The word “hack” has gotten a bum wrap.

In the old days, a hack was a horse or a taxi cab. Sometimes it was a writer (like me) who wrote boring prose full of trite phrases. It could even mean what a person does to a piece of wood with an axe. Today, when I think of hack, though, I think of the constant attempts to hack my website. Every day, at least once a day, I get an email notifying me that someone has signed up as a “user” on my website. When I look at the name and email address, it’s always someone named xsestkcxz or pzytrwq, surely people from Latvia or Uzbekistan, since many people from those countries have vowel-less or near vowel-less names. Surely, these aren’t (gasp!) made up names!

So here’s a message to you hackers. I know I haven’t been posting to my blog for a while…it’s just been a place where I’ve announced the deaths of my pets and my mother…but I’m still here, hackers. I’ll still thwart your every attempt at trying to gain access and control to post your ridiculous spam ads that aren’t even translated into English well enough to fool anyone. And soon — VERY SOON — if I have anything to say about it, I’ll be back posting funny thoughts or interesting recopies. But you will NEVER gain control.