Ordinary Nothing

I’m planning to go on a trip to the US, with a friend, on September.
As Israeli citizens, we need a visa to be allowed into the US. I have
an old non-immigrant B1/B2
visa, and my friend doesn’t have any. So I wanted to make sure mine is
still in order, and my friend needs to get a new one.

My own visa was issued in 2000. I
was working for a start-up company, which at some points decided that
they may want to send us (anyone on the development team) to the US for
whatever reasons. So they urged us all to get US visas, and dealt with
all the costs and bureaucratic process themselves. All I needed to do
was say yes, so I did.
Of course, as happened to most start-up
companies, it didn’t quite manage to sustain itself, and I never did
went to the US, but the visa remained.

It’s a 10 year visa, so officially it only expires on 2010. I do
know, however, that in the last few years the Americans have changed
the process of issuing visas, and have much more stringent demands, so
I wanted to ensure that the visa is indeed still valid. It would have
been a very unpleasant surprise to land there, only to be sent away
since my type of visas were globally cancelled.

The current requirements include things like fingerprinting, more
in-depth interviews, and facial pictures sized 5×5 cm, with the ears
visible. Yes, the ears have to be visible on this non-standard sized
picture. If you have a picture with your ears covered by hair, or
hidden due to a slight angle of the photo, it’s no good. Don’t ask me
why. Maybe they intend to use it for some never-effective facial
recognition system at some point.

In any case, I didn’t have any of these things, so thought it
prudent to make sure I don’t need them, and that the Americans will
stand behind the old visa they gave me.

I went to the list of all US embassies,
found the site for the Israeli one, and went in hunting for
information. Things were pretty confusing, and I didn’t find anything
that seemed very clear cut to me (at least not enough to face the risk
of making the wrong decision), so I decided to ask them. There was a
contact page, listing a phone number, and the hours for calling. Only
two hours per day, four days a week, but two hours are more than enough
to make a phone call.

As an interesting side note, they don’t work Sundays (probably since
it’s still weekend in the US), and they don’t work Fridays (since it’s
weekend in Israel). So they have a short week. Sweet deal.

OK, back to the story. So I called, and called, and called, but
nobody actually answered the phone. Instead of trying the next day, I
decided to try and send an email.

Funny thing, on their email lists, there are addresses @state.gov
which are official email addresses for the State Department of the US,
but the general-purpose email address is named ac5 (??) and
under a local Israeli ISP account. Still more odd, another email
address is at an Hotmail account. Not very inspiring or professional.
But the one for non-immigrant visas was an official State Department one, so I sent an
email to that.

I had another possible problem, my passport is only valid for about
half a year after the planned trip. Which doesn’t sound like it should
cause any problem, but there are places where they want a passport
valid for longer times in the future, so I had to make sure the current US isn’t one of them.

I sent an email about the two questions, detailing the condition and date, and asking if the visa is valid, and if I will need to increase the valid term of my passport before the trip.

I received a very quick response, which arrived on the next day. Which contained, apart from the polite pleasantries:

If you have a valid visa, simply carry the old passport with the valid visa
on it with the new passport and present both passports at the port of entry
to the US. Your length of stay will be limited by a validity of your
passport.

My
passport is, like I wrote to them originally, still valid on the time
on the planned trip, so there won’t be a second one. And I wasn’t sure
if "If you have a valid visa" is enough of a confirmation that the
expiry date on my old visa is enough to make it valid. So I sent
another message explaining my concerns and asking for more details.

The response included:

The new fingerprints requirement from the U.S. Department of State, which
became effective Monday December 1, 2003 applies to those applicants, who is
planning to visit the United States and have no valid visa in their
passport. The above requirement is implemented by all American posts
worldwide and does not waive visitors of providing fingerprints at a
port-of-entry into the United States. Therefore, if you have a valid visa of
an appropriate category, which covers the purpose of your visit to the U.S,
you are not required to provide fingerprints at the U.S. Embassy prior to
your visit.

Which
I believe does answer my question. My visa is good. They will still
take my fingerprints when I land, but they won’t send me back due to
lack of valid visa.

