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G.I. Joe: Reloaded #3: The first real encounter between the Joes and Cobra continues. The artist maintains his quality from the previous issues, and I'm really getting into the story. An interesting twist is that Cobra has managed to get a top brass of the U.S. military on its side, and together, they're in the process of setting up the Joes as traitors to their own country. Nice stuff.

Conan #4: Conan is in chains in Hyperborea and is in the process of figuring out how to escape. And who's helping him but a cute slave girl. Some things never change. Conan fights, boasts and gets laid. No wonder Robert E. Howard's creation has lasted all these decades. I just can't say this enough about Dark Horse's version of Conan: You need to buy it.

The Punisher #6: The team of Garth Ennis, Lewis Larosa and Tom Palmer just blows me away -- again, and again, and again. The first story arc of this new Punisher series has come to an end, and Marvel has wrapped up with quite the thrill. I won't ruin it here for those who might actually check it out, but let's just say the last full-page panel will make you glad you bought this issue.

I've got quite a batch of comic books here. Apparently it had been a few weeks since I'd made my way to Wyldstar. I'll try to keep the reviews brief (as usual).

Witchblade/Wolverine #1: Number one of one, I hope. My mantra when browsing comic titles from now on will be: "Team-ups and crossovers are bad." Aside from ogling Witchblade, who's quite the hottie for a comic book character, there's really nothing to this book. While the artwork is good, the story leaves something to be desired. Next time, I vow to leave crossover titles where they belong -- on the shelf.

Wolverine/Punisher #2/#3: Ditto. I've had it with team-up books. While this one isn't truly terrible, I'm not digging the artwork in this title. And, like with most four-part Marvel team-up titles, the story is too rushed. It always takes one to two issues for the heroes to link up, and then the rest of the story is rushed to an unsatisfying conclusion. This isn't really any exception, although seeing Wolvie tackle Frank Castle was kind of cool. Castle simply should've been a dead man, though. One more issue to go on this series. Let's hope the last one has a good ending.

Superman/Batman #9/#10: And then there are times that crossovers just seem to work. The Law would argue with me that Bats and Supes are a terrible team, but I kind of like it. The battle of wills between the two heroes and their own ideas of how things should be done is interesting to watch. The story arc involving Supergirl, and now Wonder Woman, the Amazons and Darkseid, is pretty damned interesting, as well (thanks, Jeph Loeb). Throw in some purty artwork from Michael Turner, and I'm happy. How often will you ever get a chance to watch Krypto try to take apart Supergirl? Fun stuff.

Tales of the TMNT #2: I wish I'd come in at the first issue with this title. However, seeing as the second issue is a standalone story, it doesn't matter all that much. I didn't care for the story, though. It was kind of lame. Art-wise, it was okay. No big deal here. I'll give it another couple of issues before I make up my mind whether to buy it regularly or not.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #15: I've come in at a weird time in the series. It seems that Raphael has been transformed into a giant killer turtle monster. What the...? Michelangelo is truckin' around on a hog with some reptilian alien princess. Good thing to see Mikey's sense of humour hasn't changed at all over the years. Anyway, interesting stuff, but I'm slightly confused at the whole "Raph as a monster" thingie. I'll just have to wait this storyline out and hope I can get a handle on things.

A quick break and then I'll review the last three titles...

Although I love going to Wyldstar in the 'shwa, and I generally give them a certain amount of customer loyalty, there's one guy working there who I almost consider to be the "hard sell" type. Perhaps that's unfair -- it's more that he thinks certain things are cool and lets his enthusiasm show by making suggestions without being prompted. Of course, he typically gives me all kinds of suggestions, most of which I ignore. We simply have incredibly different tastes in most things geek. The only suggestion so far that I liked and that ended up causing me to make a purchase (and become a regular reader of a series) was Superman/Batman. I like it. It's a good series.

For the most part, though, we have totally different ideas of what's good and what's not. It's kind of funny. He knows I'm a gamer and a comic reader, so I get suggestions in both categories. On Saturday, in terms of comics, it was Jim Lee's Superman and Joss Whedon's (y'know, the Buffy guy) The Astonishing X-Men. I just kind of nodded and said something brilliant like "oh yeah." Then I promptly moved on. I'm not a big Supes fan (when he's on his own, that is -- and I'm not a big fan of Jim Lee, either, for that matter), and Marvel pissed me off with the X-Men titles too many times in the past. As far as comic books are concerned, Professor Xavier et al have lost my business forever.

