Spammers Say the Darndest Things

I noticed earlier this week that my blog was about to pass 100,000 page views. That would be exciting except that I've noticed I've had a LOT of suspicious traffic again. I get a lot of spammers leaving comments on the older posts. I was hating that but then decided maybe I needed to change my attitude and learn to enjoy it.

What? Enjoy spammers?!

First, for those of you who don't have your own blogs, let me tell you about spammers. They are advertisements, really. They are likely automated responses. That is why many bloggers have you go through the word verification process and if you can't do it, you can't leave a comment. Without word verification they can leave "comments" on blog posts using some sort of computerized program. At the end of their comment, they show their website and invite you to click. If you do, you find they are advertising some great new weight loss product or something like that. You don't get to connect with a real person at all. I don't know how they find blog posts but I've noticed that once they find one of mine, I get a LOT of comments on that particular post. It's not all bad, though.

Many of them say nice things to me! They call my posts brilliant, insightful and even auspicious. They tell me they've been looking and looking for an article such as mine because it answers all their questions. They tell me I am a great writer and perhaps I can help them start a blog. They ALL invite me to check out their web page. Isn't that sweet of them?

None of them make sense and are most certainly written by someone who did not read the post. Many seem to be written by someone who has access to a list of English words but has no idea what they mean. Many just link nonsensical, sometimes funny, phrases and make them look like comments. That can be kind of entertaining. Well, it is entertaining the first few times. I'm now getting about 20 a day!

I know I can reinstate the word verification again, and likely I will, but I'm trying to hold off. Why? Because they are getting harder and harder to read and I hate them.! I may have to give in again, but for now, I'm just going to keep deleting my spammer comments. If any sneak through where you can see them, please don't encourage them by clicking on their links.

For now, I may as well continue to accept their ridiculous compliments!

P.S. For those of you wondering about the arsonists in our neighborhood, I don't know anything more about the culprit(s). I saw that the camper fire actually did burn the house a bit where it was parked, and melted a bit of a camper in the driveway beside it. We've had no damage to our property.  I slept several nights with the windows open so I could smell smoke but all I smelled was a nervous skunk! Hopefully we have returned to being a quiet little neighborhood.

Tutorial/Giveaway: Repurposing Jewelry into Jewelry

No, I just don't give up with the whole tutorial thing, do I?  You would think this one would have been my last.  I encouraged myself, though, when I discovered that even a not-very-good-cook could produce a cooking tutorial.  At least that cooking tutorial produced something very yummy to eat.  This one was pretty but didn't taste all that great.  Probably the most useful tutorial I've managed to put together was the one about disabling word verification.  I still have a personal vendetta against the word verification junk.  It helps stop computer-generated comments.  Yes, I've had a few of those but they are simple to remove.  It won't help stop comments from creeps unless they are people who have trouble reading the distorted letters as well.  It has stopped me from leaving comments before as I sometimes just give up.  Oh man!  I'm ranting again.  Let's move on...

I enjoy reading blogs and books about people repurposing an unused item into something altogether different.  For instance, there are books about recycling sweaters.  You can make them into scarves and such.  There are entire blogs dedicated to repurposing.  I found one that shows how to turn eggshells into a leather look for covering things like photo album covers.  Hmmm...  Well, I decided I didn't need to stretch quite that far to get in on the repurposing wave.  I'm going to show you how I turned an earring into a necklace.  Yes, you read it right.  This is a tutorial on how to move jewelry from your ear to your chest.

OK, so you think this is a waste of time.  However, have you ever been in the mall (any mall) and stopped in to one of those stores with all the costume jewelry?  They have some pretty mighty earrings out right now!  Unfortunately, not every one has mighty earlobes.  Some of those earrings are so big you would soon be singing, "Do Your Ears Hang Low?"  Well, I really think many of those giant earrings are pretty but I don't want my ears to dangle "to and fro".  So, I repurposed.

I took a beautiful but way-too-large earring and made a pretty necklace.  I think you may agree that it was the humane thing to do.

First, I just opened up the little ring to get the big bobble off the earring.  I can later use the top part of the earring to refashion a more reasonable decoration for my lady-like earlobes.

I set it aside for a few minutes and took out some cotton thread of a corresponding color.  I just crocheted a long, long chain and hooked the ends together.

The only measuring I did was to wrap it around my own neck and decided about how long I thought it should be.

I went for a pretty long dangling type of look.  I then just did a slip stitch around all loops of the chain.

I wanted to make it looked more polished I guess.

I tied off the loose ends and pulled the tails back in to be hidden.

