I just tried to unsubscribe from a mailing list. How hard can that be, right? Just enter my email address, click submit, and....

"There was a problem"? What the fuck? That has got to be the most useless error message since "Keyboard missing; press F1 to continue." And it's not as if I asked for something complicated. I didn't ask for world peace or a cure for cancer. All I wanted was to never see your crappy newsletters again. How can you possibly screw that up?

And don't you want to at least tell me what the problem was? No? Not even a little hint? Fuck you.

"Rapists???"

That was the strange one-word SMS message I got from a friend this afternoon.

A few minutes before that, I had sent him a geek question about some PHP scripts. That "Rapists???" message sure wasn't the reply I expected. I was about to send a "Huh?" when the leftover text from my last message made me realize that it was my fault after all. I didn't ask about PHP scripts. I asked about PHP rapists... or at least my phone did.

Ever since I got my first cell phone years ago, I've been using T9 predictive text, which uses a dictionary to let you input text with less key presses. For example, if you want to say "chicken," instead straining your thumb to press 22244444222553366 (I feel tired just thinking about it), you can simply press 2442536--one key for each letter. So convenient, right? And if multiple words share the same key combination, T9 picks the most commonly used one for you... so smart.

Some of my friends find it strange that I always text in unabbreviated English, but I don't care. I refuse to learn Txtardese because I absolutely hate it. Plus I lack thumb dexterity, and T9 is pretty much the only thing that allows me to text slightly faster than your grandmother.

Back to my creepy text message.... 727478 spells "script," so adding a 7 should give me "scripts," right? Right? Nope. T9 smartly predicted that "rapists" is the word I wanted. Thanks a lot, T9.

Seriously, is "rapists" really a more commonly used word than "scripts"? The world is such a horrible place.

Have you ever felt like there aren't enough hours in a day for all the TV shows you want to watch?

I've always wanted a way to speed up TV viewing. Windows Media Player does have a variable playback speed feature: press Ctrl+Shift+G when you're playing a WMV or MP3 file and you'll get a faster (1.4x) playback speed. Fun! Unfortunately, the trick doesn't work for other common media file types, so I rarely get to use it. Sure, I can convert all my TV shows to WMVs, but that's just too much work.

Well, my life was stuck at boring normal speed until I found Jesus Enounce 2xAV. It's a plug-in for Windows Media Player that lets you adjust media playback speed on the fly. And it works smoothly for all the file types that I've tried. Hallelujah! (Before you ask, no, I'm not getting paid to plug the product. I haven't sold my soul to PayPerPost, and I never will.)

I've been using the 7-day free trial version for a few weeks now. Yes, I managed to get around the 7-day limit because I'm awesome like that. And no, it's not technically software piracy, so they can't sue me... I think.

Anyway, I now get to watch downloaded TV shows and movies at 1.4x or even 1.5x speed. The little plug-in saves me a lot of time and allows me to work more and be more productive. Yay!

Just kidding, heh. Of course I'm using the extra time to watch even more TV. Hey, CSI: Miami is no longer as painful to watch when you can finish two episodes in an hour.

Four months ago, I got a new A4Tech optical mouse with an extra button that performs a double click. Even though I rarely had the chance to use the frivolous double click feature, I was quite satisfied with the mouse overall. I mean, it's just a freaking mouse. The bar for satisfaction was never really that high.

But last week, things started to go wrong. Very wrong. As I was surfing the Web, I noticed that when I do a mouse click, it's sometimes registered as a double click. Uh-oh, that can't be good.

The problem got worse with each passing day. Now, whenever I press the mouse button, I can't predict if I'm going to get one click or two clicks. This of course causes all kinds of problems, like accidentally closing two windows instead of one, or opening the same file twice and causing Windows to slow down to a crawl. Unpredictability is not good. Not good! Grrr!

I don't know why this is happening. I'm guessing that the wire of the magic double click button somehow got crossed with the one for the left button. If that's the case, then what was once a useless feature has become a source for headache and temper tantrums. That's right, I said tantrums. I've found that slamming the mouse hard against the desk sometimes fixes the problem... for like 30 seconds.

