Another Question for the Therapist I'll Eventually Need

December 17, 2004

Another Question for the Therapist I’ll Eventually Need

So, I did a bit of tinkering around with the ol’ blog a couple of days ago, and in the process, I discovered something about myself. I’m a fricking loony.

(Okay, okay, so I already knew that. Fine. And everyone else knew it, too. You win. Just let me tell my damned story, would you? We don’t need extra smartasses around here — when I need you to fill in, I’ll make the call to the bullpen, dammit. Lousy vultures.)

Anyway, like most people who’ve been blogging for more than ten minutes or so, I’ve been having trouble with comment spammers. I’ve mentioned this before — I’m too busy pretending to work and not get fired to check exactly where, but it’s come up before. I’m sure of it.

(So I won’t rail on and on about how these people are shameless, unrepentant douchebags that should have rabid fire ants vacuum-packed up their asses and then hung upside-down by their toenails until they see the error of their ways.

Or how I think it’s fair that if they want to use my weblog as their personal ad space, then I should get to use their foreheads as my private-use urinal cakes.

Or how, if I could just get my hands on an address of where one of the fucktards lives, I’d load up a dumptruck with Hefty bags full of elephant shit, deposit it onto their porch, and light the pile with a goddamned flamethrower. Preferably with them under it.

No, folks — I won’t go into all that, because you’ve heard it all before. And I’m over it, really. No, really. Honest. Just get me that street address, and we’ll put it to the test, baby.)

Anyway… where the hell was I, again?

Oh, right — fiddling with the blog. Carrying on, then:

So, one of the ways I’ve used to combat these mouthbreathing assbags is to simply change the name of the script used by you regular, friendly, appreciated folks to leave comments. See, most of these spammenters are a couple of testicles short of a nutsack, and so, just taking away the comment script name they’re looking for stops ’em dead in their tracks.

(I imagine shiny objects would work, as well — these people just aren’t that bright, bless their twisted, impotent little souls. But honestly, I can’t even think of a shiny object that I’d want to distract them with that I wouldn’t also feel the need to shove up their asses until they could taste the shine on the roofs of their mouths. So I fiddle with the comment script. Much easier, and less messy, too!)

Anyway, my first go-round with this little trick was a few weeks ago. I changed the script from simply ‘comment’, as it ships with MovableType, to ‘barcelona’. It was the first thing I could think of — maybe because I’d just recently written the entry about my high school Spanish class (which normally, I’d link to, but again — trying not to get fired here), which mentioned the character Manuel from Fawlty Towers. Who was from Barcelona.

(Yes, that’s a fricking long-ass way to go.

And yes, that’s how my mind works, most of the time. Don’t ask me why. I’m special. Quite possibly in a ‘short bus’ kind of way. Meh.)

So, I have no idea why that was the very first thing that popped into my head. It’s not like I’d just finished writing that post — that had been a day or three before, and I’m sure all sorts of words had been thrown at me in the interim. Why ‘barcelona’ seemed like a good idea at the time… who knows?

It gets better, folks. Stick with me here.

So, that was a couple of weeks or more ago. And between that, the MT-Blacklist plugin, and my handy banned IP list, that kept most of the spam wankers at bay.

I say ‘most’ because, about once a week, my inbox gets treated to a dozen or so emails for the latest crap-ass casino, or loserly ‘buy prescription drugs in Guatemala!’ scam, or some spoogetacular porn site that thinks there’s still a market niche for hot donkey-blowing pics.

(Which can’t possibly be true, this many years down the road, right? I mean, really — if mule molesting is your thing, then surely you’ve found your fix by now. I’ve been getting spam emails about that shit for years — what could you possibly offer, at this point, that offers a new angle?

As a matter of fact, I daresay that donkey blowing is completely saturated these days.

I dare say it, but I won’t. ‘Cause that’s nasty! ‘Saturated blown donkeys’! Ewwwwwww!)

All right. Wafting gently back to the point, then.

So, a few dickheads still get their ads in, but the cleanup time is five minutes or less with MT-Blacklist, so it’s no biggie. Still, if it happens more than about once a week, it’s just too goddamned annoying to deal with, and that’s what happened this week. I got hit twice in three days or so, and decided to change the comment script name again, to keep the bullshit to a dull roar for a while.

Which meant I needed another name.

Something unexpected. Something different.

And something off the top of my head — I didn’t want to work too hard on this thing; I just wanted to watch the spammers flounder for a while.

So, again, I used the first word that popped into my head. Only this time, I have no idea how it got there. Or at the time, that it even existed before. (Though it did — more on that in a moment.)

Anyway, long story ever-so-slightly shorter, should you decide to leave me a comment in the next few days, you’ll find if you check your site bar that the script you’re using to do so is called:

badgerpants

That’s right, people — badgerpants. Badger. Pants. I was on the hook, under pressure to think of a word — any word, real or imagined, in any language on the planet — and I came up with badgerpants.

I think that speaks volumes about my mental faculties, or lack thereof, right there. Not to mention the fact that I devolved from ‘barcelona’, which is at least a very nice town, from what I understand, down to ‘badgerpants’, which is… well, it’s… damn. I don’t even know what it is.

So, I looked it up, which is how I know the term predated my little epiphany the other night. And I found two more or less reliable references to ‘badgerpants’, using Google:

A LiveJournal weblog, which I’d never seen before, and
this picture, which I’ve also never seen before (and which I can honestly say I hope I never see again)

So how did I get ‘badgerpants’ on the brain? No idea. Perhaps someday I’ll look into professional help to sort it all out.

(And soon, I’ll have plenty of time, I’ll bet. If there’s anything I’ve linked to that’ll get me fired, it’s that damned disturbing image. I am not gonna sleep well tonight, folks. Yeeks!)

Until then, just remember — if you leave me a comment, you’re only encouraging me. And who knows what the next random word out of my mushy brain will be when I change the script name again? Stay tuned for that one, folks. It oughta be a doozy.