Reversing Bank Fees

So I screwed up big time. What was supposed to be transferring money from my Fidelity account to my HSBC account ended up being reversed. What was worse was the fact that the amount of money being transferred to my HSBC account was a bit over what my balance there was. I didn’t notice this problem until Quicken told me I had $4,000 more in my Fidelity account.

So I went to Fidelity and indeed it noted that I had made a transfer from HSBC to Fidelity. I was like oh shit. I call Fidelity and they were pretty awesome. They told me since I didn’t have enough balance in my HSBC account to cover the transfer, I should wait a day or 2 and my transfer would bounce and at which point everything should be back to normal. I asked if there were any associated fees due to this mistake and he said Fidelity doesn’t charge these types of fees. Wow! I couldn’t believe what I heard.

So I log onto my HSBC account and I noticed a $33 “NSF FEE FOR UNPOSTED DEBIT …” had already been charged to my account. NSF stands for “Non Sufficient Funds”. I was like oh crap. There goes half my interest I accrued this year. I actually started thinking if this would be tax deductible as it was a direct hit to my interest.

Anyway, I gave HSBC a call, not really hoping for much. After going through their automated answering machine, I finally got to an operator (took about 2 minutes). I told him my situation and pointed out the fee and asked if there was anything I could do to reverse it. He said since this was an online account, he would have to transfer me to the online department. Due to high call volumes, he would also not be able to introduce me to the other service rep. I said that was okay.

About 30 seconds later, the online department rep answers and I tell him the same story. He said the fee was due to insufficient funds. I asked if there was any way to reverse it and he said it was non-negotiable. I explained to him my situation about how it was a mistake and I’ve already called Fidelity and they’ve already fixed the mistake on their end and will be depositing the correct amount to HSBC in the next day or 2. I also pointed out that the $33 fee seemed a bit extreme.

He paused for moment and then mentioned as a “one-time courtesy”, he’ll reverse the fee and advised me to be careful of what my balance is next time I make a payment. I thanked him over and over and then we parted ways.

Another aspect I think that helps when I negotiate with customer service representatives is that about 90% of those who I speak to always call me maam. I’m guessing their system doesn’t tell them what gender I am. I never bother correcting them because I think customer service reps tend to be nicer to women, but that could just be me.

300

I finally got to see 300 and it was pretty awesome. If you didn’t know, 300 is another comic by Frank Miller, who also happened to be the one who drew Sin City. Anyway, I spoiled the ending of the movie by reading the Wikipedia entry on Leonidas even before the movie came out. Anyway, the movie was excellent and gory, but people’s complaint of the slow motion action was infact true. I think they overdid the dramatic effect a bit too much. The cinematography was amazing once again.

Official Site
IMDb: 7.9/10 (104,008 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: B / Yahoo! Users: B+
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 61% / Average Rating: 6.2/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com DVD
Amazon.com Soundtrack
Amazon.com Comic
MY RATING: 7.5/10

300 movie poster300 movie poster300 movie poster300 movie poster300 movie poster300 movie poster300 movie poster300 movie poster300 movie poster300 movie poster

Spoilers: (Show)

Sherbert vs Sorbet

The other weekend at Bellevue Square, Stanman, Saran, Carolyn and I were discussing about ice cream, which ended up either Stanman or I bringing up ordering Rainbow Sherbet at Thrifty (before they got bought by Rite-Aid). Rainbow Sherbet has been and still is my favorite ice cream flavor (I think…). Anyway, we got to the point where we were debating how to pronounce sherbet and what sherbet really was.

When I was small, I called sherbet, well sher-bet or sher-bert, but then I learnt the word sorbet (pronounced sor-bay), so I thought, maybe that’s how you pronounce it (i.e. sher-bay). Others chimed in that sherbet was a derivation of sorbet (but pronounced differently) or that it was just another way of spelling sorbet and are in fact the same thing.

Then I mentioned that sherbet wasn’t really ice cream because it didn’t contain any milk (needed for the cream part of ice cream), but Stanman argued that it was an ice cream and does in fact contain milk. I’ve always associated sherbets with frozen fruit juices and they don’t really taste like they contain any type of milk in them. I mean when I get a “dream” smoothie from Jamba Juice, those taste like it has milk.

According to Merriam-Webster, the correct pronunciation is sher-bet, with a variant: sher-bert.

Anyway, thank god for Wikipedia: Sherbet (U.S.)

