Wednesday, July 12 12:00 AM ET

BBspot Mailbag

Now you too can enjoy my Inbox without the annoying spam. Every week I get some amazing e-mail. Some amazing because of the sheer cluelessness of the sender, some because of the time and energy that went into crafting them and some are just simply amazing.

BBelievers

Apparently I'm the Nigerian millionaire expert...

From: mthew
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 8:38 AM
To: briggs@bbspot.com
Subject: give away money

hi i just got this e mail saying that this nigerian guy wants to give me some money if this is true how can i get it my name is xxxxxx from australia

I don't mind fooling people, but I told him it was a scam. No sense letting other people have the same fun.

Weekly Limerick

The winner of this year's Geek Limerick contest has volunteered to write a weekly limerick for BBspot. I haven't decided where to put it yet, so this week's I'll put in the Mailbag..

From: Seth

Courts ruled firms like CleanFlicks are unfair,
And can't resell films scrubbed of each swear.
 Yet it's odd, to my mind
 The big bucks you'll be fined
If you say those same words on the air.

---

Battlefield Robots

Usually Trailer Reviews might get one or two email messages. However, make a deliberate mistake about Philip K. Dick, and watch the inbox overflow. Some were short messages correcting me, others were long treatise on how much of an idiot I was. It was a deliberate mistake oh ye of little faith. You'd think you guys would've learned that by now. Here is a sampling of the close to 30 (and growing) messages...

From: Colleen
Sent: Sunday, July 09, 2006 9:54 PM
To: briggsb@bbspot.com
Subject: A Scanner Darkly review

Tsk, you call yourself a geek. "I, Robot" is an Asimov adaptation, not a Dick adaptation.

Hey it's other people that call me a geek, and you call yourself a geek and don't mention Battlefield Earth?

From: David
Sent: Friday, July 07, 2006 9:35 PM
To: briggsb@bbspot.com
Subject: Trailer Review: A Scanner Darkly

At the expense of betraying my nerdery (and possibly falling prey to satire, though I doubt it), I believe in your review of "A Scanner Darkly" is incorrect in its assertion about Philip K. Dick. My memory and a quick google search reveal that the author for the collection of short stories in I, Robot is Isaac Asimov and the author of Battlefield Earth is, the scientologist founder, L. Ron Hubbard. It seems possible that you meant Philip K. Dick was the script writer before he died (and it has finally become a movie), but if that is so, the wording seems unclear to me.

Anyways, clearly I *might* need to commit some of my energy elsewhere than reading and responding, but I figured you might appreciate this before your inbox filled up from novel length emails detailing the "travesty" you just committed -- unless this was intentional just to troll for these responses (and if thats so, good luck. I can't wait to see 'em in the BBspot Mailbag).

Like this one!

From: xxxxxx@planet.nl
Sent: Friday, July 07, 2006 5:34 AM
To: briggsb@bbspot.com
Subject: Battlefield Earth by Philip K. Dick?

Dear Mr. Briggs,

I'd like to thank you sincerely for wrongly attributing Battlefield Earth to Philip K. Dick in your trailer review for A Scanner Darkly. The dynamoes we've attached to the deceased body of Mr. Dick, who was found spinning in his grave with great speed, have provided us with a endless supply of clean and renewable energy.

If you would be so kind as to declare any of the following things in following articles, we can provide larger amounts of the community with this environmentally safe energy:

The Mona Lisa, painted by Bob Ross;
2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by Uwe Boll; Ulysses, written by Dan Brown;

Yeah, but nobody would believe I would actually make those mistakes. Oh wait, maybe they would.

From: Miranda
Sent: Friday, July 07, 2006 4:56 AM
To: briggsb@bbspot.com
Subject: philip k. dick?

I hope that was deliberate sarcasm about Battlefield Earth. Even if it was, it's still a little unnerving.

I think I'd better go watch Blade Runner again....

That's a good idea.

From: Andre
Sent: Monday, July 10, 2006 8:17 AM
To: briggsb@bbspot.com
Subject: Trailer Review: A Scanner Darkly

You are all morons if you think that I, Robot and Battlefield Earth was Philip K Dick's best work. Everyone who is anyone related to Science Fiction knows that Philip K Dick's best work was Alien!

I suggest in future your journalistic staff get their act together before they start making other stupid blunders like attributing Total Recall to PKD instead of that other unknown Isamov guy!

PS: Thank you for the entertaining website!

OK, so this guy got the joke, at least I think he did.

That's all for this week!