Finding Zero

I’m back and I’m pissed.

No, I’m not pissed about my trip to see MotherBiscuit and FatherBiscuit in Phoenix. That was absolutely wonderful except for one little thing that I find a tad… disquieting.

Let me explain in a hypothetical way:

Let’s say, hypothetically speaking of course, that there are four people in a house on a rainy day. Let’s also say that these hypothetical people in this imaginary home on this phantasmagorical day are all enjoying each other’s company and having a wonderful time. Suddenly and without even a hypothetical warning, one of the humans passes gas. Loudly. Let us also say that amazingly, only one of these hypothetical people finds this odd.

And that person is not the one who passed gas.

The other three imaginary humans, including the theoretical gasser, continue their conversations as if nothing out of the ordinary has occurred. The fourth made-up person begins to question his, or her, sanity and decides that perhaps he/she had heard incorrectly and should simply ignore the sound and go about her, or his, business as if someone had not just set off a grenade in the middle of the room. Which is exactly when a different hypothetical person stood up and let loose the figurative elephant in their ass.

Twice.

And still, no one but our humorously horrified hypothetical person the fourth even appeared to notice. There was not even a break in the conversation, which seemed odd to the theoretical fourth human because not only had Fartius Secondus let rip mid sentence, but Secondus had (by virtue of rising up from an imaginary couch) managed to inadvertently aim their philosophical posterior right into the face of the presumed fourth person. And, for the purposes of this intellectual exercise and to make matters more interesting, let us also say that number four had their mouth open at the time.

Yawning, perhaps.

Had this occurrence actually happened, and was not merely an exercise in philosophical conjecture, then there could be no mistaking the sound, and subsequent breeze, that hit number four’s face. At this point in our story, for it is only a make-believe story, of course, the fourth person might lean over to person number three, who for the purposes of this exercise we will postulate is somehow related to both the first and second person, and mention, in a quiet whisper so as not to embarrass personages one and two, that he or she believed that person’s one and two had just farted.

Naturally, one would expect one of two things to happen.

Assuming, of course, that these were normal human beings with normal human ideas of proper etiquette in social gatherings, one might expect persona number three to be embarrassed for their relatives and hastily apologize for their rude, but understandable, bodily functions and promise to somehow make it up to person number four in the future.

Perhaps with a full-body, sexual massage.

Failing that outcome, one would expect persona number three to be embarrassed yet unwilling to confront their relatives about their necessary but unseemly bodily functions and so tell person number four to suck up their postulated courage, ignore the assumed farts and pretend, in this pretended world, as if nothing had happened.

In other words, take it like a man/woman.

What one would certainly not expect would be for persona number three to begin laughing uncontrollably and suddenly let loose a stink bomb of their own, thus causing our hapless hypothetical person number four to quickly flee the room in fear for his/her life. But of course, none of this really matters because it is all theoretically, hypothetical conjecture, and did not really happen.

And we shall never speak of it again. Ever.

Instead, we shall speak about what has me pissed off. For those of you with Blogs, and I know you’re out there because I can hear you breathing, you can appreciate the thrill of returning home, checking your email and finding that while you were away for an extended weekend you have received over 850 comments! You might be happy to have so many fans. You might raise your fist to the sky and scream, “YES!” in triumph. You might even daydream that you had finally been discovered by someone famous or by a ‘legitimate’ online website and were going to get the recognition you’ve always known you deserved.

Then you’d realize that every, single comment was spam.

That’s right people, TMG is getting comment spammed up the old wazoo. I’m so angry about this that I am considering turning off all comments, just to see if that would help get rid of these idiots. I’m a very logical person and I’ve been trying to figure out how spamming comments actually helps these websites. I could almost understand it if what they were after was a higher ranking in Google, but even if that was the case how would they actually benefit? I mean, a higher ranking on Google doesn’t actually garner them any new clients or make them any more money, now does it? And honestly, how many people out there in the world actually need to buy their drugs from questionable online sources that only accept money orders, COD’s and/or PayPal transfers when they can go to any number of legitimate online and real world stores to make their purchases?

And let’s not even get started on the gambling sites.

So, although I’m not quite ready to disable all comments just yet, I am getting fairly close to the edge. I’ve got MT-Blacklist running (and I have over 4500 blocked sites) but it just doesn’t seem to be enough. I wanted to set up a method for removing the ability to comment from my old posts, meaning posts over 10 days old, but I can’t figure out exactly how just yet because I’m an idiot. If anyone out there knows how to turn off old comments and is willing to help a brother out, then please, please, PLEASE send me an email.

Who knows, you might even be rewarded with linky-love and a cash prize.