So when I found myself near a computer shop last Saturday, I rushed in to get a new mouse. Being the cheap ass that I am, I asked for the cheapest optical mouse available. (It had to be an optical mouse because, aside from being cheap, I'm also too lazy to clean a mouse ball regularly.) The clerk showed me a white Melody mouse that costs only 170 pesos (less than $4). Why, that's even cheaper than A4Tech! I immediately bought it.

It took me a while to realize that my new mouse is tiny. I guess I was fooled by the unnecessarily big box. I was a bit pissed off, but I was almost OK with it until I found out that it was a USB mouse. Crap.

I wanted to slap myself for not taking a closer look at it earlier. What the hell am I going to do with a USB mouse? My ancient PC has only two USB ports, and I sure am not going to waste one on a freaking mouse. Well, I suppose I can toss it in a corner for now and wait until I get my hands on an Eee PC. Ah, a shiny cheap new Eee PC... now that's a happy thought.

Meanwhile, my stupid mouse seemed to have learned a new trick. Each attempt at clicking now randomly gives me zero, one, or two clicks. Er, yay?

I woke up today a little past noon after about five hours of sleep. On most days, the first thing I do when I wake up is walk over to my PC and switch it on. And that was what I did.

But this time, pushing the power button didn't have the expected effect. No blinking lights. No familiar humming sounds of spinning fans. Nothing.

What the hell? Is it a power outage? Nope, that can't be. My monitor is on. Are the power cables loose? I unplugged and replugged everything then tried again. Nothing happened. I began to panic. Is the power supply dead? Nooooooooo!

When a computer's power supply dies, there's a good chance that it would take something else to hell with it. I know because I've seen one explode before--it totally fried the hard drive. I didn't see or hear any explosions this time, but maybe I missed it because I was sleepy.

I started to felt sick. My hard drives! I'd be in deep trouble if either of them died, because I've always been too lazy to back up my data. I thought about the amount of work I'd have to redo, and I almost threw up on the spot.

What now? Well, how about avoiding the problem? Sounds like a good plan. So I went for lunch. After stuffing myself with comfort food, I came back to find my PC still dead. I took a long nap, irrationally hoping that it was all just a bad dream.

After waking up into the same nightmare, I knew that I had no choice but to face reality. I hauled my machine to the nearest PC Express. A technician there plugged it in, and... it's alive! What the hell?

So the cheap made-in-China power supply is innocent after all. Who's the real culprit then? Maybe it's the AVR (automatic voltage regulator). Or maybe it's the power cord that connects the power supply to the AVR. So which one is it? Unfortunately, I left both of those at home--I only brought the case.

I thought about it and decided to buy a new power cord for 60 pesos. I could have bought both items and eliminated the possible need for a second trip to the shop, but I chose to gamble because a new AVR is much pricier.

Back at home, I was about to replace the power cord when I decided to try pushing the power button first. It worked! What... the... hell? So my PC was fine all along? Was it just bored and decided to trick me into taking it on a joyride? Bad PC!

Now, I'm sitting here with a shiny new extra power cord and still no clue as to what happened. But I really don't care anymore. I'm just relieved to have my life back to normal... and a little pissed that I wasted much of my afternoon over nothing.

Scary episodes like this remind me about how dependent I am on my PC and why backing up data regularly is a good idea. I think I'll start doing backups tomorrow next week soon.

The mouse wheel on my optical mouse broke two weeks ago. Yes, the mouse wheel broke. Don't ask me how that happened, because I have no freaking clue.

I guess that's what I deserve for going with a cheap ass brand like A4Tech. Yes, I just called A4Tech cheap ass, but it's not really an insult. After all, "A4Tech" stands for "A4dable Technologies"... clever, eh? Hey, I'm a cheap ass, and I totally love A4Tech and their $6 mice.

Anyway, when I talked to my mom on the phone last week, I casually mentioned the broken mouse wheel. Luckily for me, she had an extra mouse stashed somewhere, and she sent it to me yesterday. Of course it's an A4Tech mouse--where do you think I got my cheap ass gene from?

