TOTO

Dear TOTO:

I'm writing to bring to your attention a curious situation I've encountered when using your fine products.

The restrooms at my work (the men's restrooms, at least) are equipped with TOTO toilets and urinals. I'm not aware of the particular models, but these TOTOs have motion detectors that are designed to automatically flush once you're out of their range. All in all, they've done a fine job by me.

But about a month ago I began wearing an old sweater of mine to work, which I bought from Old Navy. I had thought it was the perfect sweater, but once I started wearing it to work I realized there was a problem: it is not detected by your products.

At least, not completely. When I stand or sit in front of the motion detector with this sweater on, the urinal or toilet tricks out, flushing multiple times until I leave. The toilets aren't otherwise broken: this problem occurs only when I'm wearing the sweater.

Do you realize how embarassing this is? People at my work now think I'm some sort of constant-flusher. I don't want to be one of those guys. I'm not one of those guys!

I've asked around the floor, but no one else has had this problem. Have you heard about this before?

Now, I'm willing to admit that my sweater may play a role. It's a blend of 45% cotton and 55% ramie. Yea, I never heard of it either. And, from what I can tell, there's good reason why:

"Because of its high molecular crystallinity, ramie is stiff and brittle and will break if folded repeatedly in the same place; it lacks resiliency and is low in elasticity and elongation potential" (Kadolph SJ, Langford AL. Textiles (9th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall; 2001)

"Despite its strength, ramie has had limited acceptance for textile use" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramie)

So I acknowledge that I'm probably not wearing the type of clothes that you designed your products to be used with. That said, I still feel like: if I'm wearing it, it should be detected.

The solution then seems obvious: either redesign your products to work with ramie sweaters, or, if this is not possible, mount the following sign on all your products: CAUTION. DO NOT USE WITH RAMIE SWEATERS. WILL FLUSH REPEATEDLY.

I've taken the liberty of copying Old Navy on this letter, in the hopes that together you may be able to resolve this issue.

Very truly yours,

Chris W.

Cc: Old Navy

CNN.com's Law Center, Part 2

"Couey's defense presented evidence of a brual [sic] childhood in hopes a jury will spare him from the death penalty for the murder of Jessica Lunsford, who was 9 when she was buried alive."

I've found another spelling error in the main article of the main page of CNN.com's Law Center--the second in two days! Does anyone read through these articles? If so, they're doing a terrible job at it. And it's not as if it's a subtle grammatical error: it's even underlined in red on this "Contact Us" box I'm writing in.

I'd like to hereby offer my services to CNN.com: you can send me potential headlines and summary paragraphs for your articles on Law Center; I will then run Microsoft Word's spellcheck on them to determine if there are any misspelled words. We got a deal?

- Chris W.

CNN.com's Law Center

Thought I might be able to use my computer skills to help CNN.com. Using spell check technology, I was able to detect a misspelling in the headline on the main page for CNN.com's "Law Center":

"Jury hears testimoney in child-killer's sentencing."

According to my spellchecker, "testimoney" is actually spelled "testimony." I know it's a nit-picky point that only a crossword-puzzle-solving college professor would notice, but, hey, it might be worth revising.

- Chris W.

Kim's Video and Music

To Whom It May Concern:

Yesterday, Sunday, March 11, 2007, I stopped by my local video store, Kim's Video and Music, located at 2906 Broadway, New York, New York. I've been a regular customer at Kim's for nearly five years. As I was in the area getting lunch, I decided to swing in to look for some CDs. They didn't have what I was looking for, so I headed toward the exit, hoping to enjoy the rest of the sunny day. On my way out, the alarm went off. This had happened to me before in Kim's--when I had library books, for instance--so, as I had done in the past, I patiently waited for the security guard to come over and inspect my bag. When he came over, I cooperatively opened my bag and pointed out to the guard that I had a DVD of the newly released movie "The Departed," which had been given to me a friend and which I had not yet opened. It was probably this that went off, I told the security guard, whose name I later learned was Amar (sp.?). As I began to explain that the DVD had been given to me and was still unopened, Amar cut me short and asked me for the receipt. I had no receipt, I told him. I had not purchased the DVD at all: it was given to me unopened by a friend and still remained unopened. Amar again interrupted my explanation with a quick head shake and told me he needed to see the receipt; otherwise, I could not take my DVD back. Confused, but still polite and confident that I could clear up the situation, I tried to call my friend who gave me the DVD, but was unable to reach her. I told Amar that he was being unreasonable, and that I had walked in with the DVD and intended to walk out with it. Amar simply demanded the receipt again. I then asked to speak to Amar's supervisor, whereupon Amar brusquely walked away into the store with my DVD.