On the gaming side, I just couldn't nod and make some non-committal statement. My opinion had to be known. I couldn't believe he suggested Wizards of the Coast's The Expanded Psionics Handbook for D&D. Anyone who's ever gamed with me knows I despise psionics in my D&D games. In fact, I've gone off on some pretty nasty tirades against psionics in medieval fantasy games in general. I just don't like them, and I refuse to run or play in a D&D game that uses them. The poor guy didn't know I hated them when he made the suggestion, though, but even after my first negative reaction, he tried to convince me that the psionics rules were "fixed." The truth is I don't care if they're "fixed;" the whole concept is broken in my mind. The only way to "fix" psionics is to eliminate them from the game line entirely.

Anyway, I left the book on the shelf, as you can probably expect. I'm pretty sure that guy is starting to seriously dislike me. Heheh.

That's what Jacquie asked me while I was reading Dragon Magazine yesterday afternoon. She seems to think that my continuing enjoyment of playing Dungeons & Dragons has something to do with me refusing to give up my childhood. ... Yeah, sure, no problem -- why would I want to stop having fun? You're only as young as you act, and I happen to like being (feeling?) young. If I'm still gaming, and enjoying it, when my teeth are falling out and I've got no hairs left on my head, I'll be happy.

Anyway, it had actually been a very long since I'd picked up a copy of Dragon. According to my neatly-organized collection of Dragons covering D&D 3E (that's third edition, for the uninitiated), I haven't purchased an issue since July 2002. I seem to recall becoming somewhat disappointed with the magazine, but I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to grab the June 2004 issue. It's the commemorative 30th Anniversary issue of Dungeons & Dragons. That's right -- you heard correctly. Thirty frickin' years!

The issue offered up a nice retrospective on the history of D&D and laid out quite a few of the game's important milestones, like the introduction of the Forgotten Realms and DragonLance, the release of the first issues of The Strategic Review and Dragon, the launch of the D&D cartoon and the purchase of TSR (or T$R, if you'd prefer) by Wizards of the Coast.

However, much of the rest of the issue sucked big donkey cock. Aside from the history lesson, I felt like I'd wasted my money. The magazine has only gotten worse since I last purchased an issue. What a shame.

Anyway, it's obvious by now that I hit Wyldstar on the weekend (Saturday, specifically). I picked up a batch of comics, which I read Saturday afternoon. I'll do my mini-reviews of all of those later. Sunday night was a gaming night. Logan, Rich and Jacquie finished up their mutant animal characters for the Rifts: Escape From Lone Star campaign. More on that another time.

Jacquie went out and bought The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King on DVD last night, and I'm pretty darn sure I'm going to be subjected to that Academy Award-winning piece of shit tonight. Three hours of my life, gone -- just like that. I can't believe I got dragged to the cinema for all three parts, and then had to suffer through them again on DVD.

Yet another brilliant Friday File from my editor Rob Dutt. All you wireless users are freaky. :P

Since I was a kid, I've been enthralled by vampires, whether they're literary, shown in movies or on TV, are on a box of cereal or are the result of legends and myths created by various cultures around the world. Although my parents used to dress me up for Hallowe'en as a clown or some other such harmless thing, by the time I was eight, I was demanding to be Dracula, fake, crusty blood and all. My mother sewed me a cape, put me in a white collared shirt, paled my face with makeup and spilled that icky fake blood down my chin from the corners of my mouth. I was Dracula until I gave up Hallowe'en, which was actually earlier than most of my peers. The last time I went out trick-or-treating was in Grade 5.

Even when I was a young'un and too afraid to watch horror flicks, if there was a vampire in the movie, the fear went away. Watching Bela Lugosi hide behind a cowl, Billy the Kid throw a stake from fifteen feet into Dracula's heart (assuming I'm remembering the movie correctly) or a bunch of teenagers being demonized by Keifer Sutherland and his vampire buds, I was ready to plunk myself down in front of the TV or movie screen and stare for hours.

Little has changed. I have a healthy collection of vampire movies on VHS and DVD, several novels, a couple of books on vampire legends and countless roleplaying games in which vampires play a part (I'm running a Vampire: The Masquerade play-by-email game via YahooGroups now and I've had several vamps pop up in my D&D games over the years).

