If you tried to access the site yesterday, you probably found it a slow load – if it loaded at all.

That’s because some dastardly, rotten, no-good email spammer hacked into the server and used a forgotten test blog to send upwards of a quarter million emails. The server crashed, but fortunately my fabulous web guy, Steve, at DataWebPro, brought her back to life again.

Now, you may remember that Steve provided me with an incantation to solve database errors.

Well, I have a prayer for anyone affected by spammers and it goes like this:

May the fleas of a thousand camels infest the crotch of the person who screws up your day and may their arms be too short to scratch… AMEN

Many thanks to my nephew Andrew for sending that prayer to me. I’ve had it up on my bulletin board for years, and always knew there would come a good time to share it.

I signed up as a MasteryTV affiliate partner when it first launched and I’ve been trying to get off Tom Wood’s list ever since.

In every email he sends there is a link labelled “Immediate and Permanent Removal from Mailings”. I’ve clicked that link (which is coded with my email address) each time I receive spam from Mr. Wood, and yet the crap still arrives week after week after *&/=@! week.

I’ve phoned the MasteryTV offices twice and both times left a message. Yet, still the mail comes.

OK, so Tom Wood is a SPAMMER. But more interesting is the fact that his affiliate program has been replaced with a ‘refer a friend’ link.

What a neat trick. Get affiliates to promote your site, then remove the program so they can’t earn anything and THEN spam the heck out of them.

All-round nice guy that Tom Wood.