I sent them back a thank you, and that’s the end of this story.

Basically, they lose
points for not answering the phone, and for not paying exact attention
on the email, but gain more points by responding to the email quickly,
and giving me the answers and information I needed pretty soon. Not sure that this isn’t a case of low expectations, but they did surpass whatever expectations I had, so that’s good.
Considering that this is holiday season, and they’re swamped with visa
applications, I think I received a pretty good service in the email
part.

Yes, the invention we’ve all been waiting for is finally here! Remote chicken petting device!
And, er, if it’s not absolutely clear, chicken here isn’t a euphemism for anything except chicken.

Because, of course, everybody needs to be able to pet their chicken when it’s in the yard and they are inside, right?

And even better, to pet the chicken when you’re out of the house, maybe
at the office, or maybe visiting friends. Can’t leave the chicken
unattended without constant petting. It may feel like you don’t love
her.

Hat tip to Letters of Marque,
which is often quite interesting, despite (or occasionally, like this
time, because of) Heidi’s obsessive interest in chickens…

People never cease to amaze me. They always find ways to do the
unexpected, and use things in ways that nobody could foresee in advance,
or plan for.

Which is a problem for manufacturers everywhere, because when they sell
something, all of a sudden they need to start to not only think about
how it will hold up to regular use, but also what other strange and
twisted ideas will people have about it.

And because the product wasn’t designed for these ideas, sometimes
those odd usages may be dangerous. And if the odd notion becomes
popular enough, products sometimes have to be recalled, for safety
reasons, through no fault of the designers.

Like these nice gel candles.
Which had to be recalled because the gel can catch fire. How silly is
that, I ask you? Why would anyone in their right mind would ever put a
candle near a flame, after all, right? Right? The notion is absurd!
It’s obvious why the company didn’t bother checking for this in
advance…

Or, like these candle holders.
Which it turns out are made of plastic that can ignite and melt. And
which contain a battery, that can explode due to the heat. Again, quite
absurd, because why would anyone put a candle holder in contact with
fire? It’s not like they burn candles in it, or anything like that…

Hat tip to The Old New Thing.

Last week we were finishing up this system that we were supposed to
ship over the weekend. And during the final inspections my boss noticed
that one of the screws holding a panel looked rusted.

He called over our mechanical engineer, and asked him how could he have
missed a rusted screw. He was understandably angry, since it creates a
very poor impression when a large and expansive machine comes all new
and shiny, except for some rusted components…

The mechanical engineer didn’t see the problem, though. It’s just a screw, he
said, so what does it matter? It still holds, after all. After a brief
argument he agreed to replace it with a new one, but I get the feeling
that he still doesn’t quite get it. Which could be a problem in the
future, and certainly means my boss will inspect his future
constructions much more carefully.

And then it occurred to me, this was actually a good thing. It’s always
best to be ahead of the competition, right? Well, with rust, we are
years and years ahead. Just imagine how long it would take the new
screws
on machines from other vendors until they finally manage to rust… And
we can be there today, right now. Now, that’s what I call forward thinking.

Self denfence trick…
Painful self defence trick.

From the text on the lower-left corner:

Followers of the Iron Hand styles immediately clench their fists tightly, with a crushing grip, and jerk the hand sharply back to the near hip, effectively ripping away the genitals

Brr…

Original image taken from here. Hat tip to Monkey Methods.

Yes, it’s true.

The devil does no longer lurk in the hearts of men. It has some entirely new tricks up its sleeves.

Like, er, drawing self-portraits on turtle-shells apparently.

Nice craftsmanship, though the style seems like an odd blend of ancient
Egyptian and post-modern. But who am I to play art critic for the devil?

Microsoft intends to release a pack of six new fonts.

Yes, not all that exciting, I agree.

But some people in the fonts and design business apparently think otherwise, like this review of the fonts.

and the review is… well, here are some ways in which fonts are described there:

• It has a warm, friendly personality
• robust, all-purpose workhorse
• strong and sophisticated
• designed with function and flexibility in mind
• less cuddly, more assertive

And so on and so forth.

You’d think we were talking people, or something.

