The Daily Ping

FROM: Señor Dave Walls [E-Mail]
DATE: Sunday July 30, 2006 -- 1:10:47 am

¿Querría usted comprar algún Viagra?

FROM: jk
DATE: Sunday July 30, 2006 -- 3:45:34 pm

I was just talking today about a Spanish woman named Carmen who used to mis-dial my number at least once a week, usually around dinnertime. If I didn't hear from her for a few weeks, I would get worried. I'd see her number on my phone and say "Hi Carmen" and she'd say "sorry" and hang up. I used to wonder though why she and her family would leave long messages in Spanish on my machine when my outgoing message was very much in English.

I changed my # almost 5 years ago and still wonder on occasion how she is doing.

FROM: Terry M.
DATE: Sunday July 30, 2006 -- 8:50:13 pm

As someone who's spent a lot of time in internet cafes in various Latin American countries, one thing which has never ceased to amaze me is how e-mail viruses seem to be somehow targeted towards the language. In every internet cafe there will always be a bunch signs posted saying not to open up some e-mail with a certain subject, but the subject is always in Spanish. What the heck? Does the virus somehow 'mutate' to the local language when it enters a particular country? Most use @hotmail.com, or @yahoo.com addresses so it's not possible to distinguish the country based on the address - it's all a techological wonder to me.

Maybe about 5% of the e-mail spam I do receive is Spanish. I also got a lot of Japanese spam, to the point where I automatically filter out messages in Japanese. For some reason, my work account gets lost of Chinese spam.

At least the Russians have the courtesy to send English spam.

FROM: Aanen
DATE: Monday July 31, 2006 -- 8:58:30 am

At my summer job last year, we were hit with German spam.

FROM: Maria
DATE: Monday July 31, 2006 -- 11:37:24 am

Terry--At my work we get nearly as much Russian spam as English.