Getting tough on spam users…

I run a simple little blog here.  I don’t make any money off of my site even, although I’m not adverse to doing so as long as it isn’t obtrusive.  I don’t sell anything, nor do accept submissions other than comments.  The posts here are my own: they aren’t scraped, syndicated from, or re-posted from anywhere else.  Mostly, this site is a vanity site, like a billion others on the Internet.

Despite the complete lack of commercial value to my site, it gets spammed.  Comment spam was a problem a few years ago, and I’ve managed that via Akismet and Bad Behavior plugins for WordPress.  There are still about about 100 spam comments a day hitting my site, but only one or two make it through my watchdogs.  Lately, however, there has been a new irritant: spam users.

never_underestimate_stupid

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The New Year

The entire month of December has come and gone, and I’m now staring down the deep, yawning abyss of another year.  I’ve been at that age the last couple of years, an age I was reminded of recently by my birthday, where thoughts sometimes turn to all that has been left undone in life.

aging image

2010 was a good year in that regard: I took some risks like getting on a motorbike again, and made a lot of new acquaintances in the process.  I also lost 15 pounds and started eating a bit better.  There were lots of challenges and sad times as well, but looking at things from the slightly removed vantage point of the turning year I would have to say things are going fairly well.

Midlife hog riders

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