How To Stop Unwanted Mailed Catalogs

The Buffalo News recently ran an Associated Press article highlighting websites that will help stop all those unwanted catalogs from entering your home. Kind of a DO NOT CALL registry for the US MAIL. Here's where to go for specific needs. Good Luck...I'll be logging onto some of these too!

The World Privacy Forum has developed a how-to list on opting out of mailings titled the “Top 10 Opt Outs” that’s posted at www.worldprivacyforum.org . Consumers also can write to the DMA at Mail Preference Service, P.O. Box 643, Carmel, N.Y. 10512-0643 to get off mailing lists. A $1 fee applies.

The other major source of unwanted mail, prescreened credit and insurance offers, can be addressed through the Web site www.optoutprescreen.com or calling the toll-free number 888-5OptOut (888-567-8688).

The Ecology Center in Berkeley, Calif., has its Catalog Choice site at www.catalogchoice.org . Consumers indicate which catalogs they don’t want to receive, and the service for free notifies the companies to stop mailings.

Another ecologically minded service is www.41pounds.org , based in Ferndale, Mich. It takes its name from the estimated weight of the junk mail each household receives each year. Households pay $41 for a five-year membership, and some of the profits are shared with environmental groups.

Auto Show Great, Convention Center Not So Much

As I sit here taking in the Buffalo Auto Show I can't help but think how good a job the NFADA does with such an awful building. The Buffalo Convention Center has so much become an example of misbuilding in our city.
The building itself is nothing to be proud of starting with the outside facade.
Starting from just outside with the decrepit electronic message board in the square across from the main entrance. I can't believe that year after year goes by and still it sits in horrible disrepair. Inside, the convention center is poorly laid out and confusing, though the powers that be have done as good a job as possible in making it more user friendly.

In the bottom level ceilings are too low...you feel closed in. There are too many cookie cutter nooks and crannies. Upstairs, the main hall is still no better than a glorified gym with carpeting. Perfect for a wild beer bash, not so good for classy events the city is trying to attract.

I still can't believe the county turned down that late 90's offer from the Seneca Nation to use the convention center for a casino, and in return build the city (or at least give is the money to build) a new convention center. Remember all the drawings of a new center near the corner of Oak and Genesee? That area would be buzzing right now instead of still being a rehab project. Another in the long line of downtown mistakes. Even though I wasn't a proponent of another Casino, that would've solved a major problem. But we missed out again.

But let's end on the positive...the NFADA has done a great job this year in an industry that corporately doesn't look at Buffalo as strongly as it used to. And if you like this auto show, you will LOVE Toronto's. Find more info at www.autoshow.ca

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