Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

Not that it's particularly exciting, but I've just rewritten the code that builds BME News to properly sort the columnists chronologically (so new ones will always be at the top). Later this week there will be another SHAPESHIFT posted, and maybe some other pleasant surprises as well.

I've been continuing to informally catalogue the spam that I get. The number continues to rise since the last time I mentioned it; I'm getting easily six thousand spams a day, as much as thirty meg of crap. On BME I regularly just make up email addresses to suit my needs of the day since most of it is just a “catch all” system; that is, anything@bmezine.com works, and is then filtered by my email software. Anyway, at least 90% of the spam that I get, if not more, is being sent to addresses that don't exist!!!

Oh, and I should note that if I include BMEworld, my servers in total are probably receiving close to 100 meg of spam per day. It's obscene.

Now, in the “what were they thinking” category, I saw this car for sale on eBay. Because I'm a sucker for Sterlings (the Sebring, which this is, is just a variant) I did the ol' clickity-click. I mean, it's low, sleek, rear-engined, rare, and has kooky doors (and is cheap):

Looks good, right? Let me again emphasize the rear engine thing. That means the engine is in the back. But this car has sidepipes:

Seriously, this idiot actually put on fake sidepipes because he thought his car would look cooler. Not only should it be obvious to anyone that there's no engine up front, but he's left the original exhaust for all to see, and since it's just powered by a Beetle engine, no one's getting fooled. That's almost as bad as those lame “fake stretching” earrings that make it only look like you've stretched but still have a narrow centre post.

He's also got the car jacked up for some reason; it should sit about 3″ lower than he has it. Inexcusable!

It reminds me of a conversation I had at the gas station the other day. I was putting gas into the 911 which of course fills at the front. Some dude in a new Monte Carlo or something pulled up.

Dude: That's a funny place to put gas in your car!

Shannon: Well, when the junk's in the trunk, they put the gas tank up front, eh.

Dude: Huh! I've never heard of anything like that! What kind of car is that anyway?

Shannon: It's a Porsche.

Dude: Wow, that's really something — I've never heard of that!

This wasn't some local gas-sniffer either — he was about 40, well dressed, had a decent car and so on. Maybe I'm too much of a car nut, but I just assumed that everyone knew what a Porsche was.