Sherbet (often pronounced and even occasionally spelled sherbert in American English) is a frozen dessert made from iced sweetened fruit juice or puree. Sherbets usually have more ingredients, such as milk, egg whites, or gelatin, than sorbets, which are generally made from iced fruit puree and other ingredients. Sherbet in the United States must have a milkfat content between 1% and 2%, and a slightly higher sweetener content than ice cream; else, it must be sold as ice cream if the fat content is higher or sweetener content lower, ice milk if milk or sweetener content is lower, or as sorbet if no milk is present at all. American sherbets have a minimum density of 6 lb/gal (720 g/L) and are flavored either with fruit or other ingredients.

There you have it. Sherbet does in fact contain milk, but is not ice cream due to the lower milkfat content and the higher sweetener content.

Random Crap:

Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader – Larry pledge (from SueOn) – Contestant Larry gets confused on a 1st Grade Grammar question.

Mathematicians set Chinese testMaths enthusiasts are being challenged to answer a sample question from Chinese university entrance tests. The Chinese math entrance exam is actually quite difficult. I was able to solve i and ii, but iii has been giving me trouble. Plus my math skills are still rather rusty. On the other hand, the English Math test was a joke.

‘Kryptonite’ discovered in mine (from Digg) – Kryptonite is no longer just the stuff of fiction feared by caped superheroes. A new mineral matching its unique chemistry – as described in the film Superman Returns – has been identified in a mine in Serbia.

Police: Thief tries to trade stolen JeepA Bridgeport man has been arrested after he tried to trade in a Jeep to a car dealer, a month after allegedly stealing the same Jeep from that same dealer, police said.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Sprite Comparison (from Digg) – Man, Ryu has never looked so slick! French website Gamekult has posted this “confidential” slide from a Capcom press conference showing a comparison between the original SSFII Ryu sprites scaled up to HD resolution and what the new HD sprites will look like. What a difference, eh? If the other characters and backgrounds look as good as this one (which one naturally assumes they will), this will be one of the must have games on XBLA and well worth the MS points to purchase it. The evolution of Ryu!

Exclusive Cakes You’ve Never Seen (from Digg) – “It is sweet miracle cake, a piece of childhood in a serious adult world. All you need is to blow out a candle and make a wish. Cakes are very different, but made with sincerity and therefore loved.” Enjoy. These custom cakes look awesome.

Man cuts off penis in restaurantA man cut off his penis with a knife in a packed London restaurant.

The Most Expensive Movies Ever Made (from Digg) – interesting list. Read the story here.

The Most Excruciatingly Painful, Yet Typical, Customer Service Call EverI was listening to a call recording from our Service Quality Tracker, and the call was so ordinary, yet pointless, that I was inspired to create some video commentary.

Suspected robber flushes money in toiletDeputies with a search warrant removed the toilet from its plumbing and found shredded U.S. currency in the toilet trap, Swanson said. I’m actually curious. Since it’s confirmed that the $50,000 stolen was shredded and flushed down the toilet, does the bank get the money back, in the form of new bills or depositing electronically into their account?

CalTV: UC Berkeley’s Online TV Station (from MS newsgroup) – sounds like the cal press has gone video.

WordPress Theme Generator (from Digg) – This online generator creates your own custom unique WordPress Theme. Without any need for HTML, JS, PHP, or CSS knowledge. Change the colors, settings, layout, preview live, click “save” and download your unique WordPress theme zip-file. Extract, upload, set, and you are done! If you have any questions or need additions email me. Interesting… I haven’t had time to play with it yet, but let me know what you think about it.

GH2 – Dead! – XBOX360 – Expert (8 Years Old) (from Digg) – Guitar Hero II – XBox 360 – Dead! – My high score is 259,820

Cities plagued by rodents, emergency declaredThe rodent population in six Peruvian regions has ballooned due to unusual weather patterns and the government declared a state of emergency on Tuesday to control the plague, including in the capital city, Lima.

The Illusionist

Just saw this movie. This movie came out at the same time The Prestige, and since both were magician movies, I had opted to watch The Prestige with Christian Bale instead. But I’ve heard good things about The Illusionist so I finally decided to see what type of magic movie it was. I would have to say, the movie was somewhat easy to predict, though there were still some that I didn’t get.

