Dear Mr. and Mrs. Spinder:

First off, I’d like to congratulate you on your 50^th anniversary. Most married couples these days break up after a couple of hours, but you’ve kept up appearances for over twice my lifetime. Kudos on that. However, I did have a small problem with the anniversary party you held last week. While I applaud the pirate theme, and the fact that many of your elderly friends are still alive, you thoughtlessly blasted my house with 30s-style big band music until about 3:00 A.M. when I called the police. All my goldfish died, and I’m considering pressing charges.

Secondly, I’ve got an issue with that... let’s say that oversized rat you lovingly call a “dog.” That mongrel has been digging up my lawn for the last three years now. I’ve told you repeatedly to curb that thing, but every night at exactly 6:23 P.M. I see the same sight: your dog. By my lilac bushes. Eating the lilacs.

I’ll have you know that those lilacs cost me over a thousand dollars a bush, as I had them imported from Naples. My lawyer has already sent you a full estimate of the cost of damaged shrubbery, and I expect full recompense within five minutes of sending this letter. Your dog also defaced the sidewalk in front of my house, but that’s a municipal issue and I’ve already written to the city councilors and the highway commission. But I would still like a formal letter of apology.

Also, did you know you can add a customized search engine to your blog?


I tell you this only because you expressed interest in open-source search technology at last month’s Salt of the Month Club meeting (by the way, iodized salts take fluorinated salts hands down). Apparently, it’s stunningly simple to create an Internet Explorer 7/Firefox compatible search engine:

<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/">
 <ShortName>(Blog Title)</ShortName>
 <Description>Search (Blog Title) Archives</Description>
 <InputEncoding>utf-8</InputEncoding>
 <Image width="16" height="16">(Image URL)</Image>
 <Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="http://blogsearch.google.com/">
   <Param name="as_q" value="{searchTerms}"/>
   <Param name="ie" value="UTF-8"/>
   <Param name="ui" value="blg"/>
   <Param name="bl_url" value="(Your Blog).blogspot.com"/>
   <Param name="x" value="0"/>
   <Param name="y" value="0"/>
 </Url>
 <SearchForm>http://blogsearch.google.com/</SearchForm>
</OpenSearchDescription>

All you have to do is save all that (replacing the parts in parentheses of course!) in an XML file and upload it somewhere. Ooooh! For the image URL, you can use a data URL. Internet Explorer doesn't use them, but it will. One day, when the sun has burned out, it will. Include the following tag in your site to make your search engine discoverable:

<link rel="search" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml" href="(URL of search engine)" title="(Title for search field)">

I want you to think about all that. Think and reflect.

Sincerely,
Matt Damon