Peter Boyle is gone

I first saw him as a 16-year-old who managed to bamboozle his way into West-End theatre to watch "Young Frankenstein".

Peter Boyle was wonderful as the monster.

Nearly 20 years later, when I saw him in re-runs of "Everybody Loves Raymond", which us Third World denizens are privileged to watch as part of some global thingamajiggy, he was brilliant, as usual, as Ray Barone's Father In Law.

RIP, Peter Boyle. We'll discuss acting when I get there, if you'll spare some time. Meanwhile, I feel privileged to have experienced your talent.

Deepak

How not to be mistaken for a spammer

I nearly marked a genuine mail as spam today and I wasn't even on my first peg.

Well, what does one think when one sees a message with a subject like, "From Frangle Golpnash"?

That wasn't the actual subject line, of course, but it was close, considering I'd never heard the name before - or I'd heard and lost it in the network of sewers that masquerade as my memory - and was therefore wary about hitting the "Read" link.

Good thing I did hit "Read". It was a genuine business opportunity, engendered by a speech I'd made a few years ago to a bunch from an organisation. One of the bunch had written down the email address I'd added automatically to my name on the blackboard and thought to contact me now.

Thing is, I get about a gazillion "From So-and-so" emails a day. One was from Kate Morris, even. They're all spam, except the one that came from Frangle Golpnash.

I'm a diligent kinda guy and if a mail doesn't look like spam, even if it's in the spam folder, I tend to give it the benefit of the doubt and open it, provided it has no attachment. If it has an attachment and is "From The Pope", even, I'll delete it unread.

Probably Frangle Golpnash's spam filter never lets him see the "From So-and-so" mails and deletes them automatically, so the poor guy doesn't know he's speaking Spamlish.

So, one of the rules to remember so you're not mistaken for a spammer is, "Never have 'From &yourname&' as the subject". You're not that famous and if you were, you'd still be eliminated on suspicion of impersonation.

More to come as I reveal the grammar of Spamlish.

Deepak

Get my novel, free!

Just go over to:
http://savefile.com/files/314451

And click the orange "DOWNLOAD" button.

Am I afraid of plagiarism? Yeah, right, the three people reading my blog all decide to copy my claptrap and become millionaires.

Do you see that happening?

Enjoy the book,

Deepak

What is ten dollars?

I'm just over my mad attempt to write 50,000 words in a month in an attempt to win NaNoWriMo.

I didn't win this year either, falling about 8,000 words short. But, in my opinion, I did complete the novel I set out to write. If it's over at 42,000 words, it's over, and any attempt to pad it with fluff is just, well, fluff.

That egotistical bit being done with, I'd like to address Chris Baty's (he's the guy who got NaNo off the ground and he sends these really inspiring emails while NaNo's on) question, "What's ten dollars anyway?"

Chris, of course, god bless his soul, is trying to raise funds for the website. It does take money to run the darn thing.

However, "what's ten dollars anyway" kinda gets my dander up.

Ten dollars, to put it in perspective, is half my monthly food bill. If I donate ten dollars, in other words, I starve for half a month.

That's what ten dollars is for me. Doubtless, it's much more for the woman who does my dishes. If she donates ten dollars, she starves the whole month and a bit beyond, I guess.

Get rid of the blinkers. Blinkers are for horses.

Deepak