17 May, 2001— A Christchurch student was stunned this morning to receive an e-mail advertising his own web site.

Matt Powell, 20, checked his e-mail this morning to find a message advising him to “check out” his online journal at Xanga.com, as well as his own site at matt-powell.org.nz.

The e-mail is thought to have originated from a Minky Mordeno, an employee of Oracle Systems in the Philippines. However, initial efforts to uncover the identity of the mysterious Minky met with little success.

“I e-mailed this Mordeno person asking who he was,” said Powell, “but all I got back was ‘Minky ?!?’”

Fortunately, Mordeno was more forthcoming after additional investigation.

“I just happened to wander to [Powell's] site,” explained Mordeno in an e-mail. “I copied [him] in the email to my friends to let [him] know that I liked it that much. Think of it as a fan mail? :)”

However, Powell says the whole experience has left him “kinda weirded out”.

“Sure, it was pretty cool when I eventually found out what it was all about. But to begin with, it was like having a stalker, only... not.”

Powell has no immediate plans to continue the correspondence further, but says he'll reply to any additional ‘fan mail’ he receives.

“It's common courtesy, right?”