Amar's conduct puts a shame on the good name and friendly reputation of Kim's Video. It is reasonable that a security guard might ask to examine a bag when the alarm goes off. It is also reasonable that a security guard might inquire about certain items in a bag. But it is unreasonable that a guard might seize a DVD from its rightful posssesor without first hearing from the person. A DVD cannot be taken simply because it is unopened and because the person with the DVD lacks a receipt.

And, in addition to overstepping his authority, Amar was plain old rude.

After Amar walked away, a friendly employee behind the counter told me that he would talk with Amar to see if he could persuade him to give me back the DVD. After a few minutes, however, the employee returned and said that Amar would not return it. Frustrated at the injustice of the incident, I asked Amar for his name and supervisor's name and asked the employee for the central number for Kim's, so that I might file a complaint. Amar stared at me for a moment, handed the DVD back, and stalked away. He did not offer an apology.

I understand that shoplifting may be a problem at Kim's. But mere possession of an unwrapped DVD should not by itself warrant seizure of the DVD. And it certainly should not warrant rudeness of the sort Amar exhibited.

As I mentioned, I have been a regular customer at your fine video store for several years. Despite my previous pleasant experiences, this situation has turned me off from Kim's. I may even start going to Blockbuster now. They may not have my favorite Aki Kaurism äki film, but at least they haven't tried to steal anything from me.

Very truly yours,

Chris W.

The Notarization Fiasco: Time Warner's Response

We apologize for the delay in responding to your inquiry.

Though we appreciate the time that you have taken to contact us, we are sorry to hear that you were provided incorrect information.
<>Please keep in mind that if a new subscriber is attempting to open a cable account at an address where there is a discrepancy we generally require a copy of a notarized lease in their name at that address.

If you do not have your lease notarized please keep in mind that we would never suggest that you do something that is either fraudulent or illegal. In this case we would ask that you provide alternate proof of residence at that location such as a valid drivers liscence [sic] or a utility bill in your name.

Your email has been escalated to upper management so that we can follow up and investigate internally.

Our records now indicate that your account is installed and active as of 3/2/07.

Once again, we do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you, and look forward to keeping you as a satisfied Time Warner Cable customer.

Sincerely,

Time Warner Cable

Customer Support

CNN.com Search Bar

To Whom It May Concern:

I write to you regarding the search bar at the top of the CNN website at http://www.cnn.com. I have two issues with this search bar: (1) by default, it searches "The Web," when it's much more practical to have "CNN.com" as the default search option; and (2) the results it turns up are completely useless.

As for my first issue. Most people use Google to search "The Web." If you're not familiar with it, Google is a great search engine. It can find pretty much anything. Heck, my mom's even on it! If I want to look up something, I'll just go there. Or, if I currently live in 1999, I'll go to Yahoo. Or AltaVista, if that still exists. I won't, however, go to CNN.com for that purpose. I'll go to CNN.com to read about current news or, perhaps, to look up past news articles. In the latter situation, what I want--what I think most people want--is a ready-to-go, easy-to-find search tool that lets you search the CNN website. The fact that the current CNN.com search tool is not automatically set to search CNN.com is confusing: it just isn't the standard way websites are organized. So, if I put in a search term on CNN.com and forget to switch from the default search of "The Web," I usually get unhelpful results back, and a lot of ads. It's just really annoying. And kinda useless, since a gazillion other search engines are readily available and, as I'll discuss in my next paragraph, a helluva lot better. The CNN.com search engine, however, is unique to CNN.com... well, maybe Google also has something like it. But in any case, it should be the default search option. It just makes sense that way.

As for issue two. The search engine that searches the CNN.com site sucks. I mean it sucks royally. It never turns up what I'm looking for. If I put in "astronaut," for instance, the first and second results are "NASA launches five-satellite rocket"; the third is "Storm sucks up paraglider, kills 1"; the fourth is "NASA delays five-satellite launch." And those all come after the "Sponsored Results," which are completely, utterly, ridicously useless. Not to mention deceptively placed. See, as anyone following the news lately would know, I'm clearly looking for the story about the crazy, diaper-wearing astronaut kidnapper. I'm sure it's the most searched-for article about astronauts in the past year, yet the CNN.com search engine doesn't return it as the first result. It's down at number 5, after three articles about a rocket launch (two of which are repeated) and one article about a paraglider getting killed. Is that helpful? No, it isn't. Not at all. Granted, if I sort by relevance, the results are slightly better, but that's an extra step that I shouldn't have to take. This search tool clearly needs to be improved.

