Junk mail. Spam. Clogging up our inbox on a daily basis it drives us all crazy. I won’t go into a tirade here. We all feel the annoyance and anger every time we check out e-mail. I did have to comment though on the spam itself. Typically, I read about the common spam, Viagra, weight loss schemes, and the ever-present porn advertising (something I honestly wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t mostly of animals with fat old people). While I’m sure, I’m not the only one receiving a variety of spam I still find much of what I see worth a quick comment.

-Lending Tree: How to save money on your mortgage?

-Lotto Tickets 4 Free

-Advertising disguising itself as a weight loss survey

-OralBright: Keeping smiles bright

-Ladies Only: Change your love life forever. (In case you haven’t realized I’m a man.)

-Get Ephedra now

-Java Judges advertising posing as another survey. This one for coffee.

-Introduction letter from Mr.Blah-Blah of the Blah-Blah International company looking for a representative in the US. (This one is a variation of the Nigerian scam the Secret Service has been dealing with for a couple of years now. One of the more innovative ways to rob people of money.)

-Turn your PC into a super TV.

-Free Ipod, PS3,Xbox 360. This one is becoming more and more common.

-Free Ringtones

-Hair restoration

-Inexpensive Breast Enlargments (I don’t care how cheap it is I don’t need my breasts getting any bigger).

-Drugs for less. (Who knows what’ll you’ll get if you send away for these pills from Thailand. If you’re lucky it’ll restore some hair or make your teeth whiter.)

-Timeshares, Casinos, Cars and Ebay. More mortgages, books, health insurance and scholarships.

In two days, I’ve accumulated 90 junk e-mails in my personal e-mail box. The one I don’t use for anything but close friends and relatives. I won’t get into what I get in my public e-mail. Suffice it to say there is a lot of spam out there and somehow it seems to be profitable for companies to send this crap out. We all wonder just who is stupid enough to click on and buy this crap. I suspect there is more to it than that. This is advertising. It works because we all talk about it. Even if no one clicks on them they are still getting their product out there to people.

As far as getting the e-mail, we should all know by now that if you look at the junk mail it is the same as sending them an open invitation to send us more. Their robotic mail systems get reports as to which e-mail addresses are real based on if the mail is opened. With Outlook Explorer and Express, if the preview pane is open then it’s the same thing as clicking on the message. Close the preview pane and you’ll see a significant drop in junk mail within a few weeks. Go on vacation for a couple of weeks and let your box fill up and you’ll see an even larger drop. Of course, these are other tips on fighting spam.

One word of warning, there are few methods particularly software solutions that do more harm than good. Beware of installing programs on your computer to block spam because many of them are sponsored by spam and legitimate spam (ha-ha) companies.

Of course, some of this isn’t true spam. Some of it comes from my signing up for a particular service and receiving third party advertising. I keep telling them to quit sending the stuff but it seems to be nearly impossible to get off some lists. Luckily, my spam filter does a good job of removing the stuff I don’t want to see.

Then again maybe the best way to stop it all is to get rid of e-mail, quit answering the phone, picking up my mail, or answering the door.