Official Site
IMDb: 7.7/10 (31,377 votes)
Yahoo! Movies: The Critics: B / Yahoo! Users: B+
Rotten Tomatoes: Rating: 75% / Average Rating: 7/10
Apple Trailer
Amazon.com DVD
Amazon.com Soundtrack
MY RATING: 7.5/10

the illusionist posterthe illusionist posterthe illusionist poster

Spoilers: (Show)

University of Washington

So I took my mom to check out UW’s campus (also my 1st time there). I printed out the map and the self-guided walking tour brochure so at least I have an idea of where I’m going. I’ve been meaning to check out the campus for some time, but never really had a reason to yet. Then again, I haven’t even been up the space needle before. Hehe.

This also gave me a chance to test out my new Canon PowerShot SD1000.

The campus was actually really big (a lot bigger than Berkeley at least) and very pretty, especially on a semi-sunny day like today. Good thing it didn’t rain as I didn’t really look at the forecast beforehand.

Here are some of the pictures I took:
university of washingtonuniversity of washingtonuniversity of washingtonuniversity of washingtonuniversity of washingtonuniversity of washington

I didn’t take too many, but you can see the rest of them in the album: University of Washington Visit

They also had guided tours, but for Saturdays, it required arriving there by 10:30am. I got up today at 1:30pm. There’s more info on their website.

Random Crap

Experience the hardest Mario ever (no fluffing required!) (from Ungsunghero) – If you are ever in a situation where your little sister complains about a Mario game being too hard, please just slap her and show her this video. Created by a random somebody in Taiwan (my vote is for escaped mental patient), this Mario mod is like a sick work of art. Granted, I would most likely give up after about one minute, but the sadomasochist inside of me wants to play it to death until I complete it. I mean, seriously, beating this would give you the ultimate video game bragging rights. I don’t even think Lucas would stand a chance. This is the ultimate Super Mario Bros. level. You can also watch the version with commentary: Super Mario Bros: Frustration, which makes it a whole lot funnier. He does cuss a lot, so be warned. I love the hidden coin blocks which just so conveniently blocks many of his jumps causing Mario to fall to his death. Once you get to level 2, it starts getting really repetitive, so you might as well stop watching it. Both Ungsunghero and I noticed that he could have actually jumped to the top of the ceiling during one of tries. Ungsunghero theorizes that if he did it, it’d take him to the warp zone. I wonder if I could get ahold of this game and give it a try. I would however actually need to have quick state save.

Ipod saves Soldier’s Life (from MS newsgroup) – I have talked to Kevin and he has told me the real story of getting shot in the iPod. The Armor stopped the bullet. Kevin didn’t know he was shot. The iPod was how he found out. The full story: iPod tells soldier he was shot – the real story

Joke from MS newsgroup:

Two guys were speeding along in their beat up old pick-up. They approach a red light and the driver blasts right through. The passenger, startled, exclaims “that was a red light!” The driver turns to him and says, “don’t worry, my brother runs red lights all the time”. The passenger replies, “oh, okay”. They come up to the next light screeching to a halt. The passenger again startled exclaims “it is green, go!” The driver replies, “what are you crazy, my brother could be coming the other way”.

Someone replies: That’s not a joke, that’s driving in New Delhi 🙂

Cal Dining wins the Oscar of eateries (from MS newsgroup) – Chez Panisse, French Laundry, Spago, Charlie Trotters … and Cal Dining? That’s right. Berkeley’s campus dining service recently earned its place among these much-lauded establishments when it snagged (as the others have in the past) a prestigious Ivy Award. Given by the trade publication Restaurants & Institutions, Ivy Awards — the equivalent of Oscars for the food industry — recognize excellence in food service by restaurants, hotels, and institutions. Industry peers (and the previous year’s winners) submit nominations, a ballot is assembled, and the magazine’s 154,000 readers vote for their selections. What happened!?!?! The Dining Commons back when I was there was horrible!

Gates vs. Jobs (from Digg) – Bill Gates and Steve Jobs square off in the clean white virtual world of the iconic Mac ads. The voice of Bill Gates reminds me of Kermit the Frog.

spiderman 3 speed painting in photoshop 7 (from FuzzyWuzzy) – great paint session in photoshop 7! four hours in three minutes. music by Danny Elfman, spiderman’s sountrack composer. Wow! This drawing is amazing!

So I mentioned nightmares the other day to Ungsunghero and he replied back, don’t you mean daymares, which got me thinking what the etymology of the word nightmare is. I mean the word night is simple, since it just refers to it occurring at night (most people sleep at night and have nightmares I guess), but does mare (by itself refers to a female horse) mean bad dream? According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, mare refers to goblin that causes nightmares.