There's just something about blood-suckers that can keep me mesmerized for hours. Perhaps it's the immortality. Or maybe it's the need to drink blood and be apart from human society. Of course, it could just be the erotic horror that's evoked when you analyze vampires to the core -- something I wouldn't have understood when I was eight but that I certainly understand now. Whatever it is, vampires are like a drug to me.

A little while ago, my brother picked up all of the complete seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation. About a month or so ago, I started borrowing them one by one. At this point, I've now watched the first two seasons in their entirety. I remember watching TNG years ago after the first three seasons were syndicated, but I forgot just how truly terrible it could be -- and because I watched them spaced out over months or even a year or two (and definitely not in order), I didn't catch all of the simple continuity mistakes and the illogical behaviours of the characters.

For instance, in Season Two, Dr. Kate Pulaski replaces Dr. Crusher, and the character starts out as a bit of a bigot (against Data, that is). However, that soon changes. I guess they couldn't keep that form of racism (androidism?) in the show for long. However, it just seemed that the character didn't really have a learning process. One show, she was still calling Data an "it" and the next she was his buddy. Odd. However, one big error in her behaviour is in her contradictory behaviour when it comes to competition. During the episode where Commander Riker and his father go at it in martial arts fashion (Ambo-Jitsu?), she very seriously suggests conflicts and competitions are primitive. However, a couple of episodes later, when the great strategist and Stratagema (spelling?) master is on board, she not only thinks competition isn't bad, she's the one setting Data up to play against the alien and hoping the android will kick the strategist's ass. A writer's flaw or did they modify behaviours to fit the plot?

Of course, nothing serves the plot more and has as many contradictions as the Prime Directive itself. I'll get into that next time, maybe.

Today's Filibuster cartoon is bang on. Of course, it's not just a government thing. It's a personal thing. While politicians find it offensive to be labeled as "American-like," so does the average Canuck. Canadians have a phobia of America that's quite severe. In fact, we try to hide feelings of insecurity and inadequacy toward the U.S. by disguising those emotions as dislike, distrust and sometimes even hatred for American policies and Americans themselves.

It is doubly unfortunate that the mud-raking from our top candidates for prime minister are essentially reduced to: "You're so American, you shouldn't be PM." "Nuh-uh. I'm rubber, you're glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you." I'm sure those lively and intelligent debates are followed by a few "neener-neeners" and a couple of raspberries.

They're both idiots.

I'm into the last few hours of my mini-vacation. Since I had a few vacation days still left over from 2003, I extended my Victoria Day long weekend by three days. From Thursday to today (inclusive), I've just been hanging out (alone and with friends), having some barbecues, drinking some beer and generally avoiding the computer. I've checked email a few times here and there just to keep the junk mail from piling up too much, but there hasn't really been any major need to access my computers.

Back to the grind tomorrow...

Last night, I met up at the Raven & Firkin in Ajax with Rawl and a guy I hadn't seen since high school. Back in Grade 8, I hung around a bit with Jason, but in high school, we didn't see much of each other. And then we went to different high schools starting in Grade 11 and completely lost touch (which is kind of odd, because we lived on the same street). So I hadn't seen him in a very long time.

Drinks were good, though. For the most part, discussions revolved around old times and what's happened since. However, the conversation came back to religion a couple of times, which was kind of weird. It's always an uncomfortable subject for me (mostly because I grew tired a long time ago of people trying to convert me -- and it doesn't take much of it to send me into a heated argument), but at least I don't have the raging hatred I once had for any and all kinds of religion. It seems Jason is fairly heavily involved with what sounds like a cross between a church, a youth group and an old-style coffee house. Interesting idea.

It shames me to admit that I've never seen a Michael Moore film. Well, I saw him do a cameo in Canadian Bacon, but that doesn't really count. However, his own films, particularly Roger & Me and Bowling For Columbine, have been on my Films To Watch List for a very long time, and I've yet to pick them up on DVD as I've planned. A few months ago, I almost bought Roger & Me, but then I realized it was a pan-and-scan version, and I put it back in the hopes of finding a widescreen presentation edition. Guess what. I still haven't seen the movie.