Fonts…

These latest spam messages are amusing. Nothing different in content, the same offers for cheap mortgages as the rest of them.

But the subject line is a work of art. They don’t offer to "lower your
mortgage" or "low mortgage interest rate", no. What they offer is "Become one of the low 3.25% rates".

I wonder how it would feel like to become a low mortgage interest rate… To be one with my mortgage… Hmm…

One service which in retrospect seems obvious, but which I never expected to see…

Find a Grave. Where
you can… er… find graves. The main value for most people is
probably to locate the graves of important/famous people, but they’re
perfectly willing to list the grave location of everybody else as well.

The person currently quoted on this blog’s subtitle, Goethe, is buried in Weimar, Germany. Yea, it doesn’t really matter, but I figured I should check someone, so there you go.

Hat tip to Karen (No, it didn’t come from a blog or a public web page, so no link).

A sexual harassment lawsuit? Check.
Nipple fetish? Check.
A gorilla (a gorilla?!) ? Check.

What more could you possibly ask from a news story?

Two fired caretakers for Koko, the world-famous sign-language-speaking
gorilla, have sued their former bosses, claiming they were pressured to
expose their breasts as a way of bonding with the 300-pound simian.

Yep, you read that right. And that nipple fetish I mentioned? It’s not the boss’ fetish, it’s the gorilla’s. Seriously!

 

They were threatened that if they "did not indulge Koko’s nipple
fetish, their employment with the Gorilla Foundation would suffer," the
lawsuit alleged.

 

The lawsuit claims that on one occasion Patterson said, "’Koko, you
see my nipples all the time. You are probably bored with my nipples.
You need to see new nipples.’"
 

If I’d have seen this at a satire fake-news site, I would have been
sure that they stretched it a little too far. I guess it’s true that
reality is stranger than fiction…

I mean, sure, wanting to be popular and remembered for ever and ever
(Like Ozymandias, for example) is a common human trait. I wouldn’t get
riled over someone who does something to help make himself remembered,
and gain a name for himself.

But to create a method to monitor your popularity, and have anyone who
express interest in you know how popular you are, after you’ve bitten
the bullet ?! That’s crazy…

And to create it as a closed technological solution that rely on
outside services, without forming any legal contract with those
service, that’s just plain stupid.

Enter the Ego Machine:

Sullivan said he wanted to create an urn that was visually interesting,
allowed some user interactivity and referenced the physical body. He
decided that his remains will be integrated into a computer processor.
A virtual agent running on the computer that contains his ashes will
scour the web for mentions of his name. As the mentions increase, an
on-screen image of Sullivan will morph into an image of his younger
self. But if the mentions decline, Sullivan’s image will age,
deteriorate and eventually fade away.

Yikes!

So I do very much hope this will remain just an art exhibit, but for
some reason I’m sure there are people out there who would take this too
seriously…

Timing is everything, as they say. Just after I go ahead and post about the suicide rate statistics, and how the suicide rate is relatively low here, someone I know go ahead and kills himself…

This guy was the manager of a small company we (the company I work for)
worked with on quite a number of projects. He was on good relations
with my boss. I met him myself a few times when working on some
projects.

He was a nice person, professional, easy to work with.

Last week he came to work in the morning, complete a few things, did a
few meetings, then at around midday he left, went home, and hang
himself…

His company was doing fine, business was good. According to rumours at
the funeral (my boss went) he was depressive, and had a few bouts of
rage and depression in the past.

A waste…

I posted this on a certain group/forum, as a part of some discussion
too
crazy (in a good way) to get into here, a few days ago. This is a
"proof" that witches are sweet and funny. Notice that this is about
your average fairytale evil witch, no relation no any sort of actual
wiccan religion.

Figured I might as well post this here. Very slightly edited to remove
personal references or things tied too closely to the discussion on the
group.

Warning: This is crazy even compared to my usual level…

Let’s start with the easy one – funny.

