22 Feb 2010
Back-Lit Glass Block
November 11, 2008
In late October of 2008 I replaced my rotten old basement windows with glass blocks.
One morning a couple of weeks later I checked my email before work and was met by this odd message in the Action Squad email:
From: David Edwin <edwinshops@yahoo.com>
To: dan.freeman@verizon.net; johndoe@example.com; actionsquad@yahoo.com; webmaster@homeadditionplus.com; myra@saukcity.net; info@rbtechs.com
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 12:30:26 AM
Subject: back-lit glass block
Dear Customer,
My name is Mr David Edwin With the Edwin Shops and i am sending this email with regards to Order for some back-lit glass block from u and i would Like to Know if u have the back-lit glass with the sizes ,I want u to email me with the Cost of that and if u have any Other type do let me Know so that we can Proceed further with the Order,Include your full name and Contact Details for us to connect regarding the Order order,Also i want u to advice on the type of Payment that u do accept .thanks and hope to Hear from u as soon as Possible .
Best Regards
Mr David Edwin
Air Blowers
As soon as I read it, the thought flashed into my mind, fully formed and without prelude or justification, that my girlfriend Becky had left the basement lights on when she did laundry the night before.
It wasn’t a question, it was a certainty.And if this was true, it would have resulted in the newly-installed glass block basement windows being back-lit all night long.
And of course when I went downstairs to check – yup – the basement lights were all burning.
I’d probably write this off as merely an interesting coincidence if it weren’t for one thing – what the hell kind of email is that, anyway?! It made no sense, even as SPAM (scroll back up and read it again …) What purpose could it even hope to serve?
“Back-lit” isn’t a kind of block, it’s a lighting effect accomplished by, well, any kind of lighting at all. (Such as the bare bulbs of an unfinished basement, above!)
And who or what would email such a nonsensical request to:
- Action Squad
- some guy named Dan Freeman
- “John Doe” of the non-existent example.com
- the webmaster of HomeAdditionPlus
- BR Technology, software company
- the Village of Sauk City, WI
(None of whom sell any type of glass block at all, let alone the “back-lit” kind.)
As far as I can tell, there is no such person as David Edwin of the Edwin Shops, and it baffles me why such an email was ever generated.
Perhaps a test of a program that scours the web looking for sites with certain keywords, which then automatically harvests contact email addresses and sends out auto-generated spam? Certainly the random phrase at the bottom (“Air Blowers”) bespeaks some kind of automatic spamming.
Parts of it kind of read like a foreign language speaker trying to write in English – but the random capitalization of words, and use of “u” for “you” don’t strike me that way.
Maybe it was a prank of some kind, from someone who had walked past my house in the night and knew that ‘Max Action‘ lived within? But that really seems unlikely. The odds of me even reading the thing were slim.
I replied to the email twice, curious to see who was on the other end, but never got a response.
…
It’s a weird ol’ world.
synchronicity
Its totally spam. Lots of the spam I get is seemingly meaningless, no links to anything at all, not selling anything, nothing like that.
Sometimes I think its the spambots testing out new programs before going commercial with them, but other times I like to think of them as the dreams of the internet, seeping in through the cracks in our spam filters… : )
ian
February 22nd, 2010 at 3:08 pmpermalink
“I like to think of them as the dreams of the internet, seeping in through the cracks in our spam filters.”
– love it, I was musing along the same lines – the collective unconscious / universe finding a voice through the blind and mindless machinations of spam algorithms and bots …
… and then it sends a message: ‘Hey! Shut off the lights, you’re wasting electricity!’ 🙂
teapots happen
February 22nd, 2010 at 3:59 pmpermalink
hmm, just got this email:
It would be pretty sweet if this was further coincidencery (yes, that is a word, I swear), but I’ve been expecting someone to prank email me ever since I posted this … 🙂
teapots happen
March 2nd, 2010 at 8:57 ampermalink
I have two theories about the source of the email. One is considerably more interesting than the other. (Although there are other theories I’m not going to permit myself to consider seriously that are far more interesting still … )
teapots happen
March 9th, 2010 at 10:29 pmpermalink
Oh, wow, this is a weird one, for sure!
Trish MacGregor
March 10th, 2010 at 1:48 pmpermalink
OK, I did get an odd response to an email I sent to the sender … seems like it is indeed some kind of prank, or perhaps someone obliquely letting me know they know where I live and are watching! oooo! hi!
teapots happen
July 1st, 2010 at 12:51 pmpermalink
Thanks for sharing your story. It made me smile. I’ve also received spam mails with messages that tied in with what was going on in my life. Like one time when I was in love with this guy and I was wondering if he really was the right one for me as there were things that didn’t really add up, if you know what I mean. I can’t remember the exact words in the spam mail – I wish I had written them down – but the title was my own first name combined with this guy’s last name ..yikes! I nearly fell off my chair when I saw it. The email itself consisted of a sentence that wasn’t complete but it said something about lies and deceit. The guy I was head over heels in love with later turned out to be a complete fraud so I guess you could say this spam mail was an answer to my question 🙂 I am not always good at following my instincts as I tend to analyze things too much so it is as if synchronicity steps in to tell me what I should already have heard my inner voice telling me if only I had been able to quiet my mind a little better. As Deepak Chopra says; intuition is the cosmos (and your spirit) speaking to you in between the gaps of your thoughts. It certainly is a strange world we live in but it only makes it so much more interesting, don’t you think?! Keep posting, please 🙂
Vivian
August 13th, 2010 at 7:28 ampermalink
Since I’m subscribed, this came up in today’s email. But it’s a post form 2008! Weird.
Love the synchro, by the way.
Trish
February 1st, 2012 at 9:46 ampermalink
Yeah, I got it too … don’t understand why the heck this was sent out as an update today. I haven’t updated the post or done anything with it at all since I posted it in 2010. Probably the nefarious work of whoever emailed me. 🙂
Teapots Happen
February 1st, 2012 at 10:06 ampermalink