Apparently in my other life I have a thing for Paris Hilton

Just opened up the spam folder in my mailbox intending to rescue any stray pieces of legitimate email the filter may have accidentally batted into there and discovered that I'd sent myself the "latest" Paris Hilton video.

I didn't remember doing it, but apparently I did.  There it was, an email from lance at lancemannion dot com with the subject heading "latest Paris Hilton video."

I'm pretty sure it's not her fake campaign commercial.

It probably isn't anything from her Official YouTube Channel either.

In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the email doesn't contain a link or a file for any Paris Hilton video at all.

Not that I'm about to open it and find out.  I can't open it.  I've already vaporized it.  But let's say I was dumb enough to open that kind of spam.  I still wouldn't do it.

I'd have been put off by the subject heading.

By this time it's entirely unfair of me to think that "Latest Paris Hilton Video" means "Latest video of Paris Hilton getting naked and nasty."  But that's what I thought.  Probably because I just expect that that's what spammers expect that I expect when they send out spam like that.

Ya follow?

Even though the latest Paris Hilton video could easily be her campaign ad, a music video, or a clip from The Hottie and the Nottie, I think the spammers count on recipients thinking, "Whoa!  Paris, man.  She's hot!" and reflexively opening it up in hopes of seeing some very well cared for skin.

Now I don't expect spammers to know that I'll have erotic dreams about the elderly nun who was my eighth grade science teacher before I'll give Paris Hilton a single lascivious thought.  But why do they expect that I will be fooled into opening an email with my own address on it?

They really believe I send myself so much email I'd forget whether or not I mailed myself the latest Paris Hilton video?

Of course, I know that there's no real thought behind spam.  No active intelligence is at work.  Some spider is crawling around pulling email addresses off webpages, turning them into masks, and firing them off blindly.

What I'm really getting at is that I'm still surprised that spam actually works.  But it must, right?  Otherwise nobody'd be getting rich at spamming and apparently people are.

Now, about Paris Hilton.

There's nothing personal about my unattraction.  No principle behind it either.  Rail-thin, angular, pale, flaxen-haired blondes like that have just never been my type (Mrs The Blonde Mannion is not angular or flaxen-haired), no matter how doe-eyed.

And to be fair, I do not believe that there are a lot of rail-thin, angular, pale, flaxen-haired blondes, particularly twentysomething rail-thin, angular, pale, flaxen-haired blondes, who have a thing for graying, middle-aged, stoop-shouldered bloggers, with deep dark rings around their eyes from lack of sleep, no matter how Paul Newman-blue those eyes are.

Chacon au son gout.

(I put that in for Paris, in case she's googling herself.  I figured she'd like it because her first name is, you know, French.)

But despite my own decided lack of sexual frisson (another French word for you, Paris) at the sight of her, I have never put her in the same category as her fellow party girls Britney and Lindsey.  Paris has always seemed to me to be exploring the many ways of having fun and unfortunately finding out that some of those ways land you in the pokey, while the other two are engaging in experiments in self-destruction.

And I have to admit to an abiding respect and admiration for the way she's made a career out of self-parody.  She's practically the female George Hamilton of her generation.

Which reminds me, I think it's time to schedule a showing of Zorro: The Gay Blade for family movie night.

But the latest Paris Hilton video has me thinking maybe I want to reasses my feelings about her.

After all, a woman who can laugh at herself like this and stick it to John McCain really is what she says she is.

Totally ready to lead.

Not to mention hot.

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

Comments

[apostate]

Oh gawd. As if there wasn't enough misinformation out there about the panacea of off-shore drilling, she has to go and add to it.

What else can one expect from silly celebs?

Good christ. The elections are a circus. This country is going to hell in a handbasket.

[CJColucci]

My spam file included many Angelina Jolie offers, but one day I got something promising a Hillary Clinton nude video. Just had to share that with someone.
I love Zorro, the Gay Blade, by the way, which gave George Hamilton a career that wasn't a joke. There's probably a book or article to be written about failed leading men (Hamilton, Leslie Nielsen) who discover (or reveal) a gift for comedy late in their careers. How does it happen? How were they so mis-cast before? How do they get the chance to change? Did they know that comedy was what they should have been doing all along?

[Mike Schilling]

What I'm really getting at is that I'm still surprised that spam actually works. But it must, right? Otherwise nobody'd be getting rich at spamming and apparently people are.

It works because the cost of sending out all that spam is effectively zero. If one in 100,000 results in a sale (and I've seen published estimates that that's about right), the spammer is still ahead. If sending an e-mail cost even a fraction of a cent, spam would disappear.

[Janelle Dvorak]

That'd be "A chacun son goût", Lance.

[julia]

I suspect what they think is that your address is almost certainly not on your bozofilter.

[sfmike]

@Mike Schilling: It was actually "Love at First Bite" with Susan Saint James that resurrected Hamilton's career, which was a bit before "Zorro: The Gay Blade." The latter is still one of my favorite silly movies, for the absurd Spanish accents alone. "You must fight injewstice to the pipples," Zorro's father intones on the soundtrack while his gay son is making pronouncements to the pipples like "It is not a crime to be poor, only to dress poorly!"

[actor212]

Lance,

The Nigerian email scam, or more correctly, The Spanish Prisoner scam, has been around for more than 80 years and has bilked millions out of billions of dollars.

So it's not a stretch to believe that, yes, this is still going on, spam being opened by naive web users who get suckered in.

How else do you explain their continued infestation of your Inbox?