My Curiosity

Sunday night I spent about 20 minutes going through all the contacts on my cell & deleting the ones that I don't recall the name anymore, won't be talking to, will not need to or want to talk anymore. And then something happens. My curiosity takes over.

If I get my hand on another phone, I like to take it apart. See how it's assembled. I also like to take the SIM card from the other phone & plug it in my own phone. And vice versa. Also I will look for codes on the Internet & try it on my phone to see what I can do. Well, that night I got my hand on a ATT prepaid phone. Those one time phone you would buy to use for few days & then throw it away. It was a Motorola. First, I take the phone apart, then take out the SIM card & put it in my. Wow, 15 voice mail & a whole lot of txt messages. I always like to start from the end, it's easier that way to get a lot of info. I'm going through some of the txt when it hits me. These are all my txt messages. But what about the names? It's only showing the numbers & not the names. Having done this before I had a bad feeling. Immediately, I take the SIM out & put mine back in. I lost all my recent contacts. Fucking shit. Immediately, I tried to remember my brother's cell & couldn't. Funny I didn't panick, figured I can just ask everyone for their number again through facebook or myspace.

FYI: I am not a big fan of using either one. Never been a fan using bunch of lol....

But thanks to youmail, I didn't have to even do that. Youmail is a great service. It lets me customize the voicemail for each individual caller, a group & others not in my contact. I can listen to my voicemail online for free, respond to it with a click of a button & it doesn't cost me a dime. I love their service & recently I added all my contacts in my youmail account. So I spent the next about 2 hours going through all the names & adding them back on my cell. I still lost few business number that would've been nice to have on hand. But oh well. If I hadn't talked to 'em in 2 months I don't expect to talk to them anytime soon.

By the way, with youmail I can upload my own personal message to set it for someone specific. This way business caller hears a professional greeting while my friends get all the craps from me. Love you all guys....=)

UPDATE: I am really happy with youmail's service, but yesterday I stumbled upon Grand Central. From their FAQ section it appears Grand Central offers the same service as youmail (i.e. customized voicemail) with tons of other features as well. Some of the features include conference call, call recording & such. Recently Grand Central has been acquired by Google & their service is free as well.

Like I said, I like Youmail & I'm going to stick with them for now. But here's the link to Grand Central.

My New Year's Eve Celebration

As the clock was ticking towards midnight, everyone is getting excited, thrilled to celebrate new year's eve. Around 11.00pm, I was home. The house was exceptionally quite. Jesse was in Hollywood, not sure where Eillen & Monica went out to. Everyone was out to welcome 2008. I put my phone on silent mode, sipped two spoons of Tylenol Multi-Symptoms Severe Cold, laid down wrapping myself in blanket & began to surf the Internet. I could hear the fireworks around 11.30ish. There was a nice rhythm to it. Listening to the fireworks I slowly began to drowse & before I knew I was fast asleep.

This was by far the lamest new year's eve I have ever had. I was suppose to be either in Westwood or in Delano to celebrate like everyone else, but didn't happen. Why?! Well, keep reading.

The next day, I don't have any energy left on me to even get up from bed. I lost my appetite completely, don't want to eat, can't get myself out of bed. By noon, I figured if I don't put something in my mouth, I'm gonna get worse. So, I went to McDonald's and ordered a large fries & two BBQ snack wraps. I couldn't finish the whole meal, but was enough to sip two more spoons of Tylenol.

Going back to the 31st, I went to see my doctor around 9.00am. Hoping to get in early & get checked out. Lo behold, his office is closed until the 4th on January. The next day someone told me about another doctor on Hollywood. I got her number that night. I dragged myself out of bed that morning around 9am, called the doctor's office & asked for the earliest appointment. Lucky me, I could see her that very morning at 10.30am. Great, even though she's not my doctor & it was going to cost me more but I needed, wanted to see someone fast.

10.30/45am I am at the doctor's office. I am sitting on the edge of the bed as she examines my eyes, tongues, ears & then my nose. She stops at my nose and says:

"Oh my god."