According to Film Threat, Moore's latest film, Fahrenheit 9/11, received standing ovations at the Cannes screening. Essentially, this new film takes aim at the Bush administration and its behaviour (particularly Bush's) post-September 11th, 2001. I've added this newest Moore film to my To Watch List, but I'm thinking I really should catch up by watching the others before trying to catch this one. It might give me a better idea of what to expect from the guerilla director.

Tycho and Gabe sometimes make me laugh so much that it hurts inside. I don't even like Square Enix's Final Fantasy series, but it's just such a great line. And that's just the first panel.

The moral of the story is: Read Penny Arcade, damn you.

The Red vs. Blue E3 pics really remind me of my trip to L.A. and E3 last year. It looks like the show was filled with good times again. Wish I'd been able to attend. ... Oh wait -- sore feet, noises and music so loud I couldn't hear the PR reps talk, standing in line just to check out one level of a game, massive crowds, a booked schedule that made me so tired I couldn't bring myself to attend the evening parties, losing my cell phone while drunk after the Microsoft Canada get-together... What the hell am I thinking? Do I really want a repeat of that? ... Yes. Maybe next year.

My weekend wasn't overly eventful, but I did get a couple of things accomplished that I've been meaning to do. First off, I went shopping for some new clothes. My waist is a bit bigger than what it was when I first started working from home (I'm still kind of a beanpole, though), and I've been outgrowing some of my pants. I finally broke down and headed out to do some clothes shopping on Saturday. I've been putting this off for a few months now, mainly because I really hate to do it, but it's over and done with now. I'm sure it'll be another year or two before I manage to get up the nerve to do it again.

Also, I got my parents to bring over our bikes yesterday. They've been rusting away in their garage for quite some time. I'm not sure whether it's one or two years they've been there. Whatever the case, the weather is getting warmer and we have a garage in which to store the bikes now, so my parents were kind enough to drop them off yesterday morning. Once they were gone, I took my bike out for a spin to make sure everything was in working order. Except for a bit of surface rust on the screws on the gearshift, everything is all good. I figure I can clean that surface rust off myself.

Now if I can just keep to my vow of riding each day, I'll be bit as fit a fiddle in a few weeks.

Logan just sent this link to me. I think he's having a bit of a freak-out over it, seeing as he's a big Rifts fan and he despises the Nokia N-Gage (kind of like the rest of the gaming community at large). Anyway, according to the release, Rifts will finally be made into a video game for the first time ever on any platform. Unfortunately, Palladium has struck a deal with Nokia to bring the title to N-Gage -- and it looks like it's exclusive. That also means only about a few thousand people will ever play it. Heheh.

Friday is always a great day. Not only is it the end of the week, but Editor Rob Dutt (one of my bosses) always posts the Friday File in the eCL Canada newsletter. This week's bit of news has to do with a mix-up where a U.S. pawn shop shipped a .22 pistol (with a licence) to a Saskatchewan tween who had originally ordered an MP3 player.

I'm not sure whether to laugh or worry once again about the effectiveness of our customs. Sure, they're anally-raping long-haired freaks with chubby fingers just to find some harmless pot, but apparently guns are okay.

Today was the first time I'd actually ever stumbled (virtually, of course) across Booble, the adult search engine. I swear I only spent maybe two minutes there. ... Okay, fifteen. Fuck off. :P

Back in the early days of the so-called dot-bomb, FuckedCompany.com was my favourite Website to visit. Pud just never backed off from anything. He told the way he saw it.

I mean, how can you not love a Website that calls its forums the Happy Fun Slander Corner? Anyway, it's good to see Pud's still taking shots at fucked companies. I would imagine it takes a bit more newshound work these days than it did when he first started the site.

These types of things just crack me up. Random goth poetry is great, mostly because of how accurate it is. Considering I went through a gothic phase back in my mid-to-late college years and I wrote bad gothic poetry (like every other goth, it seems), I guess I find this especially amusing. Worse, I even published one of my pieces in a book -- In Edita. Actually, wait, that publication was back before college, I think. I think I wrote that crap in high school. I'll see if I can dig that book out and post the poem here for a laugh.

So the new Blogger email posting application isn't perfect, but I can see how it would be useful.

I've been putting out the Daily Gaming News newsletter via YahooGroups now for four days straight. It's actually a very simple thing to do. All I'm doing is scouring the video/PC gaming sites to see what's new (something I'd do anyway) and then summarizing and posting the links to those stories all into one document. Then I just post it to the list and it goes out to the two hundred or so subscribers. From early feedback from readers, it seems there are quite a few readers actually in the game development/publishing industry, and some of them rely on DGN for their daily updates on their peers. That's quite a responsibility, really. I feel its weight.

