Is it just me or is spam getting much worse the past few months? It’s now way past the 5-10 per day I used to get; my junk mail is now outnumbering the legitimate mail by a factor of five or six to one on weekend days…

There hasn’t been an email address on this site for a couple of years, I never post to newsgroups or message boards without using a throwaway Yahoo address, and I even use customized addresses (“amazon@”, for example) when I buy online so I know who’s selling addresses. I use Eudora, which isn’t fully HTML-compliant, so “web bugs” (those graphics which let the sender know that you’ve read his mail and set you up for even more) aren’t an issue. But still it’s getting worse and worse…

The disturbing thing is that more and more of it seems to be coming from “legitimate” companies, like Belk Department Stores, a company which has already fielded several irate calls from me and will never have to worry about my being a customer again, even if I should happen to move back near one of their stores. I’m really aggressive about letting companies like this know that their tactics are completely unacceptable…

I’ve become adept at filtering messages, so only about 15-20% of the garbage lands in my inbox, but it’s still gotten so bad that I’m even thinking of deleting my main, most-used email alias and broadcasting a new one to friends I want to hear from. And until there’s a system by which these slimewads have to take some responsibility for the “free speech” they exercise, it will only get worse…

For anyone who may have had his irony detector disabled yesterday, the answer is no. I was not really upset about missing Burning Man. I’ve already spent two days this year in the hospital with tubes sticking out of my arm; that’s quite enough fun for one year, thanks. Adding the joy of coping with annoying, smelly people on drugs in the middle of a desert might result in a pleasure overload. Really…