muskrat_john ([info]muskrat_john) wrote,
@ 2008-07-15 15:00:00
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Current location:Muskrat Central
Current mood: accomplished
Current music:"Mother's Little Helper" - The Rolling Stones
Entry tags:dork tower, games 100, spam

The Games 100. MY Games 100!
Wow, what about this new trend in Spam subject lines, trying to sucker you in with some bizarro dystopian vision of a Martin-Amis-like world gone south. A sort of Alternate Reality reading of tabloid headlines:

Britney in coma, feared dead
Tornado in New York destroys city
Democrats withdraw Obama from Race
Angelina Jolie Dies in Miscarriage
Ben Sheets named All-Star Same starting picher

Oh. Wait. That last one was for real (anyone else on the Milwaukee Brewers mailing list? Did they REALLY misspell "pitcher"?)

The interesting thing about this new e-mail trend is, if you open it, a SECOND awful headline appears, before a link that -- by now -- anyone with even half a brain will realize probably doesn't link to the New York Times online:

Nicole Kidman loses baby in miscarriage
James Brown dies of heart attack
Military insurgence in Afghan, US troops killed
New evidence confirms US Moon landing was a hoax

My favorite one-two punch so far is the subject line Elton John dies in rocket ship followed by "Federal regulators prepared to infringe individual rights by restricting what consumers can do online." Try saying THAT three times fast.

I find trends in e-mail Spam subject lines fascinating. I wonder if anyone's ever done a study on them...

EDIT: Apparently someone has written on the trend. Interesting...

****

Yes, I did change yesterday's punchline three times.



Every now and then, a syndicate inquires as to whether I'd want to do Dork Tower as a daily strip. I've never really had the time to pursue it. Still. God help anyone who eventually becomes my editor.

****

Quite liking Thunderbird as a mail program, so thanks to all for recommending it (I prefer my mail Application-based to Web-based, hence not going with the alsso highly recommended Gmail).

How to transfer mailboxes from "Mail" to "Thunderbird," when Thunderbird doesn't even recognize that you've got a Mail application when you go to "Import Mailboxes." Hmmm...

****

Hurmmmm. I'm a LOT closer to 100 games than I thought I was before.

Just did up a spreadsheet, so I wouldn't miscount. Apparently, I've worked on 98 games. To wit:

10 Days in Africa (Out of the Box)
10 Days in the USA (Out of the Box)
10 Days in Asia (Out of the Box)
10 Days In Europe( Out of the Box)
Abandon Ship (Dragon Magazine)
aBRIDGEd (Out of the Box)
Apples to Apples Party Box/Crate (Out of the Box)
Apples to Apples Expansion Box 1 (Out of the Box)
Apples to Apples Expansion Box 2 (Out of the Box)
Apples to Apples Jr. (Out of the Box)
Apples to Apples Jr 8+ (Out of the Box)
Apples to Apples Biblical Edition(Out of the Box)
Apples to Apples Jewish Edition (Out of the Box)
Apples to Apples British Islands Edition (Out of the Box)
Apples to Apples British Islands Edition, Jr. (Out of the Box)
Backseat Drawing (Out of the Box)
Basari (Out of the Box)
Blink (Out of the Box)
Bosworth (Out of the Box)
Button Men: Dork Victory (Cheapass Games)
Chain Game(Out of the Box)
Chez Dork (Steve Jackson Games)
Chez Geek (Steve Jackson Games)
Chez Geek II (Steve Jackson Games)
Chez Geek III (Steve Jackson Games)
Chez Goth (Steve Jackson Games)
Chez Greek (Steve Jackson Games)
Chez Grunt (Steve Jackson Games)
Cineplexity(Out of the Box)
Cloud 9 (Out of the Box)
CoverUp (Out of the Box)
Creatures and Cultists
Creepyfreaks (WizKids)
Dead and Breakfast (Dragon Magazine)
Dork Frag (Steve Jackson Games)
Dork 20 (Atlas)
Dork Tower: The Boardgame (Steve Jackson Games)
Dungeonville (Z-Man Games)
Easy Come, Easy Go (Out of the Box)
Escape From Elba (Cheapass Games)
Fish Eat Fish (Ou (Out of the Box)t of the Box)
Gold Digger (Out of the Box)
Illuminati: New World Order (Steve Jackson Games)
INWO: Assassins (Steve Jackson Games)
Kobolds Ate My Baby (Ninth Level Games)
Kobolds Ate My Baby Super Deluxx Edition (Dork Storm Press)
Letter Flip (Out of the Box)
Letter Roll (Out of the Box)
Mag*Blast 3rd Edition (Fantasy Flight)
MixUp (Out of the Box)
Munchkin (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin II (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin III (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin IV (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin V (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin VI (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin VII (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin Bites (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin Bites II (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin Blender (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin Booty (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin Cthulhu (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin Cthulhu II (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin Cursed Deck Demo (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin D20 (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin Dice (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin Impossible (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin Stacked Deck Demo (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin, Star (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin, Star II (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin, Super (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin, Super II (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin, The Good The Bad and the Munchkin (Steve Jackson Games)
Munchkin Quest (Steve Jackson Games)
My Dwarfs Fly (Pegasus Spiel)
My Word! (Out of the Box)
My Word Junior! (Out of the Box)
Ninja Versus Ninja (Out of the Box)
Party Pooper (Out of the Box)
Pepper! (Out of the Box)
PokeTHULHU RPG (Dork Storm Press)
Quitch (Out of the Box)
Revolver (Ronin Arts)
Rock! (Out of the Box)
ShapeUp (Out of the Box)
ShipWrecked (Out of the Box)
Snorta (Out of the Box)
Squint (Out of the Box)
Squint Jr. (Out of the Box)
Tutankhamen (Out of the Box)
Wallamoppi (Out of the Box)
Warhamster Rally (Jolly Roger)
Whad'Ya Know (Out of the Box)
Wheedle (Out of the Box)
Wild Side (Out of the Box)
ZenBenders - Dragon (Out of the Box)
ZenBenders - Dog (Out of the Box)
ZenBenders - Racetrack (Out of the Box)

