"I'm not going to tell the story the way it happened. I'm going to tell it the way I remember it." -Finnegan Bell in Great Expectations
Spam keeps getting funnier and funnier.
From: Bank_of_Caymens@excite.com
To: lisa@simunye.com
Subject: Money is WAITING for YOU!
Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 13:43:30
Dear customer,lisa,
Notification for Payment Received!
This email confirms that you may have received
a $16,000.00 Commission Payment for August 2001
Spam I got today. Apparently it’s old school, but hey, I’m old school to!
—– Original Message —–
From: “Comfort Sombongo”
To:Sent: Monday, October 08, 2001 9:35 PM
Subject: Investment Pact
> Compliments,
>
> With a humbled heart I commit myself this day to write and ask for your benevolence and kind consideration of my plight for assistance. I am making this contact on behalf of my family not minding
> the consequences but hoping that you would understand our predicament and come to our aid and assist us. I would also kindly apologize for any inconvenience or embarrassment this might
> cause your person, as we neither know each other personally nor have had any previous contact or correspondence.
>
> I am Mrs. Comfort Sombongo, wife of deceased Colonel Bernard Sombongo, who was Deputy Director of Finance and Budgetary Control of the National Union for the Total Independence of
> Angola (UNITA) rebel faction of Angola. He was execution by the orders of Dr. Jonas Savimbi on the 13th of April 2000 after an attempted defection from the UNITA movement. He was assistant
> to General Daniel Fuma both of whose activities centered mainly around the diamonds flown to Europe, through her connection in the London’s De Beers Central Selling Organisation (CSO) to
> dealers contracted to UNITA. The revenue from these trades was basically used for the funding of UNITA’s activities.
>
> Considering the ongoing intensified civil war between UNITA and the government in Angola, my children and I had to relocate to a nearby town in Namibia in May of 2001 after my days of
> mourning were over through the assistance of some UN Officials where I am currently. From amongst my late husband’s confidential documents as I went through them in August this year, I
> discovered a Certificate of Deposit with some other documents to the effect of a set of two boxes formally lodged with a Security Firm in Accra Ghana. A personally handwritten memo by my
> husband addressed to me indicated that he had ordered the Security Firm to have the boxes moved over to their Agent in a European country in February 2000 with order to have them released
> only upon presentation of relevant documents.
>
> As indicated in the memo, there is a total of US$27,500,000.00 (Twenty Seven Million Five Hundred Thousand US Dollars only) as the real content of the boxes, which was done so as to
> disguise the real content thereof for security reasons.
>
> With due respect, I seek your kind assistance in the collection of the boxes containing U.S. $27.5 million from the Security Company’s Agent in Europe. You will be entitled to a 20% percentage of
> the total sum as both compensation and also to cover any miscellaneous expenses incurred by you in the course of this transaction and the remaining therefore to be personally managed by you
> on my behalf. It is my sincere conviction that you will handle this transaction with absolute confidentiality, maturity and utmost sense of purpose.
>
> I am therefore soliciting your assistance in terms of logistics and materials to collect the consignment from the Security Firm’s Agent in Europe as the consignment have incurred a substantial
> amount of demurrage. All documents concerning the consignment are intact with me. Upon an approval response from you to assist me in this endeavor, as a fund manager for this fund, the
> evacuation process would immediately commence as all machinery are in place for a smooth transaction.
>
> If you are capable and ready in collecting and investing this fund on my behalf, please contact me immediately through my alternative email address at sombongo@excite.com for immediate
> action.
>
> Thanks for your anticipated understanding and cooperation.
>
> Yours sincerely,
>
> MRS. COMFORT SOMBONGO
>
I just signed up for a mailing list on the old school majordomo and I got this all nostalgic feeling. with the advent of JUST HOW MUCH CRAP there is on the Internet, we can now run mailing lists off of public servers such as yahoo or topica. the old skool version of having to get confirmed (or it being attached to a .edu )
Paul commented last night there was nothing new on the web and in a sense I agree with him — it already feels like everything has been said/done and buried. but I miss finding new things and doing new things. But in the same token, a lot of stuff I want to do I can do here locally (and try to drum up users as well — like create a mailing list for local stuff etc).
I am feeling quixotic.