From the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

2 : differing from the ordinary in a suspicious, perplexing, quaint, or
eccentric way : PECULIAR — often used as a sentence modifier
<funny, things didn’t turn out the way we planned>
3 : involving trickery or deception <told his prisoner not to try anything funny>

Witches differ from the ordinary in suspicious, perplexing, quaint and
eccentric ways. Surely you’d agree, no? And involving trickery and
deception is certainly the modus operandi for any self-respecting
witch. And let me tell you, among those who respect any witch, there’s certainly herself.

Ergo, witches are funny. I really can’t see how you could put up any valid argument against it.

Now let’s go to the more complex bit, proving witches are sweet. Please try and follow.

First, the easiest bit, witches notoriously have a sweet tooth. They
are known for their attraction to all sweet food morsels, including
cakes, cookies, and everything that would contain copious amount of
chocolate. They eat more of those than is healthy, and the high blood
glucose level is in large part responsible for the tell-tale of the
trade, the large ugly warts. Every witch has those, but they are not
caused by evil (Evil has no dermatological effects by itself), but by
the endocrinical imbalance.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking "Aha! But I know many
people who eat too much candy, and yet were I to drink their blood it
would be salty, not sweet! So you must be mistaken!". But no, you would
be wrong. Let me explain:

Witches try to avoid water. It is a well known fact, established by
several well-published experiments (some may even be detailed in your
collection of fairytales), that witches might melt if exposed to a
sufficient amount of water. So far it’s quite simple, but you must be
wondering what does that have to do with being sweet, right?

Well, this involves a little bit of basic chemistry. I’m certain you’re
familiar with the concept of osmosis. As you well know, osmosis is the
process in which, if I’d oversimplify, a solvent may pass through a
membrane when on one side the solvent is present with a higher
concentration of solute. Translated: If you’d add salt to a witch’s
blood, at some point the salt concentration will be high enough that
water from the air (and the air is full of water vapour) will be pushed
by the osmotic pressure into the witch. The witch’s skin, and blood,
will be exposed to more and more water.
And as I mentioned, we all know what happened to a moist witch. Not a pretty sight, let me tell you.

So while empirical data about exact dietary habits of witches is
minimal, we can safely assume witches try to eat as little salt as
possible. So the blood of an average witch, if drank, will not be salty.

But it will also not be plain bland. All this sugar we talked about, remember?

The end result is clear. Theory concludes that witches must be sweet.
Any other option doesn’t make much theoretical sense, and this model
will be adhered to unless some contrary experimental data could be
provided. And even if the data is contrary, which it’s probably isn’t,
the witches are reluctant to share, and we’re forced to stay with the
existing theory.

So witches in general are sweet and funny. QED (That, for everyone who
was forced to write this during planar geometry lessons at school and
have no idea why, is Quod Erat Demonstrandum in Latin, and very roughly mean "what we wanted to prove". Just FYI).

So there you have it.

I had to go to the pharmacy yesterday to take out some prescription. I
arrived only about half an hour before official closing time, and this
was a large central pharmacy, so there was a long line of people there.

Since they often have more customers than clerks (Yes, yes, they’re
"pharmacists", and studies long and hard for it. Sure. But these days
they don’t make prescription drugs, just take bought boxes off the
shelves and give them to people. The only actual requirement is being
literate) they have a queue system in place.

Near the entrance there’s a dispenser with a paper roll of sequential
numbered tags. And next to the counter there’s a small electric
billboard showing the next number to get services. Pretty common stuff.
But the billboard only has a two-digit display. The numbered paper tags
go to three digits.

I didn’t have any problem with it. I took out number 608, and the board
showed 67. I never doubted that it means my turn is in about 41 people.

Other people seed to have a problem with it, and were not able to grasp
the simple mechanics of number overflow over the hundred’s digit. Again
and again (and again) someone would take a number and stare entirely
puzzled at the billboard, until another person told them that "once it
gets to one hundred it will roll back and start again". Then
they’d sigh a long "Ahhhh" of understanding, mutter about how long they
have to wait, and find a place to wait in.

The fact that so many people constantly were unable to realise that
indeed the lower two-digit numbers will return, I found quite sad.
The fact that so many other people kept telling them "one hundred" I found somewhat sadder. The numbered tickets had the number on them! it was six hundred and something. There are only two ways to look at it:

 
1. The billboard shows only two digits. It will only reach to 99,
   and then start again. It can’t show a hundred, so it will never reach
   it.

