boston is particularly sensitive to terror concerns because of what happened on September 11th.

Come again?

Here it is at the 6:29 mark [Real Audio]:

"Before you make fun of us, you've got to remember that two planes on September 11th took off from Boston and we are particularly sensitive about these kinds of things."

Ah, I see -- because two of the 9/11 flights took off from Logan (and one of them was essentially a terrorist lay-over), Boston has been particularly victimized by terror and should get special consideration.

Generally speaking, he seemed to be a reasonable with most of his other points, but he falls off the deep end again with this homer howler (7:50):

"It's a really tough call on whether somebody overreacts or underreacts. Obviously, Boston is the only city that reacted like this, but Boston also has a tough history with terrorism in America."

Unless Boston had some spate of domestic terror in the 60s or 70s that I'm overlooking (or maybe he's counting the Big Dig as terrorism) I would suggest that McGrory and the rest of Boston just take their lumps on this one, instead of trying to play the "9/11 affected us particularly hard" card.

In other words, shut up, you sound like a douchebag:

Tags: aqua teen hunger force, bomb threat, boston sucks, greg mcgrory, mooninite two

Late Night Shots Kinda Makes Sense to Me Now. Also, Women Are Bitches.

I just finished reading Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities by Alexandra Robbins (the other books in that library run were How to Survive a Robot Uprising and The Men Who Stare at Goats, so don't even).

While the book could have used more topless pillowfights (or any topless pillowfights, for that matter), and some of the interpersonal dramas got a little tedious, it was a pretty good read (as long as you define "good read" as "confirming every negative stereotype you ever had about sorority sisters, college girls, and the entire female gender BITCHES BITCHES THEY'REALLBITCHES")

Anyway, the Late Night Shots crue hasn't made it into Wonkette for a while, but reading the book puts the whole "what if a girl was lying about what sorority she was in"-thing into context.

The comments on the book's Amazon listing are also pretty interesting (if by "interesting" you mean "depressing." As with modern American political debate, a viewpoint different than your own = crippling bias.)

My own college experience is pretty irrelevant to this -- other than a few friends who were sisters, my only experience with sororities was walking through the quad during rush and hearing this low murmur, that slowly grew into a hum, then droning buzz, then an overpowering, mind-destroying goose-squawking of a thousand inane conversations going on at once.

There's probably a larger point to be made about slavish adherence to ritual, conformity, conspicuous consumption and political conservatism, but I'm not going to get into it.

Anyway, as long as I'm dipping into the old college memory hole, I do have one mildly amusing anecdote that involves a sorority, but I will have to see if I still have the physical evidence before I can talk about it.

Tags: alexandra robbins, late night shots, pledged