just stop doggin' me around

i get lots of emails. i used to correspond a lot on email, ie write personal letters to people. these days it's mostly junk and other legitimate mass mail. the personal ones seem to be few and far between. i'm partly to blame, because sometimes i take a long time to reply, and sometimes i don't get around to replying, so the exchange breaks down.

i used to be online pretty much the whole day (when at work and at home), so it didn't seem to be too much effort dealing with incoming mail all the time. now that i have no internet access at work, all the mail accumulates during the day and hits me when i come home to check. i realise this is probably the experience of most people, so i should shut up.

anyways, i'm trying to cut down... unsubscribing to various mailing lists and newsletters - things i don't really need to know or stay on top of... things i don't feel i have much time to deal with.

but there are still 2 types of emails from which i can't simply unsubscribe.

#1 is spam. i detest spam, and those who propagate it. i use spamcop to report most spam that i receive, because it gives me a sense of being a conscientious john netizen. i don't know whether any good actually comes out of it - there are too many dumb people and people who don't care in the online community for the spammers (the smart ones anyway) to always have the upper hand in this fight. i seem to be getting a lot more spam lately, and it's just plain annoying. i've refined the art of spamcopping my spam mails down to a precision operation, like a well-oiled pit lane crew. but it's still a manual operation and sometimes seems to be a waste of time and effort.

#2 is mail identity confusion. i don't know what else to call it... this is when people send me mail thinking i'm someone else. as far as i can tell the mails are legitimate (not spam), just very much misdirected. my gmail account seems to be a magnet for these. it's an address i've had for years by the way, so i don't know why all of a sudden it seems so popular... i don't know if people are unable to remember their email addresses and giving out my address, or the people they're telling it to aren't recording it properly... i've received emails from:

• some random guy thinking i was his friend and emailling me from his newly created gmail account
• some other random gmail user calling me "sweetheart" and wanting to keep in touch using google talk (and this on top of the frequent requests from total strangers wanting to be my google talk pals)
• the "all india travel agency" sending me the itinerary of a couple's return flight from chennai to melbourne via singapore
  
• some indian guy thinking i'm "sohail", and responding to a "Business proposal for main dealership in hyderabad"
  
• a hotel in thailand confirming a booking reservation
• youtube - apparently i've signed up as a 26 year old female in australia who goes by the nick "winafish"
• a hong kong woman forwarding what seems to be a work-related email to a personal address (probably meant to be her own address)
  
• yahoo japan - apparently i've... actually i have no idea what i'm supposed to have done... probabaly signed up for a new account. but since i can't actually read japanese... who knows!

i feel like singing along with michael jackson and to plead "leave me alone"! but that's probably about as useful as banging my head against a brick wall.

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update 20/4 - ecard notification from LI SAI HO SHADOW of American International Assurance Company (Bermuda) Limited to TAM WING YAN WINNIE