I am calm, waiting for the worst news. I knew something was up. It's been over a week since I came down with a nasty cold, fever & cough. I've never been this sick & I could tell I wasn't getting better at all. Next thing she hooks up a little tube in my mouth & asks me to breath through the tube and this machine is going on making whirling noise. After all done, she says I've got acute bronchitis & symptoms of asthma. Just fucking great. I had a feeling that I had bronchitis. Cuz 4 years ago when I picked up smoking I was diagnosed with this shit. But I haven't smoked since then so what gives?!

Well, according to her the traffic, the fucking polluted air is not liked by my lung. It's not the cold, cuz the cold here in LA does even stand a chance compared to Ks. More or less, I am used to extreme cold & it doesn't even fucking snow in LA, damn it! So, I got home that afternoon with 4 different medications. After taking the medicines, we head out to the Getty Center. We were suppose to go to the Long Beach Aquarium, but I was still feeling crappy & didn't want to be anywhere near water.

The Getty is an amazing place. It's an art museum. Initially, I was having a good time until my friend started nagging. He cares more about the women in tight clothes than an art preserved from 1738. That was really irritating me, soon I started to get a headache. Before I know, the headache was too painful. We decided to cut the whole thing short, grab something to eat & then go to my house. I needed some pain killer bad. I hit the bed early again that night.

I am getting better now, feeling somewhat better as well. And I better after paying $68.00 fucking dollars for 4 pills, only 4 pills. I still get a nasty headache from time to time. I can't wait to get well so I can go out & party. I asked the doctor if it was OK to go running, she said running is fine. It's been almost week & a half since I've run. Me & Jesse, we will be going out for a run this evening.

The Game of Life

Recently, I came across this great article about "The Game of Life" by John Conway. I plan to watch the original BBC documentary this excerpt is taken from sometime this weekend, but here is a piece from it:



This is along the same line as Richard Dawkins' "The Blind Watchmaker." In his documentary Dawkins had done a similar experiment using a computer program.

“I have more confidence in the methods of science, based on the amazing record of science and its ability over the centuries to answer unanswerable questions, than I do in the methods of faith (what are they?).” -- David J. Gross, director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, Calif., and co-winner of the Nobel Prize in physics.

No Rooms for You, Period

That is in my computer. Before running down all the details, let me say I'm absolutely anal about the programs, processes that can run in my computer. Of Course, I will download the next cool DVD Ripper. If I don't like it or it just doesn't do much of a good job, must go. Talking about not liking programs or processes,

I HATE ATT & YAHOO. OK, I do like Flickr and Yahoo Pipe. But I HATE ATT.

The horrible experience with ATT's unlimited long distance phone service 4 years ago did it for me. I did not want anything to do with them since then. Until Cingular (or SBC, the parent company of Cingular) decided to merge with the bastard. As fate would have it, right around that time I had also signed up for the family plan as my brother just started college & couldn't afford a cell phone. When I went to the find out about the family plan, the sales rep basically lied about the total monthly bill. Since then I have complained to Cingular/ATT several times. Their response acknowledging the reps misinformation:

You were issued a credit the month after you signed the 2 year contract with us.

Me: Yes, a $20.00 dollar credit. What about the extra $40 I'm paying every month now?

I'm sorry, but there's nothing else we can do about it.

Me: When is my contract over?

8/8/2008. Hmmm...that's kinda funny (lightly smiling)

Me: Mark my word, I will cancel my service with you that day & I will ask every one I meet to always choose something over you guys.

I used to be a big advocate of Cingular until the whole f#$%ing merge. After checking with all four companies (i.e. Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile & Cingular) I singed up with Cingular and I was happy, used to tell everyone about their great service & all. But that all has changed now.

Coming back to the issue of programs & processes, I spent about 4 hours helping my friend setup XP Pro in his new Acer Aspire M1610 that initially came with Vista and also helped him go online. And that's where my frustration begins. I will write my thought about the Acer on another post.

He signed up for the ATT Yahoo DSL service. As I'm setting up his machine, I also get on setting up the DSL. After setting up the modem, I can't simply go online without running their stupid installation CD first. It won't let me just configure the modem from a browser. I must run the CD first. Ughhh... I know what's coming already. After running the CD, Yahoo starts with changing my Homepage in IE with att.yahoo [dot] com. Why? Did you even ask my f#%#ing permission before doing that? Only if that was the end of it.