But wait, there's something unusual about this one. Check it out. It has a small extra button that allows you to double click with just one click....

Sweet! Sounds like a nifty feature for lazy bastards like me, heh. Everyone knows that double clicking takes too much effort, right? With this mouse, I only have to spend half the energy! Isn't that wonderful?

Well, it would be wonderful... if only I have something to double click! Afer more than 24 hours, I still haven't found a use for the magic button. I spend a lot of time on the Web where double clicking is almost non-existent. And I already set my Windows Explorer to open files with single clicks, so no fun there either.

Now that I've come to the bitter realization that I don't double click anymore, the extra button that was once so exciting has become utterly meaningless. Meaningless! How depressing. Maybe I should go buy a ridiculously expensive Logitech mouse to cheer myself up.

I'll tell you what I want for Christmas.

I want a Clocky! The thing looks quite annoying, but I sure could use some help trying to wake up early in the morning. OK, late morning. OK, OK! Early afternoon! Sheesh! What's your problem? Leave me alone! I need my 8 hours!

And Clocky better be shockproof, because the little bastard will be flying against the wall as soon as I catch it.... I hope it comes with a parachute. No, I don't think Clocky would be something that I can "laugh at"--I'm just not that cheerful in the morning. But yes, I want one anyway.

Christmas is just 323 days away. I can't wait.

No, this isn't a supermarket. It's the Monterey Meatshop booth at a technology expo two weeks ago.

What's a meat shop--with all kinds of raw uncooked meat--doing at a tech expo? Don't ask me. I don't get it either.

Maybe the meat shop thing is just an anomaly. Let's look around and see what else is at the expo. Ah, now this is more like it....

Technology for Business... sounds impressive. Let's go see what they're selling.

Huh? Plastic cup?

And what's this? Plastic catch? What the hell is a plastic catch, and why do I need it for my business?

God, this tech expo sucks.

One of the hard disks in my computer has been in its death throes since yesterday.

At first, it was just one little corrupted file. Instead of worrying about it, I chose to ignore it and go watch TV. Hmm, TV fun fun. When I came back, I could no longer access the files in the My Document folder. I knew I was in deep shit. Sure enough, just one hour later, Windows locked up and refused to start again.

So I installed Windows on the other hard disk, started it up, and tried to recover whatever files I could from the dying one. Have you ever seen one of those cliche-filled action films where a good guy tries to extract information from a bad guy who has just been shot in the chest?

Good guy: Where is the bomb? Tell me!
Bad guy: It's in... ugh... ugh... *rolls eyes and dies*
Good guy: Noooooo!!!

That's more or less what happened when I tried to copy files from the dying hard disk. I did manage to save some not very important files, but when it came to the important ones, the hard disk went, "Ugh... ugh... data redundancy check error!" I was kicking the computer in frustration. I'm sure that didn't help at all.

Most modern hard disks has this magical thing called S.M.A.R.T., which stands for Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology. It supposedly allows you to keep an eye on the health of your hard disk. Well, turns out it's not so smart after all. It gave me no warning at all, and even now, it's saying that my hard disk is in perfect condition. Wow, really? Perfect? More like perfectly useless. Stupid S.M.A.R.T.

Then again, maybe the S.M.A.R.T. is right. Maybe the hard disk is fine. Maybe the reason why I can't access it properly is that some stupid insect flew into the PC casing and got itself electrocuted on one of the cables. Maybe everything will return to normal if I just clean it up. Maybe.

But I'm too lazy to grab a screwdriver, open up the computer, and try to find the bug. So I guess all I can do now is sit here and complain. Well, at least that's one thing I'm not too lazy to do.

Today, we visited the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo.

Japan is definitely one of the best in the world when it comes to technology. But they also has this tendency to make their hi-tech stuff so cute that they become weird or even creepy.

Take this little robot pet for example. At first glance, it looks just like your normal cute furry stuffed toy. But if you touch it, the thing actually blinks, squirms, and squeals with delight.

Very cute. Very creepy.  read more »