Jack Bauer, Dammit! (from Digg) – Students would like Bauer to run for president in ‘08 because first of all, he’s better than anyone else trying to get nominated, and second of all, he helps students relax. Every time he says, “Dammit,” someone lifts a brew in his honor. As proof, check out the Jack Bauer Dammit video, if you haven’t already. Haha! A 24 drinking.

13 Little Things That Make A Geek Happy (from Digg) – The list is pretty accurate. Things I totally agree with include:

  • Someone submits something I wrote to digg.
  • A new referrer pops up
  • Someone posts a real comment on one of my blog entries.
  • My code works perfectly on the first try.
  • Technorati and Alexa Ranking that increases each week.

Errol Morris: Commercials (from Consumerist) – a bunch of amusing Miller High Life commercials. Reminds me of the Real Men of Genius commercials from BudLight.

Gentlemen, rate yourselves: cucumber or banana?Singapore’s Society for Men’s Health and a pharmaceutical firm are proposing a four-point scale for erectile dysfunction, allowing men to rate their own hardness with four categories: cucumber, unpeeled banana, peeled banana and tofu (bean curd).

Haloid

Someone from MS newsgroup sent out a link to this video: Haloid. It’s actually a really cool video showing a battle between Master Chief (from Halo) and Samus (from Metroid) and tons of those alien guys from Halo. The main battle music was from The Matrix where Neo battles a gazillion Agent Smiths. He even incorporated the spinning in a circle kick scene. The animation was done really well as well as the choreography. Unfortunately, even I knew Master Chief is suppose to be a guy. But I guess that gives it a twist. Oh, did I just spoil it for you? ;p

Artemyst wanted to download it, but GameTrailers didn’t make it easy. There was no direct download link and the actual location of the flv file was hidden since they call their flash movie viewer with an id, which goes and looks up the url in the background. However, nothing escapes Ethereal. I ended up getting this ip: 207.226.113.35 and this location: /gt_fanmovies/um_31603-91737-HaloidFull-1176793690.flv. However, apparently their movies are on a shared server and 207.226.113.35 resolves to 207-226-113-35.pccwglobal.net which gives me a 404 when I try to open the link.

However, Ethereal apparently also captures DNS lookups and the DNS lookup that resolved to 207.226.113.35 was trailers.gametrailers.com.

So if you want to download Haloid to watch on your own computer outside a browser, you can do so by downloading: Haloid flv file.

Do note, you’ll need a FLV player to watch this. VLC Media Player and Media Player Classic both support it natively I believe, or maybe I had to install ffdshow to get the flv codec.

Anyway, enjoy!

* UPDATE *

Thanks to jpm for donating this link: Download File – Monty Oum – Haloid – High Resolution:

MOV [123.3 MB]
WMV [118.1 MB]
MP4 [46 MB]

No longer do you have to suffer the bad quality of FLV.

Random Crap:
Moved Random Crap to a different entry.

* UPDATE #2 *
Turns out the new direct HD downloads doesn’t have the final piece Master Chick VS Samus, where they have a dance off. If you download the FLV above, it still has the 1 minute clip at the ending.

I’ve decided to rip the Master Chick VS Samus clip from the FLV file. The video quality is large and small respectively:
master chick vs samusmaster chick vs samus

Don’t forget to checkout montyoum’s other works at deviantART and GameTrailers.

Electronic Transfer

So the other day, I was making a electronic transfer from Fidelity to my HSBC Direct savings account and that got me thinking, what exactly goes on behind the scene of a electronic transfer. They go by many names including wiring money, electronic fund transfer, direct deposit, etc. How exactly does a EFT work? I mean metaphorically, it’s like bank A is sending money to bank B, but this being electronic and all digital, there is no real money being transferred.

Back in the days, when bank A sends money to bank B, little cars delivers sacks of money from bank A to bank B.

But nowadays, everything is digital and I would assume no actual money (paper bills, rare metals, etc) are actually being transferred between banks, making it more safe and secure. There are movies showing those armored trucks delivery big loads of cash, but I believe that is just transferring money from the branches into the main bank, or vice versa. Like when I write a Bank of America check and the payee deposits it into his Washington Mutual account, all they do is notify Bank of America and they transfer the money over. I think these days, they don’t even send the check back, but just make a scan.

But how exactly is money electronically transferred.