Using little needle-nosed pliers I reattached the ring around the chain and through the top of the pendant.



I can now call it a pendant since it is no longer capable of dangling dangerously heavy from someone's ear.

Waa-la!  I think it is kind of pretty.  It reminds me of a peacock!


Now, I am wondering if anyone wants it?  I am giving it away.  After all, I have the other earring with which I can make another necklace for myself if I wish.

To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post or my personal facebook page before May 1.  If you have trouble leaving comments here just e-mail me at onlythemanager@yahoo.com and your name will be entered.  I will use random.org to be sure it is all fair.  That's really kind of funny as it is quite possible there will only be a few comments.  That means your chances are great!  Come on, don't let that scare you.  Go ahead, leave a comment.

Tutorial - How to Disable Word Verification on Blogger

Before I begin my tutorial I would like to start with an icicle photograph from my deck this morning.  I hope no neighbors were looking out as I was on the deck in my flannel jammies flashing my camera before the sun was quite up.  They are probably used to that kind of behavior from me I suppose.

Yes, it is Winter in Wyoming again.  I don't mind so much this time of year as I know it won't last too long.  We've really had a mild winter.  Isn't it beautiful here today?

OK, now on to some technical details...

 As I mentioned a few days ago, the Word Verification feature is MUCH more difficult lately.  The letters are smooshed together and mixes of black and white.  I have trouble distinguishing an ol from a d for instance.

I took the word verification feature off my blog some time ago.  I'm not saying that everyone should do that but I've not had any real problems.  I also removed the comment moderation feature so that your comments on my blog should show up right away.  That may have been a questionable choice on my part but I'm wild that way.  I've had a few comments that were spam, but they were kind of entertaining.  They usually have a word or two in them that coincides with my post, enough that I struggle to make sense of it, but the sentences are usually a big strange.  When I click on the link of the person who left the message (I ALWAYS do that, by the way.) I find an advertisement.  I just delete the comment at that point.  If I ever get vulgar comments I suppose I will reinstate the comment moderation feature.

 When I posted on the trouble I was having with reading the Word Verification words on other's blogs I learned that I was certainly not the only one annoyed by the changes.  I received a comment from Trisha that she didn't like it but she couldn't figure out how to disable it.  I was kind of baffled because when I disabled mine, it was easy.  I decided to go back to remember how I did it so that I could tell Trisha.  That is when I discovered that with the new Blogger interface that option isn't displayed anymore.  I've no idea why that is gone but this morning I whipped up a quick tutorial on how to get around that problem.

1.  When logged onto your own blog site, click Design.

2. Click on the little Settings Wheel and scroll down to choose Old Blogger Interface.

3.  Once you are at the old interface, choose Settings.

4.  Click on Comments.

5.  Scroll down on that screen and you will find this question regarding word verification.  As the saying goes, "Just Say No!"  I mean, if you want, that is.  I'm not going to judge you if you wish to continue requiring the word verification feature.  I am sure you have your reasons.  

6.  Oh my!  I almost forgot, you MUST scroll on down and click SAVE SETTINGS!  That SAVE feature is something I have learned the hard way.  Did I ever tell you about the time Mike used my phone to snap a photo of me with the singer, Michael Martin Murphey?  He had his arm around me!  I LOVED his music as a teenager and the 15 yr. old in me was sooooo excited about that moment!  My brother was also a Michael Martin Murphey fan and I was totally planning to send that photo to him to rub it in that he'd had his arm around me!  Well, Mike handed the camera back to me and I could see that the photo was very cool.  I did NOT touch SAVE, though, and I lost the photo!  Anyway, lesson learned.  I don't think my brother believes me but I really, really did have that photo!  ANYWAY, please select the save button.

7.  When all is well, simply go back to the top of the screen and click on Try the updated Blogger interface and you are good to go!

I May Be a Robot

 Seriously, I am finding it harder and harder to prove that I am not a robot.

Name the Baby!

When I was maybe 12 or 13 I had a list of names.  These were names I thought I might someday name my children.  I am not sure why I thought I needed to get started with the list then, but it was fun for me.  Did any of you do that?  It seems to me that some of my friends did it as well.

Oddly, when we did have our children, I never really pushed for any of the names on my previous list.  When we were first pregnant Mike had the idea of the names Maria and Benjamin, both derived from his grandparent's names.  In case you don't know, our Maria is pronounced Mariah and is a Norwegian name.  I added my Grandma's name and Wa-la, we had a name we both loved, Maria Rose.

