No, this post isn’t about mutated meat by-products I found in the back of the pantry.  I started getting comments on some of the posts last night.  The first was obviously spam.  The second seemed to somewhat fit the post it was associated with, although there were one or two odd things about it.  It was definitely about books, though, and not some random gibberish or the odd flattery that sometimes shows up.  I typed a brief reply and went to bed.  Both the comment and my reply have since been deleted.

When I got up this morning, there were more.  Five more have shown up today, for a total of seven.  Some appear to be in a foreign language.  The others seem to be lifted from someone else’s blog.  One of them was an author’s reply to a fan about a particular book he had written.  There was enough detail for me to identify the author and the book with just a few keystrokes.

All of the bogus comments link back to Facebook accounts which may or may not be real and all of which block my seeing any posts on their pages.

Anyway, I’ve marked the lot as spam and hope that I’ve seen the end of it.  First time commenters are sent to moderation.  Returning commenters are automatically approved.  There have been some new commenters this week that I’ve aproved.  On the off chance that someone who is a first-time commenter doesn’t see their comment within 24 hours, please drop me an email at the email address on the sidebar.  This email address doesn’t go to my phone, so if I’m out of pocket, it might be a day or two before I see it.

Last weekend my computer at home started to refuse to boot completely, and if it did, it ran incredibly slowly.  Frankly, I’m surprised it’s lasted as long as it has.  I’ve had it for at least 12 years, and the OP is so old that it won’t support the latest versions of some major software packages, such as JAVA.  I was hoping it would hold out until Christmas.  Ah, well.  It’s been one of those weeks.

Anyway, I’ll be getting a new computer sometime in the next week (I hope), but I’m not going to rush out and buy any old thing.  My wife and I will discuss what will best suit our needs and shop carefully.  In addition to the computer, I’m going to have to replace a window in my car, plus I’ve had AC work done in the last week, so cash flow isn’t exactly what I expected it would be.  I may wait a week or two and see if I can find a good back to school sale.

What this means is I won’t be blogging much until the new computer is in place.  It’s too tedious to try to type much in from my phone.  The summer term ends this week, with my final exam scheduled for Thursday, so having a few free minutes at work isn’t likely.  As a result, things might be a bit quite around here for a little while.

Classes start a week from today.  I returned to campus yesterday and starting getting everything in order.  For reasons too long and dull to get into here, I’ll be teaching an additional class this semester.  It’s one I’ve taught before multiple times, so it’s not like having to develop material for a new class.  I’m not sure how much of an impact this will have on writing and blogging.  Time will tell.

I’m reading a couple of things for review, but I’m not sure what order they’ll be finished.  Anyway, things may be a little hit and miss around here for the next few weeks until I get my routine established.