...Once again it's time to visit the junk mailbox and find out what's new in the land of useless mail that people send me in lieu of popup ads and various other annoying advertisements.

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Dear Mr. Spammer,

Woozlebotz? Schniztentag? Xwerhjyg? Did you understand any of that? No? Good. That's my point this time.

While I really appreciate that you've stepped up the mail that you're sending to try and make my inbox not seem so quiet, desolate and lonely, you should maybe consider sending the spam in a language that I understand. Lately you've been sending all your spam in Russian, and while I seriously considered it for awhile, I never did take that course in Russian while I was in college.

Now, before I start lapsing into really bad German (the course I took instead of Russian and barely remember any of), I'd like you to check your settings on your word processing program and make sure that everything isn't saving into Russian. Then again, maybe you have a bigger problem. Maybe your ISP is routing through Russian and everything is getting translated automatically. Wouldn't *that* suck for you?

I've thought about translating them to find out what you're trying to say in case it's something really important that I cannot live without, but I've been a little concerned about what I might find. After all, what if it's some really nasty porn spam, or something that's not fit for anyone but the truly depraved of humanity to read. It's safer to not translate it.

I've noticed that lots of things seem to be getting twisted when Russia gets involved. The RIAA is suing some Russian music site for a whole bunch of money because they're selling music for bottom of the barrel prices (we're talking whole albums for under $2), and the RIAA wants royalties. Lots and lots of royalties. Millions and millions of dollars worth.

Of course they do, greedy bastards that they are. Never mind that the service got permission from the Russian music publishing agencies to do so. That's not the Russian music service's fault, but it certainly is a mess and they're the focus of it.

We've got sites originating out of Russia that are publishing copyright protected cross stitch charts on them. Yes, that's still going on. Hey, wait a second... you're not trying to send me advertisements for free cross-stitch charts, are you? *raises an eyebrow at this* Maybe I *should* try translating them...

...then again, I wouldn't want to stumble across an advertisement for Russian porn done in cross stitch for free.

~WG~ Thanks, but I'll stick to stitching dragons in english