 

2. The billboard shows the last two digits of the whole number. It will reach 600, not 100, it went over 100 nearly 500 people ago.

And yet nobody merely said that the numbers will return, they all said 100. ALL.

On a different side note, I was once at the same pharmacy when there
were about 90 people waiting… This is very close to having 100 people
waiting… In which case two people are going to come to the counter
claiming it’s their turn whenever the billboard progresses…

Just got another scam message, in the well known mould of the
average
Nigerians. These things are going on for years now, and yet they didn’t
really change those messages much. I do admit that most of those that
currently go around at least aren’t written in all capital letters, and
aren’t riddled with spelling errors (oh, wait, they still are) but
it’s nearly the exact same bogus tales and fishy offers. And yet
people must fall for this, or they would stop…

So, in the spirit of having a somewhat boring day, here’s the recent
one I got, with comments that I’ll refrain from sending to as a reply
to avoid confirming my live email address…

Dear Friend,

We’re not friends. I don’t know you. I’m happy to make new friends, but I rather have a choice before they become such.

      Greetings to you,With warm heart I offer my friendship, and
greetings, and I hope this mail meets you in good time. However strange
or surprising this contact might seem to you as we have not met
personally or had any dealings in the past, I humbly ask that you take
due consideration of its importance and the immense benefit it will be
to you.

Yep,
it met me in good time indeed. As proof, I didn’t just delete it
outright. The best reply such a message received from me in years.
And
don’t worry, I did not find your message to be surprising or strange in
the least. You could say I even expected it, or one very much like it.
I’m a well known unscrupulous philanthropist the world over, and
receive many such calls for help.
As for considering the benefits
for me, I did. Anything that can amuse me and hold my interest for a
while is a benefit, especially on a rather boring day. Thank you for
providing this bit of entertainment.

     After careful consideration with my children, we resolved to
contact you for your most needed assistance on this mutually beneficial
and riskfree transaction which i hope you will give your urgent
attention. I duly apologize for infringing on your privacy, if this
contact is not acceptable to you, as I make this proposal to you as a
person of integrity. First and foremost I wish to introduce myself
properly to you.

It
saddens me to know that even careful considerations did not stop you
from sending these messages. It’s even sadder to know that your little
innocent children are no longer so innocent, and would consent to this.
I think you should invest your billions in the education system of your
home instead of trying to smuggle them outside.
I’m also somewhat
curious about your definition of "riskfree". You want to take away my
money, no? How is that risk-free ? Or do you mean that it’s risk-free
for you and your children? I admit, that may indeed be that case…
Glad to hear you’re a person of integrity, though. I’d hate to be ripped off by a person with no integrity.

   I  am Mr.William Koroma  I am moved to write you this letter,
this was inconfidence considration,for our present circumstances and
situation, i escaped with my wife and children out of Sierrial-Leone to
The Nedelands through the aid of the United Nations Evacuation Team
where we are now presently residing on temporary political asylum.

It’s
Sierra-Leone, not Sierrial. Let’s go over it again, letter by letter,
so you will know how to spell the name of your home: N-I-G-E-R-I-A.
Better, right?
Last time I heard you escape to Ghana, though. Why did you change your mind?
I though you’d like consideration. I never considered that you’d prefer
considration instead. What is considration? Some new slang word from
Sierrial?

     However, due to this situation I decided to change most of my
Billions of  Dollars deposited in Swiss Bank and other countries into
other forms of money coded for safe purpose because the new head of
state Ahmed Tijjan Kabba made arrangement with the Swiss Goverment and
other European countries to freeze all my treasures deposited in some
  european countries, hence i and my wife along with my children,decided
laying low in this our tempoery political asylum camp here in Grou
  Jirnssum in the Nedelands to study the situation till when things gets
better, since president Tijjan Kabba taking over goverment again in
  Sierria Leone. One of my chateaux in Southern France was confiscated by
the French Goverment, and as such we had to change  our identity so
that our investment will not be trace and confiscated.

