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Have I ever mentioned that I love reading Russian mail-order bride spam? Because, you know, I do. And it just so happens that I received an excellent example of the genre this afternoon. It begins, "Hello not the man familiar to me!", and gradually becomes less intelligible from there. Here are some of the highlights:

At first I wished to be presented. My name to Vera me of 29 years I live in Russia in the Cheboksary of I not married. And never was married. I have finished school and arrived in medical college finished it and went to work in hospital but only me never I carried could find to myself the man and me so it would be desirable it.

I have solved why and was not present if I could not find the man from Russia such destiny can at me and I should search the man from another of the countries. And they gave me yours e-mail the address and spoke that you search to yourself the woman. I took all data and went to the cafe Internet as I am not able to use well the computer and it costs much for my payment from work. I came to the Internet of cafe and asked that to me created the address e-mail that I from it could write you the letter. And here now you can see my letter.

Only I ask you at once look at a photo esteem the letter think and solve precisely you would like with me correspondence to me the friend to me is not necessary I and which is ready for serious relations will be necessary to love which MAN and creation of a family I is possible I ask you very fragile person and if serious relations write to me tell to me are not necessary to you that is not present I will understand.

I saw the world's most terse license plate the other day. It looked something like this:

A

Because it was on an SUV, I'm going to uncharitably assume that it's an HTML reference.

Flickr screenshot

Sometimes computers assemble images in ways that can almost be considered inadvertent art. This series of images came up in a Flickr search.

Right at this very moment, I could be taking advantage of an exciting offer "to participate in a survey whose findings will directly influence what you see on television in the future." A couple weeks ago, I received tickets in the mail from a company called Television Preview. Their introductory letter explains that they present "screenings of pre-recorded 1/2 hour television segments (including programs and commercials) to groups of people across the country. The groups evaluate what they see, and Television Preview tabulates and analyzes these evaluations. Then, we pass them along to the people who decide whether the material will be televised."

It sounded like it could be an interesting experience. As I considered who might like to attend the screening with me, I did a little research, and I'm glad I did. The company's website is intentionally vague, but it didn't take much digging to get to the truth. It's a scam.

Apparently, the programs they show are pilot episodes of rejected television series, some well over ten years old. The programs are mere filler, designed to distract people from the company's true goal, which is to gauge viewer reactions to the commercials and to extract direct marketing information. The real information that the company gathers comes from the questionnaires that attendees fill out before and after seeing the ads. This isn't exactly a new trick, either - they've been at it since the early 1970s. They may have been able to fool people before, but now the Internet can save gullible people like me who might otherwise fall for their ruse. Thank you, Internet!

Here's what some attendees had to say about their experiences.

Monty Ashley:

The first thing they had us do was go through a booklet of "prizes" and circle the ones we most wanted to receive. This process was very similar to picking your favorite brand of peanut butter, nail polish, and cake frosting, so it was pretty clear that they were going to show us commercials in what they called a "natural viewing environment", assuming you always watch television in a darkened hotel conference room, surrounded by strangers.

You will be shut into a dingy hotel conference room for two hours. The room will be filled almost entirely with retirees and you will spend the better part of the evening straining to see a cheap television set, in what will be termed a "natural viewing environment". A semi-literate 'host' will read from a script, loosing his place now and then and will forget to ask "What is your name?" as an audience volunteer helps with a fake prize draw.

"The whole set-up is that they're there to evaluate the programming. We try not to cue them to the advertising, because we like it to be an incidental exposure."

"I felt like a lowlife going to that thing. It was really embarrassing, kind of like if you buy something off an infomercial and think it's going to be cool, and then you get it and it's a piece of crap. It seemed like a big hoax."

Be aware of something else: telemarketers. According to a couple of accounts online, a few days or so after they attended the presentation they were contacted by phone by someone wanting to sell them something that was advertised during those pesky commercial breaks.

Searching for the band !!! at Yahoo Music returns the following artists:

• Little Anthony and the Imperials
• Claude Debussy
• 2Pac
• Leontyne Price
• Johann Sebastian Bach

This recipe comes courtesy of Bach's Lunch, a 1971 cookbook published by the Junior Women's Committee to benefit the Cleveland Orchestra. They sold the book sold for a whole $3.00. Some of its recipes were provided by cooking celebrities of the day, but most of them were favorite recipes of the wives of prominent Clevelanders. Each recipe ends with the name of the person who supplied it.

IDIOT'S DELIGHT

1 - 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese
1/4 bottle Pickapeppa sauce or Worcestershire sauce

Unwrap cheese and place on a plate. Pour sauce over and serve with English water biscuits.

Mrs. Arthur Modell

The International Mozart Foundation in Austria has posted the sheet music for all of Mozart's scores online, and is offering them as free downloads. Apparently they're been very popular, and the number of downloads must be straining their server, because the download page bears this warning message:

NOTE: We are overvelmed by the resonance of this website. We regret any delays in accessing this site and are working on expanding our server capacities

While poking around on my hard drive, I unearthed a Game Neverending chat transcript from about three years ago. It's from when yeoz had discovered a bug in GNE Mark II that allowed him to pick up an enormous number of items, and he was seeing just how far it would go. Here's his moment of glory:

yeöz:*Ahem*
yeöz picks up 2880851 bananas.
striatic: yes!
Aaaugh! applauds
yeöz: You pick up 2880851 bananas. pack weight +230468080.
yeöz: i'm not going to eat them though...
striatic cries tears of joy.
yeöz drops 2880851 bananas.
striatic: are you still below 0% capacity
yeöz: holy cow
yeöz: it jumped even
yeöz: -531k%
Aaaugh!: What are you going to do for an encore?
striatic: because then you can walk around with them and not lose energy
yeöz picks up 2880851 bananas.
yeöz drops 2880851 bananas.
striatic: weird
yeöz: i'm only -70k% with *all* the bananas :)
Plurp has arrived.
Aaaugh!: I wonder how many harpsichords you could carry now.
striatic: nice work
Plurp: An infinite number.

The wombat lives across the seas,
Among the far Antipodes.
He may exist on nuts and berries,
Or then again, on missionaries;
His distant habitat precludes
Conclusive knowledge of his moods,
But I would not engage the wombat
In any form of mortal combat.

—Ogden Nash