You have won a Free Visa in the US Lottery

I am US citizen. When I got this I was really laughing hard. But the sad part is people might be desperate enough to fall in the trap and lose out on much needed money as well as have their identity stolen:

U.S. Department of State

DV LOTTERY.STATE.GOV
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW Washington, DC 20520
www.dvlottery.state.gov

Dear Winner,

It is my pleasure to congratulate you on your success
in the AMERICAN DV2008 VISA LOTTERY PROGRAM which was
applied and processed by our agency. You were selected
as one of the lucky winners on our internet screening
machine,for the DV2008 USA national visa lottery
program. Your visa lottery winner's identity is
ID-6200DV and your serial net visa passport with us is
SNVPh700IU. In this respect, you are directed to
forward the following requirements:
1. NAME:......
2.NATIONALITY...........
3.DATE OF BIRTH...........
4.SEX.........
5. PRESENT CONTACT ADDRESS (for correspondence)
6. MOST RECENT PASSPORT PHOTOGRAPH .
7. REGULAR e-MAIL.
8.TEL/MOBILE:
You can also send your photo(s) by regular mail. The
photo must be between 1 1/2 by 1 1/2 and 2 by 2 inches
(37-50 mm) square, with the applicant's,spouse's, or
child's name printed on the back. Please mail
the photos to:
Immigration Services:
PA/PL, Rm. 3206
U.S. Department of State
2301 C Street NW Washington, D.C. 20720
Or preferably, you can scan them and send via email
for faster processing.
For information on how to send across the fees,please contact
the Clearance Officer with your contact address attacted to it.
Mr.Trevor Blair through his
email(dvlottery2008@mixmail.com, dvlottery.stategov2008@yahoo.co.uk ).
Your payment
confirmation shall be sent to you as soon as
clarification is done on your payment...

CONGRATULATIONS ONCE MORE.

Mr. Matthew Brooke
Coordinator.

The thing I could not copy was the authentic (no really it was) letter head from the State Department it had originally come with. Mr. Brooke will probably not get caught, but the e-mail address do give this away. But really " whats up with these" e-mails about rich Nigerian princes dying of some African disease you can not even pronounce or rich Oil Sheikh's you would think the english would be better.

Black, new, Quiksilver brand- Please return at your earliest...

I was a bit disappointed this weekend. I stubbed my toes really hard and broke some bones. I needed slippers (chapaals in Urdu) and I didn't have a pair because I couldnt wear closed toed shoes. In fact my favorite pair had been stolen and I was upset at how this came to be.

Yes, they were stolen. I don't know who would want to steal a pair of slippers, and get this, a pair of slippers from the Masjid at Isha prayer to be precise. I guess some one came bare foot and decided my pair of chapaals were perfect for them so they went off wearing them. They were only three days old. (I just bought an expensive pair because the ones I had previously had lasted for a good two years so I thought might as well buy another expensive pair)

Or maybe, they had crusty old chapaals and decided that my pair was new, not being worn, so they must have all rights over it. They walked away wearing my 9.5 size chapaals leaving their crusty falling apart size 10 chapaals.

Whatever the case might be, I looked and I searched for my chapaals for twenty minutes after Isha prayer and did not find them anywhere- no one wore them to the restroom, no one picked them up and placed them on another rack, no lost and found- so all i can say is that there is a chapaal bandit out there and they took off with my chapaals!

But what is up with stealing chapaals at the Masjid, after Isha prayer?!! (there is no way they could have thought my chapaals looked like theirs because there were no chapaals that looked like mine left at the masjid) - I am tempted to say which masjid this happened at so people are careful about their chapaals, but my conscience tells me otherwise, since it might be more a rare occurrence (until this person destroys my chapaals and needs another pair).

Dear Neighbor Chronicles: Sound the Alarm

Dear Neighbor,

If you're going to have such a high-tech alarm system installed in your car that it sounds for 20 minutes when someone so much as sneezes near it and changes tone every 5 seconds, and if you insist on arming it every night even though your car is parked in a patrolled lot, please have the courtesy to turn it off when it sounds at 3 in the morning. Some of us can't sleep through that kind of din.

- Your Neighbor

Say what??

This past weekend, my family and I drove down to Buffalo for a day of good ol' American shopping. Midday, we decided to take a break. I got in line at a popular joint in the food court. When I reached the front of the line, this is the conversation shared between me and the cashier.

Cashier: (Upon seeing me) "Oh you'll have to wait, she will help you, I don't understand you." (indicating to the cashier on her left).

Me: "Excuse me?" (giving her a look of disbeleif).

Cashier: "Oh you cool, I understand you, ya I can help you."

Me: "Excuuuuuuuuuse me?"

Cashier: "Oh I couldn't understand the other lady *giggles* (an elder Indian lady was in front of me in line) but you cool, your English is good."

Me: "You know what, that is extremely racist and you are stereotyping me, just because I wear a scarf doesn't mean I don't speak English and that certainly isn't the way you speak to customers."

Cashier: (glances everywhere but at me). *giggles* "Okay so what can I help you with."

Me: (Through clenched teeth I gave her my order, it was for someone else otherwise I would have promptly stormed off.)

I got my receipt and went off to my family's table and blew off my steam. When I went back to wait for our order, I saw the manager in the front. I told him what happened, and told him that whatever her views/problems were, that wasn't the way to speak to customers. He gave me a weak "okay I'll talk to her" which wasn't very convincing.

In short....WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?!?! (yes I'm still fuming)