Pre-Update Update: Never mind the next Update... my very own web goddess Emily has saved my butt yet again! In my enthusiasm to block a few spammer trackbacks, I inadvertently blocked the whole civilized world from commenting as well. Sorry folks! Comment away (please?)! And Emily: THANK YOU.

Update: Something is terribly wrong. I can't even comment on my own site anymore! Anyone who is an expert on MT Blacklist, please extend a helping hand! I'm so desperate I've even considered deleting my entire blacklist, but then I look at my referrer page and see all the awful sites that have been trying to leave their spam and I just dread the thought of having to start from scratch and deleting all the smut that is sure to be left here if I unblock them all. HEEEELP, please!?!

She tried sending me a comment on my limesick post, but apparently some mysterious entity decided that she was a spammer.

I say "mysterious entity," because from the thirty minutes (at LEAST) a day I spent deleting friendly invitations to purchase potions and lotions to enhance and enlarge body parts I don't possess or already have enough of; or invitations to view families who love each other so much that their family trees go straight up; or invitations to view pictures of animals and people that... let's just say that it gives the term 'heavy petting' a whole new and nasty definition... So considering all of these things, it doesn't even feel as if I HAVE a spam blocker to begin with!

It's happened a few times before that precious real bloggers who wanted to comment were inadvertently blocked by my Spam Police. And my readers and commenters ARE precious because they're a rather rare commodity and should be protected and preserved at all cost, because man I LOVE my 'peanut gallery' and hearing what they have to say, even though they've proven to be a very disobedient lot. You see, I've ordered them (several times!) to please try and refrain from being funnier than the author - yeah, wishful thinking, I know - but they just can't seem to help it. (That's why, if you're new to this website and you want to be highly entertained, read the archives. But not of what I have written: read the comments!)

But back to the Spam Police. I know I'm not the most tech savvy person in the world (hahahaha, yes, I'm soo understated!), but I'm really puzzled. I don't understand why they seem to be looking the other way (or are they on their coffee-and-doughnuts-break?) when my comments and trackbacks get spammed at least a hundred times per hour by those sick sites whose names rhyme with 'feast and iality' and 'invest'; but when my legitimate and very welcome readers try to comment, they suddenly drop their doughnuts, dust off their Spam Police uniforms and whip out their weapons.

UPDATE: I've just taken a break to read a few other sites, and it turns out that today's Birthday Girl (who is no fool, by the way, despite having a birthday on this day) apparently tried to comment on my April Fool's Day post, but surprise surprise... she was blocked. Oh, but whadoyouknow: I've just been invited SEVERAL TIMES to a site where I can purchase prescription meds without the necessary doctor's note!

GAAAAH! Please help! I try to vigilantly block the spammers as soon as they strike, but I am very careful not to accidentally block any real readers/commenters in the process. I've just double-checked my blacklist and I can't spot anyone on there who shouldn't be there (I could've overlooked someone in my haste though). Helen and Kat are definitely not on there though!

This isn't the first time I've had the problem where people e-mailed me saying that they've been blocked. As far as I can remember, it's happened to her and her, but those problems eventually sorted themselves out, because I never did anything about it - I couldn't, because I didn't know WHAT to do, very much like now - and soon after they started commenting again without any further problems.

Oh, and I've just remembered: A while back she tried to comment on this post. She e-mailed me her comment and right fool that I am, I tried posting the comment on her behalf... UNDER HER NAME. (I TOLD you that today was invented for people like me!) And then I completely forgot about it until now. I'm soooo sorry Kimberly! Here, to try and make up for my idiocy, is your comment, even though it's probably a month after the fact! I'm sure your views haven't changed yet:

I tried to leave a comment, and was rejected because it thought I was a spammer. I was trying to post this to your post about Williams's song:

I would have enjoyed William's song I bet. I like tongue in cheek stuff
and have a wicked sense of humor (one I often have to repent over).

And Kat, here's your excellent limesick limerick now for all the world (that is, if the world has a population of three) to see. I'm posting it here, even though it's so much funnier and better than mine. But *sigh* I'll let it slide this once because of the brutality you've suffered at the hands of my Spam Police. (If they keep this up I'm going to confiscate their badges!)

Here's what Kat wrote:

Ack, I tried to post this comment, but your spambot wouldn't let me! I guess
it didn't like my limerick...lol

There once was a girl named Red
who was a lil sick in the head
She called it the flu
and cried out boo-hoo!
so we told her to go back to bed.

Thanks again, Kat! And you know what, I've been so upset about the Spam Police brutality taken out on my readers that I've completely forgotten about my flu!

Anyway, if anyone has any advice for me on how to curb the spammers without blocking any legitimate readers/commenters, PLEASE let me know?