Typewriter site snags Chinese porn — maybe

Each day blogging brings new surprises.

I have another site, Back Space Typewriters, which is devoted to these grand old "word processor/printers." I don't post on Back Space much, but the site does draw comments for, and from, an esoteric group.

Because the occasional submitted remarks aren't fit for the eyes of typewriter collectors — true innocents — I screen messages from twisted correspondents — or porn-spewing robots.

Earlier this week, I had to decide what to do with this:

交友聊天找e爵,熊貓貼圖區,ut 聊天室,杜蕾斯成人,成人小說,正妹,成人文章,成人圖片,熊貓貼圖,jp成人,交友戀愛小站,色情遊戲,情色視訊,情色視訊,aio交友愛情館,成人視訊,tt1069同志交友網,成人影片,成人貼圖,男同志聊天室,0951成人頻道下載,交友104相親網,成人圖片區,ut男同志聊天室,18成人,成人韭南籽,視訊交友,交友104速配網,情色文學,交友覓戀會館,情色小說,情色貼圖,色情小說,美女,色情,成人,嘟嘟成人網,交友戀愛進行室,85cc成人片觀看,85cc成人片,

Could this really be about the vintage Smith Premier I bought last summer in, of all places, Coos Bay? The typewriter was one of the last made without a shift key. Instead it has two keyboards. Perhaps the writer liked having two keyboards, one for lower case and one for upper.

Then again, the keyboard might invite comparison to massive Chinese-language keyboards with hundreds of keys.

Or he (or she) may have wondered about Coos Bay itself and how I found myself there. (You don't want to know.)

I have to confess, my Mandarin is a little rusty, so, ever curious, I pasted the characters into one of those translation sites, and here, verbatim, is what I got:

Makes friends chats looks for e jue, the panda pastes the chart area, the ut chatroom, Du Leisi the adult, the adult novel, the younger sister, the adult article, the adult picture, the panda pastes the chart, the jp adult, makes friends the love minor stop, the pornographic game, the sentiment color regards the news, the sentiment color regards the news, aio makes friends love hall, the adult regards the news, Comrade tt1069 makes friends the net, the adult movie, the adult pastes the chart, the male comrade chatroom, 0951 adult channel downloading, makes friends 104 intimate

Could this be what passes for erotica in China? Take a closer look at the original. "同志交友網," caught my eye right away.

Whew!

Conclusion: who needs porn filters with language barriers like these?

Backspace Typewriters

After several months, today I finally got around to posting on my other site, Backspace Typewriters.

I usually spare Red Electric readers references to the site. Even if you don't might find it particularly interesting, I'm certain you will find it bizarre.

Typewriters on display at UP

A display and photographic "celebration"of some of my typewriters is now open at the University of Portland's Buckley Gallery.

The photos were taken by students in Pat Bognar's UP photography class.

Here's just one of the typewriters, an Underwood like one used by E.B. White.

For more on the exhibit go to to my typewriter blog site: Back Space Typewriters.

Pixated

Yesterday I found myself writing a fellow editor from my print days that the “ink in my veins” has dried up and been replaced by free-flowing pixels.

Publishing is still about words and pictures, except that ink and paper are a lot more expensive than pixels — and that makes a big difference.

If you have a computer (and who doesn’t these days?), the start-up costs for on-line publishing are virtually zero. Because of that, there aren’t a bunch of advertisers looking over your shoulder.

Of course there’s a whole lot more competition for readers, resulting in what mass media moguls rue as the dread “fragmented” market.

But one publisher’s fragmentation is another’s diversification.

Besides, any moderately tagged site not fixated on profit is instantly accessible through search engines. I’m amazed at the numbers of readers who “stumble” on The Red Electric because they are searching for “Ernie Pyle” or “A Pattern Language” or “Olympia Typewriters” or “Thoreau” or “billboards” or “farmers markets.”

Now that’s diversity!

I started posting less than a year ago. Over last weekend I passed the 400-post mark. I won’t do it tonight, but I need to examine the scope of those post topics to see whether I can stitch together a theme or two.

Without going into detail here, I’ll let you in on one: I am a “res … publican,” but I’ll leave that for another time.

Finally, just to show you how bad my obsessed, pixated brain is, I’ve started another web site, and, as of today, the first post is up. If you are interested, visit Back Space Typewriters.

Oh, and then there is always Hillsdale News, a site/e-newsletter serving our community.

See what I mean? Total pixation!