Most spam is a royal nuisance. Some, though, is so preposterous that it makes me laugh. I get an especially huge kick from the spammers who've taken no time whatsoever to find out what type of business I have. Cases in point:

– The IT consultant who has several tech engineer candidates available for immediate hire or the sales recruiter who sends resumes of Telco salespeople for my review

– The e-mails written entirely in Russian. I sometimes imagine these are from Anastasia Romanov herself who, at the ripe old age of 110-plus, is still trying to convince the world she survived her family's massacre at Ekaterinburg

– The anti-piracy solutions provider who provides software to ward off real-world pirates (think: Bluebeard). I typically put him off by saying we're too busy media training the Somalian pirates at the moment, but will be in touch.

My all-time favorite spam washed up on shore (pirate humor) just a few days ago. It came from a Yemen-based merchant who needed to sell an oil barge and two tug boats. As the owner of a public relations firm, I thanked him and responded by
saying the smaller of the two tugs probably made more sense in this economy. So, I connected him with Ann Barlow, who runs our anti-piracy/tug boat operations from Peppercom's San Francisco office.

I'm still waiting to hear back from the tug boat merchant, because I'll need to find a crew to go along with the tug. You see, Peg-leg Barlow has a reputation for chewing up tug boat crews and can make Captain Ahab seem tame in comparison. Hopefully, my Yemen spammer also handles executive recruiting.