Most people with an email address have no choice but to be inundated with spam for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I can’t imagine anyone enjoys the drug offers, the insults to their manhood (hello, I don’t even HAVE manhood so please target your message better), and the latest “stock tips.”

Thankfully, according to a recent article, a Dutch man was fined $97,000 for spamming. However, the most shocking news of the article was not that justice was finally served – it was that he made $52,000 in 2004. So apparently some people do respond to those stupid emails. Luckily, $52,000 wasn’t enticement enough for the guy to keep emailing; he stopped spamming because “he simply wasn't earning enough money by sending the messages."

The thing is, $52,000 is a decent salary in some people’s eyes. So if this had been a different spammer, perhaps he would have felt it was worth it to continue with his pathetic career choice. While I feel all senders of unsolicited emails should have a flaming pile of dog shit delivered to their door step, we can only direct so much anger toward them. They’re making loads of dough off pervy dudes who actually buy Cialis online. Here’s a tip, Mr. Buys Sexual Performance Enhancements Drugs Online – probably the main reason your sex life sucks is that you’re online all the time. So do the world a favor and STOP responding to spam and take your life offline for a while. Then let us people who actually want to impact the online world in a meaningful way step in.

A recent ad campaign from the Regional Tourism Committee of Paris Ile-de-France is targeting Londoners to come visit what is often considered by the English as a “stuffy museum city.” The ads themselves are pretty cool but the best part is the Cop the Parisian Attitude game. Some of those people, with their shrugs and their unnecessarily large pouts, look more Parisian than Parisians. And you’ve gotta love any ad campaign poking fun at the French.

I suggest NOT playing the f-ing M&Ms Dark Chocolate Dark Movie Game unless you have tons of time to kill. I instead recommend going to their site and forwarding it to all your friends to make up for all the times they drank your last beer. Bastards.

[And since I know you’re gonna play it and I know you’re not gonna figure out all 50 scary movies, let me just say that a quick Google search will save your sanity. Well, if cheating is your thing.]

I was logging into Yahoo Games (shut up, you know Pyramids has got it goin' on) and for some reason actually paid attention to the 15-second Flash animation banner ad that precedes my carpal-tunnel-syndrome-inducing gaming glory. What was the ad for? Adult ADD. Does anyone else see the irony in this? I mean, yeah, I paid attention to it but would you expect the same from someone who actually has Adult ADD?

[Sorry I can’t post the link since the banner ad rotates out, but I think we already lost our ADD friends anyway]

The third Thursday of each November marks a very important French holiday – the release of the new vintage of Beaujolais Nouveau wine. The wine itself is pretty low-grade (by French standards) and is typically only consumed by the French that first day and then is shipped out to the rest of the world where they consume it in mass, overpriced quantities.

But that first day is key – it is a day where French people throughout the country come out in droves to celebrate the new wine and drink many a bottle. It is through sheer marketing genius that they even call it a holiday and can even convince French people to get drunk on a Thursday night. And for that I am grateful because for once I’m not the most inebriated person in the bar.

So, three cheers (salut!) for French wine distributors jumping on the marketing bandwagon.

Living in Paris has its benefits; regular viewing of current TV American shows is not one of them. As a result, I am just now recovering from laughing my ass off at Arrested Development. Proof that blogs are everywhere:

Tobias Fünke: So what are your plans for this evening?
Bob Loblaw: I thought that maybe I would stay in and work on my law blog.
Tobias Fünke: Ah, yes. The "Bob Loblaw Law Blog". You, sir, are a mouthful.

When I first heard about the new Samuel L. Jackson movie “Snakes on a Plane” I was tempted to never think about it again. It just sounded stupid. Snakes on a Plane. Burger on a Bun. Bored out of my Mind.

Then I caught wind of some internet phenomena surrounding the movie. You mean there’s actually buzz? Apparently there’s so much buzz-slash-commentary that the producers added scenes to the film to directly address the bloggers’ complaints:

The studio backed down, empowering Jackson and adoring online fans to complain that the film was not violent enough. Scenes were added ratcheting up the gruesome quotient. The bloggers' victory ensured plenty of media coverage, seemingly turning the little B-movie into a preordained must-see hit.

So someone is actually listening to the little guys. How sweet. In fact, it allegedly all started with this guy, who not only sparked the internet buzz around the movie but coined the phrase “snakes on a plane” as the new “shit happens”.

