Last October I wrote about the email spam I was getting and what triggered it. It seems every time I accessed my baseball team's web site, I was bombarded with ads for little blue pills to spark my libido, Russian Girls were sweet talking me and there were also ads to increase the size of my penis. Yikes.
So I quit visiting those sites and I have been spam free since--until recently when I saw a story about a favorite player I wanted to read and clicked on it. You guessed it.
Nastyusha24, Anna26, and Tanusha23 all appeared as spam the next morning. Sigh! My desire to read about my team has the girls lounging in my email account again. Those three ladies were just the beginning. Last year about 30 of them filled my spam folder till I found the cause.
It seems these spammers think that if you like sports, you are male, horny and must be lacking physically. Sigh.
But some good news along the baseball lines. In 2010 I wrote a scathing post about what ticked me off about baseball. It involved the chewing, spitting and crotch grabbing that the ballplayers were obcessed with.
Those three activities ran rampant in baseball as my post detailed. I am sure my post had nothing to do with it but oddly those annoying habits tapered off after my post. Today it is almost like watching a bunch of monks playing. The boys are playing baseball, not with themselves.
There are still guys that will tweak the protective cup occasionally but grabbing themselves 4 times per at bat seems to have gone the way of the dodo. Chewing tobacco is mostly out. Now a mouth full of sunflower seeds satisfies the boys and at least the spitting is not colored brown by tobacco juice anymore. I think the new young players are setting the bar a bit higher for dignity in the ball park.
The boys of summer have cleaned up their act and I am pretty sure most of the women who watch along with me are grateful. Congrats fellows. Proud of you.
Did you ever write about a major gripe then to have it miraculously go away? The power of the pen or just good timing?? I'm going with the latter.
Good timing? No. I've often written about something only to find changes have been made according to what I have written. I'm sure someone somewhere in marketing or politics is reading my posts. they may just have a few certain words "flagged" and if they appear in a post I've written, then someone will read that post. I don't know who or when, but it can't be coincidence. Or can it?
ReplyDeleteRiver,
DeleteI think you are right about the certain words flagged. It would explain how sometimes writers will respond to a review I do of their books.
Just last night I saw a guy singing on TV and doing the crotch grabbing and it irritated me to no end. It's no longer shocking, guys, it's just boring and gross.
ReplyDeleteI did experience the power of the pen back a long time ago when I started a letter writing campaign against publishers who marketed books with brutal rapes in them as romance genre books. It's a long story but I have still have an album full of letters from published authors who agreed with me and one standout author who didn't. Interesting enough, a few years later she was killed in a domestic abuse situation.
Jean R,
DeleteThat is good to know though very sad about that one author. Perhaps we can make a difference with the pen.
Now you've got me wondering if anything I said or wrote about might have changed things somehow. Nothing comes to mind. Being a non-fan of sports, I seem to get most of my spam because of my blogs. They come in waves. However, I was just thinking about you yesterday, Patti, and here came a post from you. Maybe I caused it. :-)
ReplyDeleteDjan,
DeleteJust finished reading your "hundredth monkey" post and think we might be on to something.
I've got the world on a string and it all revolves around me:-)
ReplyDeleteAnnie,
DeleteI hope not but I think you just might be right.
I read sports all the time and do not get visited by those ladies after, I'll have to try some other sites.
ReplyDeleteIn defense of the players, if you swing and miss without adjusting, it can be painful.
Joeh,
DeleteMaybe it is only from the Marlin's beat writers but I know if I don't visit them, they don't visit me.
I am all for adjusting and today a bit of that tweaking still goes on. it was the prolonged clutching that got to me and it seems to be gone.Amen.
Interesting question isn't it? I can't think of a similar situation I've had but I tend to agree with Annie.
ReplyDeleteBarbara,
DeleteSadly, me too.
I don't get a lot of spam but that's because I hardly ever log into anything or connect anywhere except for news and blogs. My sister and brother both had Yahoo mail accountants and after the Yahoo hacking I did get some spam mail from them, but of course it wasn't from them at all.
ReplyDeleterobin,
DeleteI know. I get email from a good friend's name and email address but the country of origin is Japan and they don't live there. Scary huh.