I believe my first attempt at posting via email was a failure simply because
I hadn't toggled the "Publish" switch. Now that I've done it, let's try this
again.


Note: Yep, it worked this time, but it left three or four lines of blank space at the bottom. Oh well.

I'm just testing out the post-by-email feature on Blogger. Hopefully this
will work okay.

Note: It's pointless. The above made it to the site but didn't get posted. Bah!

With the new look and feel of the Blogger applet, there are also new tools available, including a Blogger comments app. So I've ditched HaloScan in favour of the Blogger one, which means all of the HaloScan comments have now gone bye-bye. It'll probably just make things easier. It also seems that regular Blogger users can now post via email, so I'm going to give that a shot a little later on.

Another bit of confusion... When I tried to post yesterday, my blog went all wonky. It seems the template got half-deleted (and with it, all my customizations -- fuck!). So here I am re-posting my blog with the original template. I'll try to get my links and such back online when I can.

My time sense is completely fucked today. I've at least twice tried to schedule interviews for tomorrow, thinking tomorrow is Wednesday. I'm quite confused.

I'm still catching up on news from the last few days here. So, without further ado...

I dropped by Logan's place mid-last week for a couple of hours to check out City of Heroes, the first superhero MMORPG. I was skeptical about the game because of the noticeable lack of PvP combat and the inability to play villains, but I have to admit I was quite impressed with what I saw. Barely a week out of the gates (at the time), CoH is relatively lag-free, looks quite purty and plays really well. Unfortunately, I can't justify the $50 for the game and the US$15 monthly fee right now. Otherwise, I'd be playing it. Oh yes, while at Logan's, I whipped up my own character on his account (probably deleted by now). Hippy Fire Dude looked way awesome. ;)

One of my favourite newsletters is Daily Gaming News, which is distributed via YahooGroups. Unfortunately, the guy who started it way back in 1999 doesn't have time to do it any more. In fact, the last update was April 25th, but the newsletter hadn't really been daily since March. Well, as if I really need another project, I've taken on the role of Chief Cut 'n' Paster of Daily Gaming News. My suggestion is to sign up. I promise to try to actually make it daily. You can find it here.

And the rest of the comic reviews...

G.I. Joe: Reloaded #2: Good stuff. This second issue is another well-written and well-illustrated (although not as well-illustrated as the first one) addition to the new Joe "mythos." The Cobra guys are trying to swipe the U.S. Constitution and seem to have pulled it off. Now the Joe team is hot on their trails in the city streets of Washington. It's another good read, and I'm looking forward to the third issue, which will be released sometime this month.

Conan #3: Not even Conan came out on top each and every time. Conan continues his adventures with the Aesir in the northlands, and the issue ends with betrayal and the first glimpse of the Hyperboreans. Woo hoo! As with issues #0 through #2, I'm very impressed with the stories by Kurt Busiek and the artwork from Cary Nord and Thomas Yeates. As pointed out by one of the letter writers in the issue (this being the first issue with a proper letters column), the lack of inking on the characters themselves makes it look almost like paintings instead of drawings. Very cool stuff. I must highly recommend this title to anyone who loves the Cimmerian's stories.

The Punisher #5: I cannot stress enough how brutal this Marvel MAX title is. All I can hope is it's kept out of the hands of little children. At this point in the series, one CIA guy has had his nuts chopped off and handed back to him in a paper cup, several people have been shot, there's more blood and gore than you'd find in an Eighties slasher flick, and Frank Castle comes across as one of the most obsessive and brutal men in the history of comic books ... as he should. The artwork remains top quality, and the writing and story arc continues to fuel my desire for The Punisher to go bi-monthly. Kudos to Garth Ennis et al.

I haven't had time the last several days to get on Blogger and do some bloggin'. Interesting. The applet has been modified severely. It doesn't even look like the same app any more.

Anyway, this weekend was the first time in a month that I've had time to get to Wyldstar. I only picked up four titles, and I decided to opt out of the Alpha Flight series. The first two issues were so bad that I just can't justify buying the rest of the first six-issue story arc. However, I did pick up the new G.I. Joe: Reloaded #2, Transformers: Generation One #4, Conan #3 and The Punisher #5. So far, I've only read through the Transformers comic. Quick impressions...