The second time around we stuck with Benjamin, after Mike's Poppa Benny.  Poppa Benny died before Mike was even born but we'd both heard fun stories about him.  Interestingly, he was a banker.  Our Ben is now a banker as well.  Mike's middle name and his Dad's middle name, Robert, seemed like a good choice.  It was kind of fun to keep that link going.

When we were pregnant the last time (yes, I said "we" but really Mike did not spend 9 months throwing up) Mike and I were settling on Isaac for a boy's name or Charis for a girl's name.  Isaac means laughter and Charis is Greek for grace.  My Mom's name is Grace so it would have been as though we were naming her for my Mom.  I liked that a lot but as it turned out, we didn't have a "her".

Sam was named by committee.  Maria was 12 and Ben was 8 when we had him and they really did not agree that our baby would be an Isaac.  They were not impressed when we said it would be fun to say "Mike and Ike."  They were very involved in the name-choosing and had strong opinions.  The debates went on for months.  We had some funny moments as we discussed what playground nicknames might occur with any name one of us mentioned.  I think I will refrain from sharing those.

Finally, just a few weeks before I gave birth (I can't bring myself to say "we" gave birth) we were all in the car and the name, Sam, popped into my head.  I ran it by the other's and no one had anything sassy to say.  So, Sam it was...actually, Samuel.  We'd already chosen his middle name to honor his cousin who had died just a few months before Sam was born.

So, Sam wasn't technically named after anyone.  OK, my family did have a dog by that name when I was a child but really, Sam wasn't named after a dog.  When I told Grandma Rose our new baby's name she thought I'd named him after my cousin, John.  That was the day I learned that John's name was actually Samuel John.  His birthday was the same day as our Sam's!  It was just a coincidence, though.

How about you?  Are you named after anyone?  Have you named your children after anyone?  I was named after the songs, "Wake up Little Susie" and "Peggy Sue".  Are you wondering why I'm talking about baby names?

Well, yesterday our beautiful daughter announced her pregnancy.  Click here to check out her blog.  They did a beautiful job naming their first, Cordelia Rose.  However, I thought maybe they might need a little help with this second one.  It's only fair!  Remember, Maria got to have a say when we named Sam!

Naming a baby now has some advantages over 20 years ago.  The internet is a marvelous tool.  Do you know you can look up names by heritage, such as Irish for example?  It's really fun.  You can also look up the meanings of the names.  I have taken this internet-baby name connection one step further.  I thought perhaps they'd enjoy the selections I came up with that are more unique than what is found elsewhere.  You know how on many blogs you are asked to fill in the word verification to leave a comment?  Well, I started noticing that some of those words were kind of cool!

We've known for sometime now that grandbaby #2 was on the way so I got started right away with my list. I've not shown it to Maria and Eric yet but I am certain they will be delighted.  Each of these is from an actual word verification; I did not make them up on my own.  I do think, though, that I could make up the meanings of them on my own.

So, since we were subjected to the committee approach when we named Sam, I am inviting you all to be on this committee with me.  It is sort of an adjunct committee, not exactly official.  I want each of you to tell me which name you prefer?  Is it Fratwist?  Chaltie?  You can choose from this list or from a word verification of your own.

Fessino
Adensti
Fratwist
Panco
Syceobna
Raffe
Essinc
Yedulsi
Michon
Lestical
Amsawei
Purodsh
Ceflepin
Autuencr
Retymun
Glepret
Besso
Eryop
Notonham
Kince
Chaltie
Abblos
Biasi
Etedst
Arksin
Suppharo
Kedin
Hessina
Subbi
Kansti
Fersey
Tingra

Enough with Moderation!

I know, I know... moderation is a good thing.  For instance, eating in moderation means you will manage your weight and probably feel a lot better. 

image from photobucket.com

If you are going to drink alcohol, moderation means you won't have to deal with feeling bad the next morning, you won't make a fool of yourself, and your liver will be happy.

image from caveday.com

Even things that are good for you, such as exercise, are best done with some moderating limits.   I don't think I am in danger of surpassing those limits anytime soon but it is good to be aware of the risk anyway.

But, I'm tired of moderation.... comment moderation that is.  I've decided to take a risk and let you all put your comments directly on my posts without waiting for me to get back to approve them.  Sometimes it takes me all day to do that moderating stuff and in the meantime, no one else gets to read each other's comments.

I know, I'm wild and crazy.  Hopefully everyone will play nice so none of you will have to read mean or nasty comments.  If that happens, I may change my plan.

Previously, I went crazy and dropped the word verification requirement for comments.    I have had NO spam so that has worked out fine.   Hopefully this risk will work out just as well for me.

 image from lisburncity.gov.uk

So here we go; Let the comments begin!