Within the same branch or even the same bank, it’d be easy. Bank of America oversees the entire transaction and the deduct money from account X and deposits that same amount into account Y. But to deduct money from account X in Bank of America and deposit that amount into account Y in Washington Mutual, it just seems to be changing the balance, however, it doesn’t appear to be as simple as it sounds.

What really happens as I imagined would be Bank of America takes money out of account X and puts it into their own. At the end of the day, thousands or millions of transactions occur between the 2 banks and only the difference is transferred. Afterwards, Washington Mutual will deposit the amount from the transfer into account Y.

It appears to be something quick and simple, but there needs to be some overseeing agency to make sure that Bank of America does indeed deduct that amount from their balance and Washington Mutual only increases that amount from their balance. If not, what is to say, that Bank of America “claims” to have transfer money to them, but not in fact deducted their own balance. The way I see this working is that each bank has an account with lets say the Federal Reserve, and they are basically making transfers of funds within the same bank (Federal Reserve). I can see that working, since the accounts have to be checked and balanced.

But I’m curious if anything tangible is actually transferred. Are money in forms of coins and dollar bills at the end of the month moved between banks. Bills and coins are just tender, and I don’t see why electronic numbers can’t completely replace them. If the banks deposit all their bills to the Federal Reserve, then it’s essentially the same.

Ungsunghero then brings up a good point. What about international transfers. How does money actually flow between countries? If I decided to transfer $100,000 to my Swiss account, what really happens? The transfer may take a few days, but how does the money leave the USA and enter Switzerland? Do we ship them bags of bills? gold? Is there any overseeing agency like the Federal Reserves that monitor international transactions?

Just something that’s been bouncing in my head.

Canon PowerShot SD1000

I just got myself a new toy! Yay for me! My wallets been crying a lot lately though. We haven’t got along that well. He says I’ve been spending way too much and I blame Derek.

Anyway, I’ve been due another digital camera for awhile. I’ve had the Canon PowerShot S400 since sophomore year of college and it has all in all done extremely well. It wasn’t until a year ago when it started having problems and began corrupting my compact flash memory cards. I actually lost a Kingston 1GB CF memory card to it and have been using my spare Viking 1GB memory card ever since. I can’t even view or format the Kingston card on a USB memory card reader. And once in awhile, my camera would say: memory card error. I did however figure out what to do in that situation. All I have to do is turn my camera off and pound on it a few times, and then turn it back on. *Poof* memory card error gone!

So when Derek showed me the deal last week where the Canon PowerShot SD1000 was on sale for $150, I had to jump.

The feature set is rather good:

  • Slim, stylish 7.1 Megapixel Digital ELPH with 3x Optical Zoom lens
  • Chic modern minimalism in the ELPH’s classic Box & Circle design in two color variations to suit your personal style
  • DIGIC III Image Processor with improved Face Detection Technology and Red-eye Correction for sharper images and improved functionality
  • Vivid, high-resolution 2.5-inch PureColor LCD with scratch-resistant anti-reflection coating for easy on-camera viewing
  • ISO 1600 and High ISO Auto to reduce image blur and expand low-light shooting capability
  • Five movie modes including 30 fps VGA, Time Lapse and Fast Frame Rate
  • Print/Share Button for easy direct printing and downloading, plus ID Photo Print and Movie Print with select PIXMA Photo Printers, CP and SELPHY Compact Photo Printers

They’ve also messed up the naming of the cameras. You’d think that SD1000 is better than the SD900 which should be better than the SD800, but the fact of the matter is, the PowerShot SD1000 is the same as the PowerShot SD800IS in every aspect besides the fact that the SD800 has IS (image stabilization). On the other hand, the PowerShot SD900 is a 10.0MP camera compared to 7.1MP which the SD1000 and SD800 have.

So I got my digital camera today and haven’t had much time to play with it yet, but it’s so sexy and thin:

canon powershot sd1000canon powershot sd1000canon powershot sd1000canon powershot sd1000canon powershot sd1000canon powershot sd1000canon powershot sd1000canon powershot sd1000canon powershot sd1000

Their packaging wasn’t as cool as my 3rd gen iPod, but still rather neat. Unfortunately it didn’t come with a case, so it looks like I’ll have to splurge some more on something like this: Canon PSC-1000 Deluxe Grey Leather Case for the Canon SD1000 Digital Camera

Using my new Samsung SGH-t519, I took some pictures comparing my old camera (Canon PowerShot S400) with my new camera (Canon PowerShot SD1000). The camera phone’s photo quality wasn’t that good, plus it wasn’t taking in good light condition, so please ignore the fuzziness due to my shaking hands.

canon powershot sd1000 vs powershot s400canon powershot sd1000 vs powershot s400canon powershot sd1000 vs powershot s400canon powershot sd1000 vs powershot s400

The PowerShot SD1000 only came with a 32MB SD memory card, which I’ll probably never use. I took out the SD card from my phone and will be using it in my digital camera until I find a good deal for a replacement SD card.

