Last week I wrote a post over at Big Damn Heroes about the season premiere of Lost. It got the usual amount of comments and a fair amount of hits. But that’s not what this post is about. This post is being written right this very moment by me in order to express my flabbergastedness at the lengths spammers seem to be going to lately. I mean, SPAM is always ridiculous and disgusting and stupid and incredibly annoying, and how spammers even manage to make a living is both unfathomable and also very fathomable if you have a low opinion of the human capacity for intelligent thinking.
But lately it seems like the spam has been getting more creative. Take this comment that I received on my Lost post:
“I’m becoming a bit of a fan of the show . . . I think there was a new episode (for the new season) shown last night, but I missed it. I’ll have to look for the rerun.”
Here’s the thing about this comment. On the surface, it looks like a real comment, and my spam filter certainly didn’t catch it. But here’s the thing: somebody had to have sat down and written that, taken time out of their day. It was relevant to my post, and yet it seemed like such a stupid and obvious thing to say that my spidey sense immediately started tingling. So I clicked the link they provided on the comment form and it led me to a blog. Here is a screencap of the first entry on the page:

Almost immediately it becomes apparent that this is not a real blog simply by reading the text. It isn’t really about anything and it has a suspiciously ad-like quality to it, except for the part where it’s not written in whole sentences and is missing text. (I would also like to point out that this is not the first time this has happened to me, even this week. Spam blogs. It’s a thing. Trust me.) The stupidest thing about this whole spam-blog endeavor is that there isn’t even a product being advertised, so what is the point?! It doesn’t make sense! Honestly, it makes me worry for the future of the human race, as if I wasn’t already worried enough. But that isn’t even the best part of the story. That comes next, with this, as the blogger provides a picture of “herself,” the text underneath identifying her name as “Young Wendy”:

Now, it might not be immediately obvious to some of you, so let me explain. The girl in the picture is not named Wendy, and I know this because her name is Felicia Day and she is an actress/gamer/webseries creator and writer, and she is also Princess of the Internet. I mean, this situation is funny at first, but then it just keeps getting funnier as time passes because of the ridiculousness. Let me stress this next point to you: somebody went out of their way to create a spam blog on WordPress that is literally about nothing and sells no product, and decided it would be a good idea to use arguably the most famous female geek alive right now as their chosen self-image. Felicia Day, are you hearing this shit? Look at you, all cute up in your headshot! They are using you!! I mean, all I can think is that this particular spammer either is exceptionally dumb or is a geek himself and thought it would be a funny joke on the oldsters he was scamming. Either way, I think he deserves a kick in the nuts.
And please, watch The Guild*. It’s good for you.
*Also streaming for free on Netflix.









But anyway, my favorites. I discovered the joys of Neil Gaiman this year. I’d read Stardust before and loved it, but I hadn’t read any of his other stuff.
It’s amazing, looking back, that I had time to read this many books, what with all the TV watching and schoolwork I was doing. But it’s easy to make time for good books, if you can find them, and nothing is easier to slip into when you’re stressed than comfort reading. And for me, comfort reading means fantasy. The best straight up fantasy book I read this year was by far
Other books I highly enjoyed: 






