Saturday, July 11, 2009

DO I SMELL SOMETHING FISHY?

Vincent Bueno (photo from digitalpinoy.org)

Couples of months ago, Tom of MySpace issued a bulletin or put a notice on my MySpace account. The notice said something to this effect: that my account had been phished and that messages might have come from or have been sent by my account but which could have not been sent by me. I was advised to change my password and not to use that password ever again. Which I did.

I signed up on MySpace, a social networking site, purposely to send messages of praise to Vincent Bueno who likewise has a MySpace account and who was then fresh from winning the grand prize in the Musical! Die Show, a reality talent competition in Austria.

I could not send any message to Vincent whom I admire so much unless I sign up on MySpace. This was because I did not know Vincent Bueno personally then and did not know of any means by which to congratulate him.

Vincent was responsive enough to answer my messages which numbered more or less 10 for the whole year of 2008. His last message was dated December 1, 2008 but he has not replied to my other messages since then. I was thinking that, being a star in far away Austria, he might have been very busy in his recording activities as well as in his singing and dancing engagements. Lately, he has been “dancing with the stars” as seen in some video clips uploaded on YouTube.

On the latter part of 2008 and on the early part of 2009, I noticed the words “web filter” appearing on the computer screen every time I opened my email or blog. Could it be that I was being monitored in my use of the Net?

I also noticed that the number of my friends on that particular networking site was diminished and my blog followers (this blog) also decreased in number. But I could only guess the reason why.

Just recently, someone forwarded to me an email with content I could not figure out nor decipher as the characters it contained appeared like they were html codes. Its subject read: VB: Will he answer? I wonder!!!

I was wondering if VB could have stood for Vincent Bueno. When I asked the person who forwarded that email what could the initials VB mean and what was her reason for sending same to me, she could not give me any answer. All she said was that it was just forwarded to her also.

Incidentally, the person who forwarded subject email to the person who forwarded it to me was that very same person whom my anak-anakan (a young guy, also named Vincent, whom I treat like a son of mine) told me had advised him to steer clear of me.

I do not mean anything by this, of course. I am just writing objectively.

But do I smell something fishy? Or am I getting paranoid? Just mere coincidences? One thing is for sure—I’m kinda confused!