Tag: Internet

Spam


I still enjoy watching Monty Python.

My first recollection of Spam is eating it at home. Fried. With tortillas. I was fascinated with the complete process of opening the can with the little key that was attached at the bottom. When my mother finally opened the can, I was expecting to see sardines. Not ham because the can was too small. So, my mother fried the Spam and served it to us on tortillas. We ate it occasionally just to vary our diet a little. But not too much since we always ate beans, rice, and tortillas at almost every meal.

Since I am speaking of Spam, I am reminded of a certain British Comedy troupe whose restaurant skit originated the term “spam” for all that unwanted email that we receive. But not intentionally. They had a skit in which the waiter recites the menu, most of which is comprised of Spam.

When I was in high school, one of my friends introduced me to Monty Python’s Flying Circus on PBS, Sunday nights at 10 p.m. I was so young and naive that I just didn’t get the show. Who in the troupe exactly was Monty Python? Where were the trapeze artists? Where was their tent? What strange language were they speaking?

Of course, I knew better than to ask anyone these questions. You know how teachers and college professors say there is no such thing as a stupid question? Well, I’m convinced that all my questions were stupid judging by the looks of the people who heard them when I occasionally voiced them. So, I never asked questions.

I discovered that Monty Python spoke English–English English, as opposed to American English. Luckily, one of my friends was an English English to American English translator and he explained the jokes that I didn’t get, which was all of them. I would have quit watching Monty Python immediately if it weren’t for my friends and the home where we watched the show.

It started quite by accident when we were at Myrna’s house one Sunday night. Her father, we called him by his first name Tom, told us we had to leave about 10 p.m. because he had to get up early on Monday morning to go to work. He had been watching PBS and then Monty Python started on the tele. One of our friends had seen the show before and explained to the rest of us that it was a British comedy. Well, this piqued Tom’s interest and we all sat around to watch it. He forgot all about sending us away until the show was over.

The next Sunday, we all watched Monty Python again at Myrna’s house. We really loved the show and I eventually laughed because I got all the jokes without the aid of an interpreter. One Sunday, Tom told us that we couldn’t come over to watch Monty Python anymore. We watched it at Cecilia’s house for a few weeks, but it just wasn’t the same. Luckily, Myrna told us that we were invited back to her house on Sunday nights to watch Monty Python with her father. He told us that he missed us while watching Monty Python. So, every Sunday night we watched Monty Python with Myrna and her father Tom.

But getting back to Spam, that was the skit we re-enacted the most. So, the Internet term spam is derived from the Monty Python skit in the restaurant where just about everything on the menu includes Spam: “Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, eggs, and Spam,” etc.

Well, I thought of all this because of all the spam that I’ve been receiving lately. The maddening thing about spam is not so much that I receive a lot of spam, but rather that I have started to receive it from myself, too! And I’m fairly sure that I didn’t send it out. I’m not sure why, but I thought I would share some of the Subject lines with you (in no particular order):

  1. You want yours bigger, all men do
  2. Iva debt consolidation
  3. I hadn’t had sex for a while
  4. Whip out your huge manhood
  5. Best offer in gambling history
  6. Huge discount watches
  7. Start seeing dollars pouring in
  8. How about a $2400 welcome bonus
  9. Best Rolex Replica
  10. Elite products for your style and reputation
  11. Enlargement of organs possible
  12. After that it’s only fun and winning
  13. Affordable luxury online in the world’s no. 1 rated replica watch store
  14. Legal software sales
  15. Gravidty (sic)
  16. Win $$$
  17. 10 inches is possible
  18. Online University Diploma degrees
  19. You have just received an e-card
  20. Penis Products Reviewed
  21. Looking for a watch? Visit Replica Classics
  22. Great sex secrets revealed
  23. Your diamond replicas
  24. Perfectly crafted luxury timepieces
  25. Suffer from short babymaker? Don’t loose (sic), the only solution is here.
  26. 15 mistakes every woman made
  27. We give out BONUSES to anyone who joins
  28. Stunning video with naked celebrity
  29. Unsecured debt consolidation loan
  30. Hey
  31. Male enhancement
  32. Small male aggregate is not trouble
  33. Convenient discreet online pharmacy
  34. Real enlargement
  35. Shaved pussies sell better
  36. Come find out
  37. Lovely present
  38. The opportunity presented itself
  39. I was “horny”
  40. Hot sexy latinas all craving for you
  41. Rejoice in your newfound girth
  42. This e-card is hilarious
  43. Do not let them mock at small weener (sic)
  44. Obtain PhD of your desire
  45. Take her longer, harder, and deeper
  46. Need a great gift idea?
  47. Drugstore which guarantees quality
  48. Size enhancement a scam?
  49. Shiny pieces of sheer beauty
  50. Want to be a hero in bed?
  51. Three inches in just weeks
DDR

Written Spanish


Spanish keyboard map.

