The Occasional Mail

Occasionally, people write me an interesting letter. It hasn't happened recently, but I appreciate the correspondence that I get. I used to write an acquaintance of mine for five years until she stopped writing. I have no way of contacting her now since I believe the area where she lives has been ravished by lahar flow of Mt. Pinatubo. I'd print more letters here if I had the chance, but so far these have been to letters from people that I don't know which actually surprised me:

Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996 09:04:36 -0700 From: Bob Frankenberg <upcc!BFRANK@novell.com> To: restaris@cssp.upd.edu.ph Subject: WordPerfect -Reply Dear Mr. Yaneza, We have already sold WordPerfect to Corel. Completion of this only awaits the approval of the US Government, which is anticipated within the next 30 to 60 days. I doubt Microsoft will rule the world as a result of this sale, in fact I believe Corel will be able to focus all of it's efforts on making a success of Perfect Office. Novell could not do that as we must focus our efforts on networking and network services. Best regards, Bob

Aside from the fact that all the mail I've been receiving these days are catalogues from the Book-of-the-Month Club, disconnection notices from EasyCall and junk mail from other corporations, I printed this because the first e-mail I ever sent was to Mr. Frankenberg. It was weird that he actually replied because my e-mail simply read: "Please don't sell WordPerfect! Microsoft will rule the world!" It was written in a moment of weakness and anxiety. Anyway, he wrote back to my surprise, and it actually made me feel better. I guess these top executives do reply to their costumers' weird requests. Besides, it didn't really sound like a form letter (though he must have some with the amount of people who must be e-mailing him). Anyway, thanks Bob. I really appreciate the prompt response. Of course, you must have only taken less than a minute to write it, and here I am spending a few hours trying to make something out of it. It probably is the most significant thing that has ever happened to me since I made that phone call to Novell customer service! Sheesh! So he wrote back, and then?

29 March 1996

Dear Richard:

Thank you for your interest in WordPerfect Magazine.

We received your letter which included a tip. We have forwarded your letter to our "Tips" editor for consideration. You also asked how we lay out the magazine. We produce all the text using WordPerfect, but the actual layout and design is done using QuarkXPress.

If you have any further questions, please contact us at the address below.

Sincerely,

Julie Valdes, Editorial Coordinator

WordPerfect Magazine

When I looked at the envelope, I thought it was just another promo, until I opened it and realized I had written a tip for WordPerfect for DOS. If there's any realization in this, it is that other people actually use the Arrus typeface for correspondence (and not just me). Of course, WPMag for DOS hasn't printed my tip, but it was nice that Julie acknowledged it.

As I said, I would print more if I had the chance... wouldn't you want to cheer up this lonely soul?

My e-mail address is rickeyboy@hotmail.com

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