Dan Appleman: Kibitzing and Commentary

My personal blog

When I set up this blog, one of the key factors in choosing the software was that it supports moderation of comments. I’d seen other blogs flooded with comment spam (much of it obscene) and did not want to be put in the position of having to constantly check for and delete spam comments. This turned out to be a wise choice.

What has fascinated me recently is the cleverness of spammers trying to get their message posted. The vast majority of spam attempts seem to consist of very witty comments that are almost relevant to the original message. In many cases they consist of famous quotes where the only indication that they are spam is that the “relevant” links within the quote point to an online poker or porn site. I suspect these posts are designed primarily to get by automatic filters, and I expect they meet some success in that.

Today I received one that was clever enough for me to want to share:

A reading from the Book of Armaments, Chapter 4, Verses 16 to 20:

Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, saying, Bless this, O Lord, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy. And the people did rejoice and did feast upon the lambs and toads and tree-sloths and fruit-bats and orangutans and breakfast cereals … Now did the Lord say, First thou pullest the Holy Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then proceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Hand Grenade in the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.

Monty Python, Monty Python and the Holy Grail

What this has to do with refinancing mortgages I can’t tell you, and which mortgage refinancer posted this I won’t post here, but if you really want to know drop me a note. Any company choosing that quote deserves to succeed.