As per your request

Fellow blogger, scientist and Nature Network celebrity rpg requested that I post this bit of literature that was recently sent to me, so here it is. It ain't exactly the kind of quality effort you might find over at LabLit, but it amused him. And me.

To: [alternate name for Ricardipus]
From: [a forum muppet]
Subject: PhD position
Message: Dear [alternate name for Ricardipus]. I went thru your profile and found ur connection in academics. I want to do PhD. I have scholarship of US $100,000 and wants a PhD position in Canada. Can you help me.

Very flattering. Just a few problems with this:

1. Ricardipussssssssss doesn't wants nasssssty PhD studentssssssss. Wants fishesssssss, tasssssty fishessssssssss.
2. I'm not a university professor, and therefore don't have an appointment in the local graduate school. Which makes it difficult, nay impossible, for me to take on a graduate student.
3. Any student with a $100k scholarship ought to be able to choose any lab, anywhere, pretty much. This guy/gal sounds desperate.
4. I will never hire anyone who uses the word "ur", even in a forum message. I've complained about this before.

The whole thing stinks of desperation, or perhaps with the sulphurous stench of a 419 scam. I suspect that if I responded positively, the next email would have asked me to help "liberate" the aforementioned scholarship from a nice, safe, but surprisingly inaccessible offshore bank account.

Sigh.