At this point in time, I'm working on six games (one of which - Texterity - I also created)

Supersonic (Out of the Box)
Lightning (Out of the Box)
Texterity! (Out of the Box)
Word on the Street (Out of the Box Games)
Run Wild (Out of the Box Games)
Munchkin Quest II (Steve Jackson Games)

Munchkin Quest II will most likely be the next one I finish, sometime very soon. So I'll be at Ninty-nine. Supersonic, Lightning and Texterity and also pretty far along. Sooooooo....

...sometime in the next month, it looks like I'll hit the 100 games mark!

Frankly, I'm as shocked at this as you are. I mean, for a start...well...how to put this delicately?...DON'T GAMES COMPANIES REALIZE I CAN'T EVEN DRAW A FOURTH FINGER? Goodness sakes. Anyhoo, I wonder if there's some way to celebrate that (the "100 Games" thing. Not the "Can't draw four fingers" thing). Shame I won't be at GenCon...that would have been the perfect place to throw a party...


(Post a new comment)


[info]daffodil_aura
2008-07-15 08:42 pm UTC (link)
I actually just read something on those spam titles, the last tab still open from my MSN browsing, before switching to the LJ tab...

‘Tabloid’ Spam is Worm's Newest Turn.

Apparently someone is studying them?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]muskrat_john
2008-07-15 10:14 pm UTC (link)
Thanks!

Wow.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Military insurgence in Afghan, US troops killed
[info]repton_infinity
2008-07-15 08:52 pm UTC (link)
Quick! Call up all available walnuts!

(Reply to this)


[info]jhghendriks
2008-07-15 09:01 pm UTC (link)
Will you be at Spiel?
We could celebrate the 100 mark by the time honored tradition of binge drinking ;)

Munchkin VII (Steve Jackson Games)
Why don't I know about that one? (weep)

(Reply to this)

MQ2
[info]zargon
2008-07-15 09:05 pm UTC (link)
Munchkin Quest II???

I don't even have Munchkin Quest yet!!!

DON'T TEASE ME LIKE THAT!!!!!

(Reply to this)


[info]some_other_dave
2008-07-15 10:11 pm UTC (link)
The Thunderbird FAQ has articles on how to copy your old mailboxes into Tbird. Part of the trick is finding them first, but (in my experience) once you copy them in, Tbird will just re-index and be good to go.

Then again, I was importing from an old-old-old version of Mozilla Suite email.

What program/platform/OS were you migrating from, again?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]muskrat_john
2008-07-15 10:14 pm UTC (link)
I easily imported stuff from Eudora, which popped up in the window right away.

It's just Mail I can't seem to link to...

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]karzender
2008-07-15 10:34 pm UTC (link)
God help anyone who eventually becomes my editor.

Not gonna say nuthin'... ;)

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[info]exrat
2008-07-16 01:03 am UTC (link)
This is old, but may be worth a try nonetheless.

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[info]zenfrodo
2008-07-16 01:22 am UTC (link)
Maybe not a daily...but Sunday only?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]muskrat_john
2008-07-16 02:17 am UTC (link)
The only reason Foxtrot can get away with Sunday only is that it built up a huge readership daily for 15 years, first.

A syndicate would most likely think there wouldn't be enough money to launch a Sunday-only strip these days...

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]zenfrodo
2008-07-16 11:12 pm UTC (link)
Foxtrot's gone Sunday only? (shows how often I look at the funnies).

I was thinking Berke Breathed's Outland, actually. After that looooooooooooooong hiatus he had from Bloom County, they still let him go Sunday only.

*eyes Dork's large former readership from Dragon*
*eyes enthusiastic fans here & on the RSS feed journal*

I think you're underestimating yourself, John.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]slev
2008-07-16 05:38 am UTC (link)
Gmail can be set up as a POP3 account so you can use it on Thunderbird. That's how I do it ;)

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]politas
2008-07-17 05:33 pm UTC (link)
Likewise. Gives you a free email backup system, too.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]sabledrake
2008-07-16 06:56 am UTC (link)
I got a spam today with something about the pope being assassinated in Vatican City. Does this mean the German trend is over? I was kind of enjoying the German trend.

-- C.

(Reply to this)


[info]tallarn
2008-07-16 07:24 am UTC (link)
I got "Ninja Attack In Times Square" this morning in my Spam file.

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[info]scaryjim
2008-07-16 11:35 am UTC (link)
I have to say I shyed (is that a word? or how to spell it?) away from Thunderbird for a long time, until I started working at Manchester Uni where the standard email set up is Outlook with Oracle Connector (yes, the Uni of Manchester runs Oracle as it's mail server. I mean, really...). There was no way I was layering one bad application on top of another bad application, so I took the plunge and went with Thunderbird, and I am so glad I did. It means I can monitor as many work and personal email accounts as I want from work, and it automatically syncs my sent items as well as my inbox (which you have to mess around for ages persuading Outlook Express to do). Very impressed so far,a nd glad to hear that it's working well for you too. So what were the "other" punchlines? I caught one that was something like "Plus: Metahumour - you've got to steer clear of that one" (something like that, although I've probably got it mostly wrong)...

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