Mind your punctuation friend. I know you’re excited and agitated, but it doesn’t excuse sloppy writing.
I
was unaware that there were forms of money that could be coded for safe
purpose. I guess it’s true that one learns new things every day.
I’m
glad to see that you improve with spelling your home country’s name,
though. Not there yet, but you’re getting better. Maybe next time…
Frankly,
I’m quite amazed by the influence your benevolent head of state has in
the international banking community. Getting banks all over the Europe
to freeze accounts is quite a feat. And doing it to such a large client
as yourself, with billions in those accounts, in literally unheard of.
Next
time you have to flee for your life, consider converting some of your
treasure to gems. They’re easy to carry and can be easily traded for
cash in many locations.
There’s one point I’m not entirely clear on,
please help me understand. You have lots of old accounts all over
Europe. The government and banks of all those countries agreed to
freeze those accounts. So you changed your identity in order to make
them not realize that those accounts are yours?! How does it work,
exactly? You can’t really go to all those banks and retroactively
change the account details after all…
Oh, and just to keep you appraised on local politics, All those
countries you talk about have governments, not goverments. Just so
you’d know. If you’re fleeing one and complaining about others, at
least know your enemy.
Although one of them did grant you asylum. Even if only a tempoery
one. Which must be some legal definition I never heard of, of a at
least not an English term. I hope for you that it doesn’t mean that the
asylum is only temporary and they will stop granting it.

I  have deposited the sum of Twenty-eight Million Dollars
only{US$28,000,000.00} with a security company for safekeeping.

All
those billions of dollars and treasures, and you only want to liquidate
a few million dollars? What, you’re going to leave the other billions
there to be located and confiscated? Isn’t it a shame?
Or is it that
you don’t really trust me? That you don’t really want to be my friend?
Maybe you sent similar messages to thousands of people making the same
offer, eh? I’m hurt. It’s also foolish of you, since the handling fees
of making all those thousands of accounts would be quite a lot. It’s
also very easy to trace a quick opening of thousands of different
accounts, thereby making everything not so risk-free for you…

  The funds are security coded to prevent them from knowing the actual
content .  What I want you to do now is to indicate your inetrest that
you will assist me and my immediate family by receiving the money on
our behalf.

How
do you security code funds? If you deposited the money with a security
company, they must know how much you deposited? Or it it your beloved
head of state you’re worried about? But if he can’t trace the account
to you, he won’t know the content anyway, and if he can’t, how would
security coding anything hinder him?
You certainly piqued my interest, if not my inetrest that you so wanted.
For a man with so much money,
you’re not thinking clearly. Or is it that you had to leave your
financial and security advisers behind? Find someone else, you can
certainly pay them to give you better advice.

     The  Account required for this project can be personal, company
or an offshore account that you have  total control over, your area of
specialisation will not be a hinderance to the successful execution of
this transaction.

I
just need a bank account, any account with any bank, right? No bank
will ask questions when I transfer those millions in, try to connect
the money to you, or report to the authorities, of course.
You can’t
begin to imagine how relieved I am to hear that my area of
specialization will not hinder the transaction. I was worried that the
bank will stop the money transfer simply because I’m a computer
programmer, or have a degree in economics. Banks usually heavily frown
on these sorts of things. But since you assure me that in this case it
won’t be a problem, everything is fine. I have complete confidence in
you.

Ackowledge this message, so that I can introduce you to my family as
our foreign trusted partner who shall take charge of our investment
abroad where we now plan to settle.

What,
you want to come and settle in Israel?! Are you sure that’s a good
idea? Immigration may give you a hell of a time if you’re not Jewish,
you know…
And frankly, me dear new friend, I don’t really want to
meet your family. Like I wrote earlier, seeing your children would just
be sad.
So sorry, I’ll neither ackowledge this message, nor acknowledge it.

    I want you to assist us in investing this money,but I will not
want  our identity revealed. I will also want to buy properties and
stocks in multy- national companies and to engage in other safe and non
speculative investments.

