fruityoaty.com

The first day of a shiny new year always brings countless promises you make to yourself (and perhaps, to others), in hopes of becoming a better person over the course of the upcoming year (or in hopes of having a less f**ked up life). Everywhere on Middle Earth, Men, Hobbits and Dwarves alike are reminiscing about last year and the news media have already bombarded us with many lists - Best & Worst, Memorable & Forgettable, etc. on everything from politics to Britney Spears’ friend, “Alotta Fagina”.

Ah, we are two days into the New Year and I haven’t even shouted Happy New Year yet. Umm, Happy New Year? There, I said it. I know I should probably be writing one of those New Year’s entries already proliferating the blogosphere, but eh… I just haven’t felt inspired to blog and THIS, what you’re reading right now, isn’t one. Actually, I haven’t felt inspired to do anything of significance lately, but that’s an entirely different story that started last year and hasn’t ended. Maybe I’ll write something later.

Anyway, the real reason for this post is to apologize to the people who tried to legitimately visit or comment on my blog recently and could not because of a WordPress spam-fighting plugin called Bad Behaviour (or American spelling, Behavior). This plugin examines every request made to my blog and decides whether or not it is a valid user or a malicious bot or script. Spam comments can’t be made if their tools can’t access my blog in the first place. To use a religious metaphor, BB does an excellent job at separating the tares from the wheat for me. (A tare is a weed.)

Unfortunately, BB can be a little overzealous in its filtering activities. I’m sorry about that, but I neither know how to fix it nor will I ever turn off BB. I REALLY don’t want to read shit on Levitra, Party Poker, Viagra, Penis Enlargements, Get Your Degree By Mail and Get Rich Quick Schemes. If I have to lose a few valid readers and comments in the process, so be it.

NOTE: BB logs suspicious server requests. When I have time, I manually review them and re-post comments that I deem to be valid. Actually, I reviewed several just recently and found that a few were indeed valid. If you get a BB error message after commenting, PLEASE do not submit the comment again, meaning do not click the Holler Back button again.

You may also submit your comments via my Contact form and I’ll make sure they appear in the correct entries in my blog. I appreciate each and everyone of my readers and commenters. Thank you.

Many thanks to these 2 bloggers who alerted me on their recent BB woes. Please visit their sites and tell them I sent you to them (I checked these sites on Jan. 2 with 3 very decent spyware-checking tools):

Misstuned (Mari)

Her Realm (Cole)

Also, I just finished reading my friend Evilgenius’ personal blog entry titled 2006: A Year in Review (her life)… and umm, I still don’t understand the inclusion of the polar bear photo and specifically, the tie-in with the quote underneath the photo. HUH? Illumination, please.

To summarize, if you see the following Error 403 message, it’s Bad Behaviour plugin in effect:

… and if you click on the “fix this problem yourself” link above, you would then see this Technical Support message about why you were blocked (well, it could be a false positive, but then again it could be true, you stinkin’ spammer):

Don’t sweat it too much… that is, if your computer doesn’t really have viruses or spyware and / or if you’re really not a bloody spammer. Again, HOLLER BACK via my Contact form. Remember, Massa P (aka “fruity”) does not selectively HATE YOU. Massa P loves a lot of people except dirty rotten spammers and Jessica Alba fans.

So, are you a weed or wheat? Holler back. I could be listening. Maybe.

And lastly, QUESTIONS: How was your New Year’s? And did y’all behave well or badly?

Peace and adieu,

semi-fresh fruity

P.S. All spammers will STILL be shot in front of a live studio audience.