A compendium of words I used today in the search feature of my Wesleyan alumni account to find and delete spam:

Viagra/Cialis/Pfizer/Pills
Sex/Sexy
Large/Huge/Big/Size/Inches/Length
Russia/Russian
Software
Degree
Natural/Easy/Fast
Discount/Win/Offer
Luxury
Watches
Valentine
Debt

From 13,594 to 0 in half an hour flat! Some of them I could have guessed, but others like the software offers or online degree spam threw me off; maybe once you buy that grabbag of email addresses the best way to maximize your profits is to hawk anything you can think of.

As I've mentioned before, my cousin is a comp sci professor and this is the basis of some of his research. I understand that approximately no one has half an hour to watch a YouTube video of a guy talking about internet criminal economics and the online black market (did you know that spam botnet providers apparently have great customer support?), but if you DID have thirty spare minutes, and you WERE at all interested, this is the one to see:

And as a bonus, my favorite sender names:

Edmond Crabtree
Wanker Lahoma
Anastasia Blickem
Juanita Cotton
Weldon Childers
Brookskennedy Ricki

(I like to think that Brookskennedy is called Skenny for short.)

We went for a little hike at Sandy Creek Nature Preserve on Saturday. Unfortunately, my new favoritest animal ever, the gopher tortoise (the state reptile!) was hiding under a log inside his tank in the center, but we did see the aftermath of a very flooded Oconee River.


Steve's mom visited a few weeks ago and we took a mini-tour of central Georgia. For all of those concerned, eerie Southern gothic tableaus are alive and well.

We also visited friends in Charlotte, where I smoked way too many inches of a cigar I purchased for Steve in Key West and woke up the next morning feeling like I'd gone hot tubbing in a vat of carginogens.

Which is why my baked goods generally turn out so much better than my cooked ones, because I was a scientist in a former life and got a C in cubism junior year of high school (to be fair, that art class was taught by the wrestling coach, but I've still held what I acknowledge to be a completely irrational grudge against Picasso ever since).

However, practice makes perfect and Funemploymentfest 2010 is off to a tasty start with multiple attempts at making dinner that is vegetarian and delicious (so that I will eat it) and also low-fat and cheap (so that the boyfriend will eat it)(these attitudes towards food are what lead me to consider a box of Runts and a bag of baby carrots to be a perfectly acceptable meal, while Steve is happy consuming burnt oatmeal).

And since it's "cold" here right now, I'm trying to make things that involve curry or Tabasco sauce or anything that will put fire in my tummy or at least bring a couple tears. This lazy-woman's-tagine with butternut squash and almonds and a heap of Moroccan spices is a particularly great example, especially since Justin doesn't like olives and passed his to me.

Also, if I make something it generally must be in one pot, maybe because of my disinterest in timing the cooking of separate dishes, but also maybe because I grew up with my plate literally divided into thirds - a vegetable, a meat, and a starch - with a cup of tepid-then-lukewarm-then-room-temperature milk to the side, in strict adherence to the school of four food groups. For ten years (more or less until my "personality" grew so strong that making me drink milk was the least of my mother's problems).

Oh, God, and the stuffed peppers. If anyone ever wonders where I honed the fortitude of my backbones, it was on the killing fields of the Wagner kitchen table, where I sat and glared at what looked like a green pepper that became violently ill and threw up on itself for hours after everyone else had cleaned their plate and been allowed to leave the room.

But now I am a grown-up and can make grown-up decisions, like deciding that forcing brown rice to be risotto is a good idea. And it is! Just be sure you have ten cups of broth instead of the suggested four. And that you've baked some bread to keep your dinner-anticipators happy while you stir for two hours.

Poor Kottke; that second pregnancy/baby really did him in in terms of travel. However, over here in the unmarried, unspawned, and unemployed corner (reigning champion, woo-hoo!) I more than doubled my count of slept-in cities from 2008 - not since 2004 have I spent the night on so many dubiously threaded hotel sheets and enjoyed mostly every second of it. Carbon footprint aside, it's my favorite way to take stock of the year.

In January I made the declaration that I'd spend more time in tropical places, and while Key West was a wash, Costa Rica definitely fit the bill. This year I'm feeling much less grand and will only venture that I'd like to spend more time in Savannah and see other parts of the Georgia coast.

And like last year, I invite everyone to comment with their own list or link to it.

Charlotte, NC*
Las Vegas, NV
Berkeley, CA*
La Fortuna, Costa Rica
Arenal, Costa Rica
Quepos, Costa Rica
Dominical, Costa RIca
Middletown, CT
Audubon, IA*
Iowa City, IA
North Lake Tahoe, CA
Puyallup, WA
Seattle, WA
Bainbridge Island, WA
Kingman, AZ
Amarillo, TX
North Little Rock, AR
Johnson City, TN*
Charleston, SC
Savannah, GA
Athens, GA*
Atlanta, GA
Naples, FL
Key West, FL
Melbourne, FL

*Asterisk denotes non-consecutive nights