After rebooting the computer automatically, I got the DSL to work. Now I'm doing all this in my laptop since his machine is getting loaded with XP. After setting up the DSL, I go thru Add/Remove Programs & Program Files to delete all the ATT & Yahoo folders. After rebooting the computer, I get the screen that basically wants me to load the CD again as Yahoo will try to setup my connection.

What? I thought I got rid of you bastards. First, I check processes running in my machine. Hmmm...nothing. Then I check Startup Items & lo and behold there is one. It's called RecoverFromReboot.exe and that creep is in

C:\WINDOWS\Temp

So, I delete it from the Temp file, reboot the computer & picture perfect. So, why it made me so upset? Cuz

I should be able to setup the DSL without running the CD first
I don't need, want or care for Yahoo Installer
When I removed the program from my machine, it means I want it gone. So, all the programs associated with it should be gone too.
I wasted 10/15 minutes of my time trying to remove the craps from my computer
I also wasted 20 minutes with an ATT rep for a freaking password since for some mysterious reason that was never given but we are suppose to know it.

Well, enough ranting. Here's a great commentary

Ryan Seacrest's He..he or Ha...Ha

Driving back from Delano early in the morning, I was getting bored listening to Radiohead's "In Rainbows" & Manny was passed out, asleep. Soon I started fiddling the stereo trying to find NPR. The closest I came was some station playing classical music. Hmmm...not bad. Early in the morning, kinda relaxing and I do enjoy listening to Mozart, Chopin every now & then. Soon Manny slightly raises his head,

"What the hell? Play something else"

Ughhh...I didn't say anything. I kept driving while looking for something else to listen to. That's when I came across Ryan Seacrest's 102.7 KIISFM. I think partly it was all the loud talking of 2 guys & a girl that caught my attention. Ryan Seacrest brought up something about when a guy send a SMS if he should write he...he.. or ha...ha? Which one is more manly & what not? Soon others started getting on the air voicing their opinion. I remember one girl mentioned something like if a guy ever send her a SMS with he...he, that's a big turn off & what not. I couldn't believe myself what I was listening to. With their long ass commercial breaks I could only handle it for 20 minutes or so until I simply turned the radio off.

Do we not have anything better to discuss than worry about if I should send a he...he or ha...ha txt? There's two problem here. One, I think most of us are becoming more & more opinionated. We want to express our opinions on everything, it doesn't matter if the person knows much about the subject or not. What matters, I express myself. Second, we would rather spend time on something mundane than focusing on real issues; address, discuss things that deserves some attention. I think we should have a National Silent Days (yes, I said days instead of day). It should be for at least two consecutive days where all the radio & TV stations will turn off. Similar to Nickeldeon's "Day of Play" with the exception that all of us will also keep quite, think and simply listen to others rather than expressing ourself.

So, why two days? Well, I figure day one probably won't affect us all or we won't realize the whole scope of it. But by day two, we should appreciate the benefit of keeping quite & just listening to others.

Few days later, along the same line I was thinking what can we do better than listen to Ryan Seacrest or worry about if a txt should contain he...he or ha...ha? I put together 10 suggestions in 5 categories & please feel free to make your own suggestions as well. I am listening =)

1. Own Physical Progress:
a. Take a walk around the neighborhood & at least go for a 4 miles or more walk
b. Instead of driving to Taco Bell, cook something at home. Emphasis lots of vegetables & fish

2. Own Emotional Progress:
a. Check out a book from the public library, something like "How the Mind Works" by Steven Pinker
b. Not so much into reading, worry not. Listen to podcast or audiobooks instead. My personal favorite LibriVox [dot] org. Here's the audiobook of "The Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin.

3. For your neighbor or friend:
a. Really good at making that Banana Cream Pie?! How about give one to your neighbor. Who knows maybe the old lady will keep an eye on your house next time you leave for a vacation
b. Going to watch "American Gangster" with your friend or just going out drinking. Pick up his/her tab

4. For the environment:
a. Watch either An Inconvenient Truth or The 11th Hour
b. Ride your bike or the bus to work instead of driving or simply carpool with other co-workers

5. For the poor:
a. Go through your closet, separate all the clothes you're never going to wear & drop them off at a Planet Aid box
b. Buy some can food & donate them to the Salvation Army. Do this one either with your child or your niece & nephew.

