Regarding a business opportunity

Dear Grammaticus:

Sorry, I guess it is me who is late replying now; surely you wont hold that against me.

I understand perfectly well that you do not have the time to engage in substantial correspondence.

As my friend, i am sure you will understand me in return: search myself far and wide, can't seem to want to find the time to engage in less than substantial correspondence. I don't know about you, but i get a sufficient supply of hihowareyouiamfines in what is sometimes referred to as rl -- real life -- neighbors, bakers, contraband booze mongers, etc. -- and don't especially care for them here, either. Why go out to internet to get more?

Socially, internet and blogging have been a bust up for me: perhaps there is something to the medium -- perhaps it attracts a certain kind of mind only -- back when i ran my blog, the net result was that my comment box and my mail box were full of hihowareyouaimfines -- half of them from single females wishing to be otherwise -- and mad when i refused to oblige -- which, in the end, i have decided was too much of a waste of time to attend to.

But perhaps this is not the fault of the internet; perhaps such are the only minds that exist?

It so happens that i have lately been refused an ordinary favor by a long standing friend: I have asked her to hold my mail for me, her response to which was to go online and look up USPS regulations and discover that it opened her to all sorts of legal liabilities under the patriot act. I therefore google-searched and discovered a commercial service which will do it for 10.99 a month, or 100 a year.

The point is this: is it not wonderful abut the US how everything one might expect from a friend can be obtained at a reasonable price from a commercial provider? I wonder if thoughtful and intelligent correspondence may be procured that way. Do you reckon there is a business opportunity in that? Shall we say, 59.99 per letter?

Well, I have read The Maias, thank you for sending the book; and I have had tremendous fun with it, but do you have the time to discuss it, or should we just do the wave?

Cheers, old fellow.