Transformers: Generation One #4: I'm still somewhat confused by what's going on. I haven't been reading all of the previous comic titles about the Transformers, and I'm not sure I understand exactly what's going on. However, what I think is happening is that the title takes place after the movie, but the storyline has been modified somewhat so that we're not being subjected to the third season of the show. I'll have to keep reading. Eventually I'll get it together. Good artwork, but the extreme closeups are annoying. Every Transformer looks the same if you've just focused on an eye (er...optical receptor?).

I'm really liking this spam filter I installed the other day. As I mentioned on the weekend, SpamBayes has to be trained to catch spam. However, I found that it didn't take a lot of training before it started picking out pieces of incoming junk email. Sweeeeeet. It's already catching a good portion of the penis enlargement, Viagra and other crap emails I get every day, and it hasn't flagged a legitimate message yet. I'm impressed.

It pains me that Jim Toomey has made what I'm going to call The Big Comic Strip Mistake (also known as The Big Sitcom Mistake in TV Land). Toomey is the writer and artist on one of my all-time favourite comic strips, Sherman's Lagoon. A story arc that's been running for the last couple or three weeks has had me worried, and now I fear that this isn't going to turn into a dream sequence. The Big Comic Strip Mistake is, simply put, when a comic strip writer has finally run out of jokes or ideas and decides that a massive change is necessary in the strip. I don't know that Toomey has actually run out of ideas, as I still found Sherman hilarious up until this abomination.

Oh, this is painful, so I'll just say it. Sherman and Megan are now parents of a baby boy named Herman. It'll be the ruination of the strip, I tell ya. I'm already not laughing.

Please, Jim, make it a dream (nightmare) sequence. I'm crossing my fingers for ol' Sherm. ... Okay, I'll go sulk now. :(

The only Internet demon worse than a spammer is a virus writer (or Trojan writer, worm writer, etc.). Thankfully, I've yet to be infected by the Netsky virus, but that does mean I'm trying to update Windows on my laptop just in case. It also means I'm getting a slow start to the day because the updater is bloody slow. Everyone and their grandmothers are probably trying to do the updates this morning.

Stuck In Suburbia Movie Night #1 went off pretty much without a hitch. We had five guests, all starting to show up after about 7:30. As expected, we didn't get Plan 9 into the DVD player right at 8:00. I believe it was a little after 8:30 before we delved into the world of Ed Wood. Also as expected, the showing turned into an episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, as even those who hadn't seen the movie before (three guests) couldn't help but make fun of it. For me, it was a treat, simply because it was the first time I'd ever watched it with a group. Like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, I feel Plan 9 From Outer Space should always be a movie seen in a group.

We tried to get Killer Klowns From Outer Space on as soon as Plan 9 was finished. Unfortunately, Tom and Annie had somewhere else they had to be, so they couldn't stay for the clowns, but at least they managed to come for the Ed Wood movie. A movie made at the tail end of the Eighties, none of us that remained had seen Killer Klowns before. Discussions during and after the film suggested that few are going to be putting it on their "gotta watch this again soon" list. It was clear the movie was made to be camp. I don't think it was meant to be scary at all. Come to think of it, though, a little kid might find the clowns a bit frightening.

Anyway, thanks to Tom, Annie, Rawl, Tara and Sean for coming out to the first of what I hope will be several movie nights. Thanks to Jacquie for agreeing to host it with me. Unfortunately, Jacquie wants to choose the titles for the next movie night. I know we'll get bombarded with Monsters, Inc. and Finding Nemo. *sigh*

As I've mentioned before, I'm pretty sick of seeing my inbox filled up with spam. I figure about half of the emails that I get are spam. If it wasn't for the YahooGroups I belong to adding to my inbox, I figure the percentage of spam would be closer to about eighty percent or so. So spam sucks, we all know that. However, I don't have the cash to buy a spam filter. Thankfully, Tycho at Penny Arcade pointed out SpamBayes in his latest entry. SpamBayes is a free spam filter that acts like an Outlook plugin. The only down side is that you have to train it yourself. Of course, if it will cut down on the amount of spam I have to filter through, then I don't mind a bit of work using SpamBayes.

Let the training begin.