According to Wikipedia:

The title inspired bloggers to create songs, apparel, poster art, pages of fan fiction, parody films, mock movie trailers and even short film parody competitions.

That’s a lot for a movie that’s just been released. And especially a lot for a movie that looks completely lame. But hey, snakes on a plane.

Turns out this whole Lost thing is bigger than I thought. Not wanting this to turn into a Lost forum (since there are hundreds of others out there with thousands of posters), I’ll keep this short and sweet. I just stumbled upon the “Lost Experience”, an interactive, multimedia experience that takes traditional TV show advertising beyond the realm of TV. Cool, huh? They have commercials that direct viewers to either an 800 number or a website with clues. There’s even a full-length fiction book penned by a ghost writer, an alleged passenger on the plane.

As stated in a CNNMoney.com article:

Whether or not these novel ways of advertising will actually work remains to be seen but it's clear that the TV networks and marketers have to do something to combat the growing tendency of DVR-owning couch potatoes to skip ads.

"This is an attempt by media companies to grab hold of a market they are losing control of," said Doug Ryan, chief marketing officer of Y&R Chicago, a subsidiary of ad agency Young & Rubicam.

Well done, chaps. I want more.

Say what you will about “better ways to spend my time” and “vices that are more fun” – truth is, I’m addicted to Lost. So imagine my delight when I did a Google search (to take my obsession online) and came across this little gem. Not that it offers any sort of discussion or insight, like the forums I currently eat, sleep, and breathe on, but I thought it was a cool thing for Touchstone to do to support the show. By the design I can tell it only took about 42 minutes, but hey, it had me fooled for a few seconds.

This Folger’s commercial, albeit slightly creepy, is pretty cool in my not-so-humble opinion. What I like best about the whole she-bang, though, is the corresponding website for the commercial, toleratemornings.com. It’s very tangential to the direct sale of Folger’s coffee. It’s a website where people who have something in common, i.e. hating getting up in the morning, can go and play some games and have a little fun. It’s less “buy Folger’s, we’re great” and more “have some fun, and oh, by the way, we’re Folger’s and we sell coffee.” Works for me.

While some people disagree, I think the new Brawny Academy is right on the mark.

Three female radio personalities in St. Louis mentioned it in one week. Well, it got me to go to the website. And how many other women/housewives heard about the hot new Brawny man and decided to check him out online? The bottom line – they captured the attention of their target audience. A+

I personally think the Brawny Man could stand to be a little brawnier, but hey, I’m still watching him aren't I?

I like the internet. I want it to be useful and interesting and novel. I want it to be beautiful.

I also like sarcasm and poking a little fun here and there.

So I thought I would enjoy perusing WebPagesThatSuck.com.

If I weren’t drowning in the irony of the fact that the website itself is one of the most hideous, poorly arranged sites, then perhaps I could have indulged in a little sarcastic cocktail. But I got so furious searching for a simple list of web pages that do in fact suck that I decided to put this site at the top of my own list. In fact, it’s the only item on the list.

To help keep your blood pressure at a reasonable level, here’s the link I wasted time looking for - http://bad.webpagesthatsuck.com.

It seems every kid, band, comedian, neighbor is on MySpace these days. At least in America. But what about the lesser-known orkut? Turns out it’s pretty well-known south of the hemisphere.

In fact, 67% of orkut users are Brazilian. Similarly, Friendster has millions of Brazilians (which is much more poetic than if they’d just had mere hundreds of thousands) and Fotolog is nearly half Brazilian.

Why? I’ll spare you the equations my math degree is trying to force out of me and just point out that since they’re social networking sites they increase their member community largely by current members inviting new ones. In theory, orkut members can ONLY join if they are invited by a current member. So you start with a few Brazilians and they’ll invite primarily Brazilian friends.

Additionally, Brazilians are relatively new to the Internet and for them it’s a craze and they’re all jumping on board. Everything is new and exciting and they want in.

However, there seem to be quite a few non-Brazilian orkut users complaining about all the Portuguese-language posts Many people want it to remain English-only. In the spirit of the web, I say let them in. Isn’t that what the web is all about? Connecting people? And more specifically, isn’t that what a social networking site is all about? Besides, people from the country that invented caiparinhas are considered heroes in my book.