What I wish I knew is this:

What I wish I knew is this: Is it some kind of computer program/virus thing that generates the headings for all the stupid spam that one gets every day? Because sometimes I get four or five of exactly the same email with totally different "re" lines. "Glad to see you" and "that info you asked about" and "increase your penis size rdosrss33" and other vauge, but very (sometimes) creative things in/on them. I, of course, delete them, diligently add them to the "spam filter" (and I'm quite sure most of those spammers never use the same email address again, so the step is somewhat pointless). Maybe I don't really wish I knew it, maybe by asking the question here in a somewhat public place I'm asking for trouble. Maybe someone will now explain in exruciating detail how spam works, and I will wish for the days when all I had to do was throw out complaints from high school students that I don't do enough to allow them to plagiarize my website. ::sigh::

I keep getting rather intriguing emails about being able to get your university degree (including PhD's) with no coursework and very little hassle. All strictly confidential. And there's a phone number you have to call. Is this some sort of ploy by academia, and if you call, you can promise to never get a tenure-track job? They're monitoring us slackers who think about easy outs from writing dissertations and taking classes? (I have to say, in retrospect, that coursework is/was my favorite part of college-- I miss it terribly because there were deadlines, and constant talks about interesting topics that I had made myself read, in a timely fashion. Now college is all one big giant guilt trip-- but I digress). Or are there, as we speak/write, college professors out there we're calling Dr. So-in-so who have their degrees from this secret university, and perhaps they're even on our hiring committees chortling away at our endless collegiate fumbling towards eternity while they merely wrote a check and filled out some form? It's a mystery of the universe, I think.

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