sigh . . .

Just received a fraudulent piece of crap e-mail from scammers who had carefully included an exact reproduction of the U.S. Bank logo, sent it out from a "usbank.com" address . . . and then allowed the actual text of the message to be written by somebody who's clearly not a native English speaker. At first I found this amusing; then I became glum, thinking about all the people who probably don't even bother to *read* the message before clicking links and "confirming their data" with mad abandon.

More entertaining is the spam I've received at least a half-dozen times, subject-lined "Abolish your bills the Christian way!" Since I've never actually opened one of these messages, I'm unsure if they're talking about whaling on the moneylenders like Jesus in the temple, or what. I think what I like the most, though, is the use of the word "abolish" in this context; it makes me think of some British applications of the term, e.g., "We've decided to abolish the old potting shed at the bottom of the garden."

Outside, it is the most transcendently, glowingly, fragrantly, and tenderly beautiful June evening imaginable; I would sit out on the back deck and compose this on my laptop (having finally--YES!--triumphed over my balky wireless connection, an epic saga which you may be glad I spared you), except that I would be chewed alive by mosquitoes. I may instead go out for a brisk walk; if I stay in motion, I can generally evade them. My god, I hate mosquitoes (insert cheesy analogy to relentless and annoying spammers here) -- but it's worth getting bitten to be out on an evening like this, and so out I go.