I'm sure if you fixed these two problems--which could probably be done with minimum cost and effort, you would get tons of positive responses, not to mention a lot more hits.

Very truly yours,

Chris W.

HSBC ATMs

To Whom It May Concern:

After having an online savings account with HSBC for nearly a year (during which time I was completely satisfied with HSBC), I recently opened an HSBC checking account. I switched my checking account to HSBC from Citibank because I wanted to be able to make quick costless transfers between my savings and checking accounts. As I did not want the interest gains of my savings account to be offset by the $3.00 fee for bank-to-bank online transfers, it made sense to keep the two accounts under the same roof.

While I have nothing but the best things to say about my experience with the online savings account, the checking account has not panned out so well . See, once a week or so, I stop by an ATM to take out spending money from my checking account. This was no problem when I had my checking account with Citibank. Citibank ATMs are an easy find in New York. In fact, there's one three blocks north of my work and one three blocks south. You can't beat it. Unfortunately, HSBC blows in the ATM department. From what I can tell, HSBC has about three ATMs in all of New York City.

And the ATM department is a very important department for me, since, if I can't locate a convenient HSBC ATM, I have to use a non-HSBC ATM, which means I get charged a total of $3.50 ($2 average fee from the non-HSBC ATM, plus $1.50 penalty charge from HSBC) to take out my spending money. As far as my finances go, any savings account interest gained by having both my checking and savings account in HSBC is eclipsed by losses from non-HSBC ATM fees.

This problem would not exist if HSBC had more ATMs in New York. But HSBC doesn't. I get laughs if I ask someone on the street if there's an HSBC in the area. I feel like I have an account with Bank of Ukraine.

Let me just give you a peek into my life since I switched accounts. Last Sunday I go to the Met, get off at the 86th street stop on the 6. I realize I need to get some cash for the (staggering) $20 admission fee , so I look around for an HSBC ATM. Now, have you gotten out at 86th and Lexington before? This intersection is bank central: Chase, Bank of America, Washington Mutual, Commerce Bank--you name it, it's there. But no HSBC. So, I have to take money out of a Citibank ATM. And 125th Street, where I live, doesn't even have an HSBC . 125th Street! I'm not asking you to be Chase--which has ATMs everywhere--but at least get to Bank of America status. The idea that I have to plan trips to incorporate a visit to an HSBC ATM is ridiculous.

Don't get me wrong, I've seen the subway ads: HSBC is the "world's local bank." That's fine, but it doesn't translate into a high number of convenient ATMs in New York--which is what's important for the average New Yorker on the subway. H ong Kong, Stockholm, and Brunei may be crawling with HSBC ATMs, but that isn't much consolation to people in New York City losing $3.50 every time they use a non-HSBC ATM.

So here's an idea: take some of the money you spend on putting up ads all over the subway and use it to build more banks and ATMs in New York. In a city with a million banks and a million checking accounts to choose from --not to mention a million ads for banks--the number of ATMs is a major deciding factor in choosing among otherwise equal checking accounts. And ATMs serve as better advertisements than subway ads. Why? Besides being less ephemeral, they're advertisements you can use.

Get with the picture, HSBC.

Frustratingly yours,

Chris W.

unclaimedfunds.org

To Whom It May Concern:

Firstly, I greatly appreciate the extensive resources that NAUPA offers. They have proven helpful on several occasions.

I'm sure you are often notified about bogus unclaimed property search sites, but I'd like to draw your attention to the site https://www.unclaimedfunds.org/. This site is deceptively designed to look as if it's affiliated with NAUPA: the color scheme and layout are similar to NAUPA's site and the URL is easily confused with NAUPA's URL. It appears that this site has also copied the map on the State by State Search section of the NAUPA site. In addition, the site's assertion that "UnclaimedFunds.org is NOW a subscription only service" seems intended to mislead the visitor into thinking that NAUPA has now become a subscription service. The site charges a fee to access their resources but, not surprisingly, offers a nearly identical set of links to those on the NAUPA site.

Although several other unclaimed property search sites make money through similar schemes, charging fees for directing people to publicly available information that is already gathered together on the NAUPA site, this site seems to be engaged in particularly egregious activity. It is using NAUPA's reputation in order to give the impression that the site offers a legitimate, NAUPA-endorsed service; it is no doubt making money off NAUPA's good name.

Very truly yours,

Chris W.