Akismet (“You have better things to do with your life than deal with the underbelly of the internet”) has caught more than 8,800 spam messages for me since I activated it on my blog in May, and what a great tool it is.

Every once in a while, I look through the messages Akismet has identified as spam and put in the holding pen, just to see what spammers think works these days. There are lots of messages that just contain multiple links; they don’t even waste time trying to pretend they are real messages.

Others try, but Askimet hasn’t been fooled by such shameless flattery as “You have an outstanding good and well structured site” or “A very interesting site with top design and contents!” or lame attempts like “Hmmm…very interesting! Thanks!” or “Hi all. Cool site. Thank.”

Meanwhile, my e-mail quarantines lots of messages from names you could possibly know (although how many people do you know with “X.” for a middle initial?), although the subject lines get right to the point about certain body parts or available drugs. Really, do people fall for this stuff??