I also found my old PowerShot S400 retail box. It even still has an unopened 32MB CF memory card in it. Haha.

How to Poop at Work

This list was sent to me by Vivori and it was hilarious and I can so relate to many of them, I wanted to share it.

HOW TO POOP AT WORK

As much as we try to convince ourselves otherwise, the WORK POOP is inevitable. For those who hate pooping at work, following is the survival guide for taking a dump at the office.

CROP DUSTING: When farting, you walk really fast around the office so the smell is not in your area and everyone else gets a whiff but doesn’t know where it came from. Be careful when you do this. Do not stop until the full fart has been expelled. Walk an extra 30 feet to make sure the smell has left your pants.

FLY BY: The act of scouting out a bathroom before pooping. Walk in and check for other poopers. If there are others in the bathroom, leave and come back again. Be careful not to become a FREQUENT FLYER. People may become suspicious if they catch you constantly going into the bathroom.

ESCAPEE: A fart that slips out while taking a leak at the urinal or forcing a poop in a stall. This is usually accompanied by a sudden wave of embarrassment. If you release an escapee, do not acknowledge it. Pretend it did not happen. If you are standing next to the farter in the urinal, pretend you did not hear it. No one likes an escapee. It is uncomfortable for all involved. Making a joke or laughing makes both parties feel uneasy.

JAILBREAK: When forcing a poop, several farts slip out at a machine gun pace. This is usually a side effect of diarrhea or a hangover. If this should happen, do not panic. Remain in the stall until everyone has left the bathroom to spare everyone the awkwardness of what just occurred.

COURTESY FLUSH: The act of flushing the toilet the instant the poop hits the water. This reduces the amount of air time the poop has to stink up the bathroom. This can help you avoid being caught doing the WALK OF SHAME .

WALK OF SHAME: Walking from the stall, to the sink, to the door after you have just stunk up the bathroom. This can be a very uncomfortable moment if someone walks in and busts you. As with farts, it is best to pretend that the smell does not exist. This can be minimized with the use of the COURTESY FLUSH.

OUT OF THE CLOSET POOPER: A colleague who poops at work and is damn proud of it. You will often see an Out Of The Closet Pooper enter the bathroom with a newspaper or magazine under their arm. Always look around the office for the Out Of The Closet Pooper before entering the bathroom.

SAFE HAVENS: A seldom used bathroom somewhere in the building where you can least expect visitors. Try floors that are predominantly of the opposite sex. This will reduce the odds of a same-sex pooper entering your bathroom.

TURD BURGLAR: Someone who does not realize that you are in the stall and tries to force the door open. This is one of the most shocking and vulnerable moments that can occur when taking a poop at work. If this occurs, remain in the stall until the Turd Burglar leaves. This way you will avoid all uncomfortable eye contact.

CAMO-COUGH: A phony cough that alerts all new entrants into the bathroom that you are in a stall. This can be used to cover-up a WATERMELON, or to alert potential Turd Burglars. Very effective when used in conjunction with an ASTAIRE.

ASTAIRE: A subtle toe-tap that is used to alert potential Turd Burglars that you are occupying a stall. This will remove all doubt that the stall is occupied. If you hear an Astaire, leave the bathroom immediately so the pooper can poop in peace.

WATERMELON: A poop that creates a loud splash when hitting the toilet water. This is also an embarrassing incident. If you feel a Watermelon coming on, create a diversion. See CAMO-COUGH.

HAVANA OMELET: A case of diarrhea that creates a series of loud splashes in the toilet water. Often accompanied by an Escapee. Try using a Camo-Cough with an Astaire.

UNCLE TED: A bathroom user who seems to linger around forever. Could spend extended lengths of time in front of the mirror or sitting on the pot. An Uncle Ted makes it difficult to relax while on the crapper, as you should always wait to poop when the bathroom is empty. This benefits you as well as the other bathroom attendees.