Your identity is safe with me. I have no clue who you are, so I can’t really divulge that info to anyone else. No worries.
Why
exactly do you need me to manage this money for you, though? If you’re
coming to live here, you can deal with it on your own. Or hire a firm
that specializes in these things. I really can’t compete.

   We have been through a lot of health and
spiritual turmoil, hence will need  your understanding and
assistance.

It’s not really clear if you’ve been
through a lot of health, or if you’ve been through a lot of health
turmoil. I’m not sure either option is particularly appealing, so you
have my sympathy. Not so sure about my understanding. And a big no for
my assistance. Sorry. It’s just that I have reason to suspect (possibly
it’s just that your new head of state spread those vicious rumours about
you) that you don’t really want me to take this money, but instead will
at some point ask me to transfer some money to you, to help facilitate
some aspect of the transfer, and I will then not hear from you again
(Not because you’d steal it and disappear of course, but because you’ll
get caught. But still, there’s a risk in this risk-free venture that I
don’t feel I’m willing to take).

May I at this junction emphasize the  high level of confidentiality
which this business demands and hope you will not betral the trust and
confidence which we repose in you.I  shall put you in the picture of
this buiness, i.e tell you where the funds are currently being
maintained and also discuss other modalities including remuneration for
your services.

Full
confidentiality. Nobody will ever know you contacted me. I won’t tell a
soul. Everything going on between us will be done with the utmost
privacy. One thing I can absolutely guarantee is that I will not betral
your trust. I can’t betral your trust. I can’t betral much of anything,
and neither can anyone else.
I also don’t want anything to do with this mysterious buiness of yours.
I don’t know what a buiness is, I never seen a buiness, and am not in
the mood of meeting one right now.
On the other hand, you can perfectly spell modalities and remuneration. Hmm…

   I   shall also inform you with the next line of action as soon as
  i receive your response.Is this preposition is attainable? If it is,
Please kindly funish me immediately by E-mail with your direct
telephone number and fax number to enhance the confidentiality which
this business demands.

The position is not quite attainable, no. Dreadfully sorry.
I also regret that I cannot funish you anything, for much the same reasons that I could not betral your trust previously.

  Best Regards,
Mr.William Koroma
NB:Please send all Reply mail to my comfidential email address(removed)

I
don’t think so. I may hear more from you if I do. Depending on your
friend, I may even as a side bonus get more offers to lower my mortgage,
buy a fake Role, or enlarge parts of my anatomy. None of which
I will truly need once I have access to all those millions of yours…
And I don’t care how comfy is that comfidential address of yours.

N.B.PLEASE BE INFORMED THAT THIS BUSINESS TRANSACTION IS 100% LEGAL AND
COMPLETELY FREE FROM TERRORIST, DRUG MONEY OR MONEY LAUNDERING.THIS IS
COMPLETE LEGISTIMATE BUSINESS TRANSACTION.

N.B.PLEASE BE INFORMED THAT THIS BUSINESS TRANSACTION IS 100% LEGAL AND
COMPLETELY FREE FROM TERRORIST, DRUG MONEY OR MONEY LAUNDERING.THIS IS
COMPLETE LEGISTIMATE BUSINESS TRANSACTION.

Sorry, did I say something about not using capital letters? Sorry,
sorry, sorry. My mistake. That would teach me to read things to the end
before making wild statements. The all-caps are back.
Good to know
that this is totally legal. That may be true some place, but not
according to the laws in this country I live in, and that you want to
settle in. Maybe you should reconsider your choice of residence.
It’s
of course even better to know that there isn’t even a single terrorist
involved in this. I’d hate to think I’m being defrauded by a terrorist
instead of by a lying scoundrel of a thief.
What isn’t clear to me
is how you can assure me that no drug money is involved. How do you
know where the money you want to steal from me comes from? Maybe it is
drug money, eh? You can’t complain, after all, not after telling me
that my specialization will not effect the transaction.

Well, at least you didn’t claim it’s a legitimate business transaction. Legistimate I’m willing to concede to you.

Have a nice day, and may you spend lots and lots of happy years in jail with your friends and family.
Your new best friend,
Yaron.