Love that spam...

So I have this spam-catcher on my blog, as every blogger does, to keep out the riffraff so to speak. It stops all these dumb and fake comments from appearing on my blog. To give you an idea how much spam there is, my spam catcher has nabbed 2,400 bogus comments over the past six months!!!

I used to just delete all of it but then I began reading them because, well, they're kind of funny. At its heart, this kind of spam is intended to sound semi-legitimate so it can makes its way through to the comment board where, it is hoped, someone will then click on the attached email address that leads one to a board full of spam and scams.

Here's a few spam comments printed in their entirety. I think you'll see how bizarre they are. Enjoy:

-- I was just talking with my friend about this yesterday at lunch. Don’t know how in the world we landed on the topic actually, they brought it up. I do remember having a wonderful steak salad with sunflower seeds on it. I digress…

Me: I'm so happy for you about that salad.

-- You appear extremely informed inside your sphere.

Me: What sphere would that be?

-- Nice post and this enter helped me alot in my college assignement. Gratefulness you for your information.

Me: You're welcome-ness!

-- Terrific blog, many fascinating points. I believe ten of days ago, I have seen a similar blog.

Me: And I believe of five days ago, I have seen a similar piece of spam!

Breaking away, Brooklyn style...

My daughter's boyfriend stayed with us overnight this weekend so he could awaken at 4:30 a.m. for a 6:30 a.m. bicycle race in Prospect Park. You read that right -- 4:30 A.M.!! I guess you could say he's a fairly passionate biker.

When I woke up at 7 a.m., i figured what the hey, I'll take the short walk to the park to snap some photos of him. Except that I had no idea what his bike uniform looked like, and had the slight problem of the racers zooming by me almost before I could focus.

I pushed on and my first attempts were beautiful (in a '60s LSD way) but pathetic. Here's one of those photos:

Obviously, I had to do something about the shutter speed but the bikes were zooming around the park so quickly that I was afraid I'd miss the whole race if I began fiddling with the settings. So I elected to chose a programmed setting, something I usually do not do. What's the point of having an SLR camera if you point and shoot? But I rationalized that I had never taken sports photographs before so I swallowed my pride and pushed on. Besides, did I mention it was 7 a.m. and I hadn't had any coffee?

The sports setting was much better and did the trick. Now if only I knew what the boyfriend was wearing. But I didn't so I snapped madly for 30 minutes and gave up. Surely I got a photo of him, right? Well it turns out I got exactly two photos out of 185 pictures taken!! Not a great batting average but he was happy. So here's a photo of Josh in the middle of the frame wearing all black with a white helmet.

What are those new buyers doing to Jennifer Connelly's former house?

Movie stars Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany used to live in the huge beautiful house/mansion at 17 Prospect Park West on Park Slope's Gold Coast but in 2008, the celebrities sold the 5,000 square foot, 9-bedroom house for $8.45 million and moved to Tribeca. Connelly allegedly told one online site that they moved because the entire family felt the house was haunted.

Maybe the new owners do too. Maybe they're trying to rid the house of ghosts. How else to explain why a house in such pristine condition -- I know because photos of the Connelly house appeared in magazines -- can be undergoing renovation for nearly a year now. The new owner is 17_Prospect_Park_West_midsizereportedly a Google bigshot. All I can say is that he must be very very particular because it's been non-stop renovation nearly since he bought it. What can they be doing to it that hadn't already been done?

I just don't understand that. The house was in fabulous shape. Maybe the new owners want something completely different inside but then why buy that type of house to begin with? Who asked me anyway? No one but I'd be happy to take a tour of the new owner's digs and get back to you all (hint, hint).