I write in a field (neurology) you'd think would be immune to spam but I get from 4-8 medical spam messages a day. If you belong to Facebook the ads on the side are nothing short of hysterical. One of my favourites was touting a Canadian program which allows petty crooks to clear old offences in order to obtain a passport. These always have a photo of a "crook" in prison guard, and one came up with George W Bush portrayed as the crook. (Who knew we'd look back on W's presidency with longing and nostalgia!) But I wrote one blog post that resulted in a *complete* lack of ads on my side feed for a good six weeks. Maybe FB people read blogs, I don't know, but a couple of days after I posted it my ad feed cleared, and mercifully no one flogged so much as a cough syrup at me. I consider it a miracle. http://suresimple.blogspot.ca/search?q=square-dancing
ReplyDeleteDeb,
DeleteWow, that is wonderful. I have FB but it is a fake account that I use to access my families accounts so I don't get any traffic or spam. That Canadian one sounds a bit scary. Sanitized crooks can get passports? Yikes.
Hope your spam free zone lasts.
Maybe it's just baseball. Reading online about soccer does not result in spam. And if the players are clutching it's because they got kicked. Ouch.
ReplyDeleteLinda R,
DeleteMaybe I should switch to watching soccer. From what I am hearing, no one else is getting spam from sports. Must be only from my Marlins contributors.
Maybe I should post about it. I get penis enhancement & dating ads all the time!!
ReplyDeleteFran,
DeleteMaybe they feel that if we aren't looking for love, maybe we know someone who is. They sure don't seem to care who they send them out to.
Dear Patti, I bet that many women wrote letters or even blog posters about the "cupping" and the spitting. And finally, the powers that be had to pay attention if they wanted to keep their female fans! The "Me too" movement is really showing that some men--not all--are paying attention to women and their pocketbooks!
ReplyDeleteAs a baseball fan, I am surely glad you wrote your post and said what so many of us thought! Peace.
Dee,
DeleteI am not sure what really happened but I am really glad it did. Sometimes I think maybe it is just that the old CS&G guys have aged out. I sure am grateful. Now if we can just get them to stand in the box and quit adjusting their batting gloves stalling for time the game would move right along. One can hope.
Dear Patti, the glove with velcro is indeed a stall! Peace.
DeleteI wouldn't be too sure it was just good timing. Good work!
ReplyDeleteOlga,
DeleteWhat ever it was, I am so grateful. It really was a distraction.
I am a true baseball fan for 60÷ years! Tho, the spitting of tobacco & crotch grabbing never bothered me. I always figured those cups MUST BE UNCOMFORTABLE and I'd be adjusting them all the time myself.
ReplyDeleteI'm visiting you from your comment you left above mine at DJanity. Nice to meet you.
Hootin'Anni,
DeleteWelcome to TNS. Thanks so much for stopping by and commenting.
I agree that they need adjusting, it was just before they made it a project and repeated it over and over. Think it was a bit of a macho thing. They have now cut most of it out and just tweak the cup when needed. Ahhh.
Patti, I do tend to believe in the power of words. However, in this day and age, that idea is somewhat scary. I think the media controls so much of public opinion that I don’t immediately believe what I’m reading is right or the truth.
ReplyDeleteMy husband calls baseball, "Scratch and spit." LOL
ReplyDeleteI am not getting spam. I think my settings are fairly strong. I do notice if I shop online I get ads for items they believe I want. I never pay attention to where hanfs go nor what mouths are up to. Is that odd?
ReplyDeleteYour right Patty. And I think unaware of the problem I agree it's been gradually disappearing. I watched the game late last night from Seattle and I believe my beloved Twins are now mostly chewing gum...;)
ReplyDeleteI have watched the Blue Jays a few times lately but am no longer a keen follower of the sport as. My eyes just miss too much.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I chuckled.
I’ve been getting some weird spam on my blog comments too. It’s hard to keep up with erasing them, especially now that we’re not notified by email if we have gotten a comment. I also get some weird email, but it goes to my Junk mail, thank goodness.
ReplyDelete