HOUSTON—Seven minds were blown Monday when employees of Houston Seed and Supply opened an e-mail containing a row of asterisks, a groundbreaking textual embellishment that recipients said caught them off guard but utterly captured their imaginations. "At first it seemed like any other e-mail, but nothing could prepare me for what I was about to encounter," said sales representative Stanley Tersh, explaining how the row of asterisks had "made [his] week." "Scrolling down, it took me a second to even process it. I mean, there had to be at least twenty of them." Tersh said the asterisks, which he described as looking like multiple diamonds exploding in unison, overshadowed the content of the e-mail, which may or may not have been about there being birthday cake in the conference room.