I’ve already mentioned how when I went to Mexico everyone seemed to comment on my American accent when I spoke Spanish. Well, my written Spanish is much better than many of my Mexican relatives. I often get letters from Mexico and some relatives just don’t use accent marks that are necessary when writing in Spanish. When I e-mail my cousin in Mexico, she is always amazed that I write much better in Spanish than her, even though she’s a native speaker. Another cousin constantly IMs me. Every so often, she asks me how her Spanish is. I tell her it’s surprisingly good, even though she doesn’t spell very well, doesn’t capitalize at the beginning of sentences, and doesn’t use any punctuation. Some of my Spanish students have seen these types of writings in Spanish and then question why I insist that they use accent marks and ñ and all things Spanish. Well, the main reason is to show that you have been educated. It works for me because my cousins take more seriously when I write proper Spanish.

DDR

México


Marquette Park, Chicago, Illinois

One difference I noticed when I entered México was that EVERYONE speaks Spanish–as opposed to Chicago where only half the people speak Spanish. México is like a totally different country!

I may be Mexican, but I’m not a real Mexican who grew up in México. When I checked into a hotel in Matehuala, I realized that my name, David Diego Rodriguez, even though it sounds Spanish, is really American. My name if I were really, really a Mexican, would be David Diego Rodríguez Martínez. But so far, I’m blending in here in Mexico. Or at least, I’ve convinced myself that most people don’t really notice that I’m from America. I found this Internet Café in Celaya and it has accent marks and ñ just like a real Spanish keyboard!

Well, I must go now. My time is up at the Internet Cafe. Hasta pronto.

DDR

Unfinished business


ddr typing
A young aspiring David Diego Rodríguez

Well, I’ve been thinking about all my lifelong goals and how I haven’t completed most of them. There are so many things I have yet to do. I’ve started so many things that I’ve forgotten to go back to them to finish them. I’ve started writing several novels but haven’t gotten past the opening lines. I have already finished a comedy play. Of course, I’ve been working on it for 25 years now. However, I’m almost done editing it. Really! I have about eighty pages and it’s almost done. Any day now!

But I have a lot of other things that I haven’t finished either. I have a utility sink in the basement that I probably won’t install before I sell the house.  I have a set of French books so I can learn French someday. Ditto for the Italian and Latin books. I have an unopened jigsaw puzzle of the John Hancock building when it was the world’s tallest building. I’m almost done with my website that I started four years ago. NOT!

DDR

My writer’s garret


La casa de Diego Rivera

Since my retirement, I’ve been trying to re-create a lot of things from my previous lives. That is, things I had prior to my marriage and children, things that I had to sacrifice for the sake of being a good husband and father.

Now, I can regress a little and so I am trying to recreate my writer’s garret. Back in 1981 BC (Before Children), I had a nice little apartment all to myself that served me well for all my writing purposes. I wrote a lot back then, but nothing incredibly significant like the Great American Novel or the Declaration of Independence. However, I did get published in some local publications. Even though these bylines impressed only me, I was proud of my writing and myself for achieving another one of my personal goals. Furthermore, I also earned enough money to say I was a paid, published writer, even if it wasn’t enough to earn a living. But I was in my glory as an aspiring writer!

So now, in my retirement, I’m trying to write again. To finish the play that I started 25 years ago and have been finishing for the last nine; to start the novel I’ve been meaning to write since I was in grade school but never actually started writing; and just to write everyday just to be able to say that I am a proficient writer. (Only real writers know how to use semicolons!)

To that end, I realized that I need my very own writer’s garret where I can feel comfortable expressing my most inner thoughts as a writer. I decided that I must create this writer’s space where I can agonize over the mot just and play the long-suffering writer who lives under squalid conditions that will induce great literature. I need a place where I may rendezvous with my muse, but she better bring some help because she’s really going to need a lot of reinforcements with me.

And so, I have been constructing my writer’s garret. Only, I’m not too much for playing up the suffering part. I’d rather focus on the creature comforts now, especially now during these warm summer months. Therefore, my “writer’s garret” is air-conditioned and has a ceiling fan. How am I supposed to author the Great American Novel if I’m hot and sweaty? Would you like to read a hot, sweaty novel? Plus, I need music to inspire me. Ergo, I have a high-fidelity sound system in my garret, along with a cordless phone, a fax machine, Internet radio, and a television.

Don’t laugh! So far, it’s working. What you just read is a product of my writer’s garret!

DDR