I haven't felt like writing much today because there wasn't anything that sparked my interest. Well, after cleaning the spam out of my stupid Hotmail account, I suddenly felt the deft hand of the Muse upon me! I hate Hotmail. I hate Microsoft. I don't get much email and don't really want that much because it's a pain to go through, and I'm pretty much a misanthrope who'd rather be left to my own devices (whatever that means). For reasons that are still a mystery, right after I signed up for my Hotmail account, I began getting spam. I have several email accounts, but I don't get much if any spam in my other accounts, even the Yahoo one which I use when shopping online. So why am I getting all this spam in my Hotmail account? Well, obviously Microsoft sells the email addresses of the people who sign up for free accounts. What other answer is there? And what I can't figure out is why Microsoft would want to generate cash in such a low-rent nickel and dime fashion. Isn't Bill Gates, one of the richest people on the planet, getting enough money twisting the arms of working stiffs so they'll buy overpriced software they don't need?

The junk email I get is even more interesting, uncanny even. Most of it can be divided into several groups: porn, low interest mortgages, job offers, sex manuals, and penis enlargement. What are the chances of total strangers just guessing that I like porn, have no money, no job, can't please a woman in bed, and have a small penis? Have they bugged my home? Are they spying on me? (One of my goals in life is to get a genuine business-related email that contains both the words "mortgage" and "penis" in the subject-line.) My personal favorites are the vague porn spam, in fact it's so vague you can't even tell it's porn until you click on the link they so thoughtfully enclosed, and then there's a veritable porno-avalanche (which in its proper context can be interesting, even useful, but not in my inbox). These emails include bizarre messages at the bottom that are presumably put there to trick spam filters into passing this garbage as legitimate business-related email. These messages, while written in English, make absolutely no sense: "We exist to seamlessly pursue professional intellectual capital in order to professionally facilitate mission-critical intellectual capital in order to solve business problems." Huh? Wha..? Or: "We continually exist to quickly integrate high-payoff solutions and professionally disseminate low-risk high-yield leadership skills for 100% customer satisfaction." Sure. Why not. I'll take two.

I also got a couple of half-amusing, half-demented emails from what's presumably some sort of mail-order bride racket in mainland China. The same "girl" (robot) wrote me twice: "I am Kaxi who is girl and twenty-one from China-Zhejiang-Lishui. Nice to meet you. My email is worker@ls88.com & Telephone is +86-578-2274383 My hobby is chat with stranger. Would you call me with telephone?" No, Kaxi, I'm going to call you with vacuum-cleaner.