Holy crap! I received an e-mail from the U.S. Embassy in Chiang Mai,Thailand advising me that I was selected to receive a Visa that will allow me to come to the United States to “start a new life and work.”

Here are some of the details (exactly as they appear in the e-mail):

Congratulations,you have been selected as one of the lucky winners of the US VISA through our internet email extracting and screening machine,your application was applied and processed by our internet email extracting and screening machine which randomly extracts and scans millions of email adresses across the world.

This Special visa programme is new and was innovated by the US embassy in Kuala lumpur Malaysia last year november.The US Consulate in Chiang Mai launched the programme this year november,the programme is designed to be held every year ending.The aim and objectives of the programme is to give free visas to citizens of developing countries around the world to enable them travel to the US and start a new life and work.The Chiang Mai consulate released 12 visas in this regards and hopes to increase the visa number to 24 by late next year,you are among the 12 lucky people that won the visa and among the 5 foreigners that won the visa,7 visas were won by Thai nationals.

I hadn’t known about these internet email extracting and screening machines. Pretty fancy stuff, I think. I am speechless at the thought of being only one of 5 foreigners selected by this machine to win the visa. Amazin’.

All I have to do now is to send my name and address, scanned copies of my passport and the passports of family members and send the U.S. Embassy’s designated agent $355.

Once I do that, I will be in Fat City, because the following will then happen:

Providing the above requirements will assure you your visa certificate/acknowledgement card and visa security pin code which we shall scan to your email adress.With the visa certificate/acknowledgement card and pincode we shall send to you,the U.S embassy in your home country or your country of residence will stamp the 10 years multiple entry visa on your/members of your family international passport within 3 working days immediately you present these documents to them because the Chiang mai Cosulate has confirmed your visa,all they will do is to log in to the U.S Immigration network database and key in your visa pincode there they will find your visa winning details.

I am very impressed by the simplicity of the plan and the clarity with which it is presented. This is a sweet deal.

However, I absolutely must respond within 31 days, or I could lose this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity:

According to the united states code of conduct in the constitution Vol:189/965:Act 220Sl guiding all immigrations,green cards,visas and permit agencies:if non-response after 31 days you receive this message,your winners status shall reveal no interest and we would in response refer your visa certificate/code and acknowledgement card back to the U.S government/immigrations service center.

Damn! I’m glad the embassy reminded me about that pesky “united states code of conduct in the constitution Vol. 189/965: Act 220SI”. I sure as hell would not want my “winners status” to “reveal no interest”.

I truly feel sorry for all you non-winners, but I’m running out to Costco to buy a scanner so that I can get that passport information off to the embassy right away.

The thought of a new life in the U.S. makes me tingle.

I managed to cut myself shaving this morning.

I don’t know if it happened because I was in a hurry, or because, at the time of the incident, I was suffering through listening to excerpts of Hillary’s senatorial nomination acceptance. Perhaps it was both.

In any event, it wasn’t one of those little nicks that you don’t even notice until you’re finished shaving. No, I knew instantly by the pain in the region between my upper lip and nose that I had done some unintended facial surgery on myself.

The damned cut began to bleed immediately. I did the direct pressure thing, using toilet paper, of course, but it would not stop. I couldn’t just stand there all damned morning smooshing a wad of toilet paper against my lip. So, I then tore off a patch of toilet paper and just plastered it against the bleeding gash, thereby freeing up my hands to continue with the get-ready-for-work routine. The toilet paper patch now looked like a miniature Japanese flag on my upper lip, but it seemed to stem the blood tide long enough to permit me to brush my teeth, brush my great farookin’ hair and get dressed for work.

There was no way I wanted to show up at work with a bloody patch of toilet paper on my moosh, so I tried to carefully remove it from the gash. Ouch! This only served to re-open the self-inflicted wound. It appeared that this cut was about ready to volunteer to bleed all damned day, and I could not hang around home and wait for it to stop. I had to leave for work.

I then remembered a remedy I had used a few years ago on such an occasion. I ran a tiny bit of tap water over a tea bag and took it with me in the car where I pressed it against the bleeding hole in my face, hoping that it would stop the bleeding within the forty minutes or so it would take me to get to work.

The bleeding stopped within two blocks of my house. Amazing. That’s the way it worked the last time I tried it on a nasty cut. I learned about this useful property of the pedestrian tea bag years ago by reading this book, in which the author (an intern in an emergency room) managed to stop what appeared by be an intractable nosebleed** on a patient by using a tea bag — a remedy taught to him not in medical school, but by his Jewish mother.

The good news was that I was no longer bleeding. The bad news was that I had to go through the day with a scab on my lip that looks like a big ol’ nasty booger.

**The Tea Bag Treatment did not stop this guy’s nosebleed at Eric’s house in Tennessee, but I think that’s because I failed to remember that he probably should have wet the tea bag more and let those strong tea-drippings wend their way into his nose. My bad.

Note (Not that it’s all that noteworthy): As I was trying to keep from bleeding to death by holding a wad of asswipe against my lip, I was wishing I had an old-fashioned styptic pencil, which is a pre-historic widget that looks like a pointed piece of chalk that one uses to stop bleeding from razor nicks and cuts. My father used one, and I had one a zillion years ago. I wondered whether one can still buy a styptic pencil, and it turns out that they are still available. I’ll be buying one this week, but it probably won’t beat the Trusty Tea Bag when it comes to nasty bleeds.