Enough telling everyone what to do. Here's something I thought was funny from Ed Kerbs Photography.

IT Freelancing

Thanks to both Craigslist, myspace & Dice, I've been doing a lot of freelance work. I usually try to target small companies that can't afford a full-time IT staff, but needs someone to setup all their computers, shared drives, user accounts, do maintenance & troubleshooting from time to time, and such & such. It's a great experience as I get to meet with individuals, get to learn about their business & sometimes consult them on the kind of PC or software they should invest on. My first priority is to make sure the client has a reliable system that won't break all the time. It should be also affordable. It's better to spend few extra hundred dollars on a Dell Latitude over Inspiron. I'm also a big supporter of open source. I always advice people to try Open Office over Microsoft Office, Thunderbird over Outlook, Avira AntiVir over Symantec Norton, or Ubuntu over Xp, and definitely not Vista. Most people give me a blank look the first time I mention Open Source and that's when I take out my laptop & give a little demo of the things they would normally do on a proprietary software.

When working as a freelance I meet many different kinds of people with all kinds of unimaginable businesses. Like the time, I met a woman who called me around 12.30 in the morning to invite me to play tennis with her at UCLA next day. Excuse me, did I miss something here...??!! I never even talked about tennis with her before, ever.

I always try to get as much information possible from the clients before going over & working on something. This gives me the opportunity to prepare myself whether if I need to carry any extra hardwire or software with me. Alas, that doesn't happen all the time. No matter how much I ask about their particular problem, you can always expect something to creep up on you. For instance, the time someone asked me to help with her laptop. I showed up to not only her laptop, but her boyfriends desktop in the next office & the wireless internet as well. Now there's no wire running to his office but he wants to go online. I get on the phone with his boyfriend & tell him the alternative to running wire would be an USB Wireless adapter. Next question:

"Well, do you have it with you? How much is that gonna cost?"

"I don't have one on me, but you can get one at Office Depot..."

Well, isn't that a waste of my money. What's the point of you coming out & you can't fix the problem?..."

I respond angrily, "Most techs don't carry this kind of stuff with them unless you had mentioned beforehand. Beside, I was called to work on laptop with virus issues."

Right then his girlfriend takes the phone from me & talks to him.

Yet, at the end of the appointment just smile at them, give 'em a business card and ask for future appointments & referral to their friends. Chao.

Well, enough of freelance junk. Here's a cool video I came across recently. He's got few other nice videos on YouTube. Check 'em out.

Jesus Loves You - Part 2

Lately, I've been listening to the Kean's "Under the Iron Sea." I love the album, especially Hamburg Song & Try Again are two of my favorites in it. I had a chance to see them last year at a festival in Lawrence. It was a great show. We got free tickets to the show & Keane did an amazing performance. Loved it.

Beside listening to Keane, I was a little surprised to find people here in LA are more religious & waving their bible than people in Kansas or even Oklahoma, Texas, Iowa or even Missouri. It's not unusual to see someone handing out church pamphlets at the bus stop, in front of a coffee shop, or someone signing some church song out loud in the bus. On one occasion I was reading Victor J. Stenger's "God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows that God Does Not Exists" at a park. When out of nowhere this older lady came up to me. She saw the big bold word God printed on the cover & exclaimed that I'm reading a book about God.

"Yeah, it's actually a different kind of book. It examines the existence of God." I told her as I tried to continue my reading.

"Oh, you don't believe in God? You know when you die, you will burn in hell forever unless you accept Jesus as your savior. " As she puts her hand on mine sitting next to me.

At this point I look at her angrily & tell her, I'm not interested. She doesn't care about that, she shuts her eyes as she starts telling me her memorized lines about accepting Jesus. By now, I began to get really upset. I move my hand from her grip. She stops & opens her eyes to see what's going on.

"Listen, I'm not interested at all. I don't care either. I just want to go back to my reading if you would excuse me now."

She gets up to leave. Before leaving she tries to hand me a pamphlet. I just ignore her going back to my reading.