UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

Today’s blog topic will cover one REALLY long topic, so expect it to be split up into at least two parts.

Blog-related quick-hitters:

- As a fan of The Office, I am appalled at myself for the fact that I have yet to watch last Thursday’s episode!

I am ashamed of myself, and I don’t even have a good reason for not watching it yet! Well, unless you consider Spurs-Hornets, Korean BBQ, Olive Garden, Mother’s Day Weekend, etc., to be “good” reasons.

(Office fans may start booing me.)

- For a similar reason, I did not watch Game 3 of Lakers-Jazz. I was 99% sure that the Lakers were going to lose that game, not that that is a good reason to skip it, right?

(Laker fans may start booing me.)

Non-blog-related quick-hitters:

- File this under the fall-out-of-your-chair-laughing department:

So my sister (the one that doesn’t have karmic powers) visited us on Friday, and after settling in, she asked if she could grab some MP3s off my computer and upload them onto her iPod. I said sure, and went to go look for the USB cable.

After a few minutes, I couldn’t find it, but my sister spotted the wall charger…except that it didn’t register with her that she was using the wall charger. This conversation (slightly exaggerated) followed:

Me: You know you’re plugging your iPod into the wall charger, right?

Her: (blankly) OK. Is that not going to work?

Me: Not unless the data can transfer from the computer’s power supply, through the surge protector, and through the charger!

Eventually, she blamed lack of sleep and hyperglycemia—she bought an iced coffee from McDonald’s that was supposed to be sugar free vanilla, but was not—for the mistake. Uh-huh.

- Current rebate-o-meter: $1,350. I better start spending some money; I gotta do my part to stimulate the economy!

(Tangent: I won’t be getting a stimulus check until mid-June! Booooooooooo.)

Current toothpaste-o-meter: a whole hell of a lot. Same with deodorant. I’m going to start selling this stuff to my neighbors real soon.

I better move on before I get too inundated with material. On with the topic at hand!

- A few months back, Staples had a great deal on the Sony LocationFree Base Station LF-B10 (think “SlingBox Lite”). I bought one as soon as it was for sale, thinking that I was going to hook up the device to my own cable box and use it whenever I was out of town.

It took me a day or so to realize how dumb of an idea this was. The only times I’m out of town are when I go to Monterey Park, or the much less frequent trips up to Sacto. If I’m in Monterey Park, there are three TVs to choose from that all have cable boxes. If I’m in Sacto, I’ll need a high speed connection to use the LF-B10 anyway.

I then decided that I would hook up the LF-B10 to my sister’s cable box. That’s when I discovered that the LF-B10 had an Ethernet port, making use of the device pretty complicated; I’d have to run about 50′ of Ethernet cable from my home router to the LF-B10. Compounding the problem was the fact that her TV is used frequently.

(Background: The LF-B10 works by connecting directly to your cable box via a composite cable. From a remote computer, you can log in to the LF-B10 and view the device’s live video stream, and you can even change the channel on the cable box using the included IR adapter that affixes to the front of the cable box. Of course, if somebody should change the channel on the cable box while you’re accessing it remotely, you’re stuck watching what they switch to, unless you cruelly change the channel back :P).

So I determined that installing the LF-B10 on my sister’s cable box was a terrible idea, due to all the “traffic.” That’s when I decided to hook it up to my mom’s cable box, which is HARDLY used.

(She has a $1,000—at the time of purchase—Samsung LCD HDTV that she hardly uses, either, in the sense that 99% of her TV-watching is of SD broadcasts or DVDs. Sad, huh?)

Unfortunately, it would have taken a lot of Ethernet cabling to hook up the LF-B10 to the home router. That’s when I got the great idea to purchase an Ethernet to wireless adapter. The idea was quickly sunk, though, until I heard of the Fonera.

Now, I knew that DD-WRT capable routers could be used as wireless bridges (Ethernet to wireless adapters), but I wasn’t going to fork up ~ $50 for a Linksys WRT54G/GS/GL just for this ability. $15 and a bit (or so I thought) of elbow grease for the same functionality? Why not?

If only it were that simple…

(Part 2 to come later!)

Tags: Blog, Technology by Peter
5 Comments »

No quick-hitters tonight.

- I got myself a new toy today: a Logitech VX Revolution notebook mouse. My old Microsoft Blue Optical Mouse was getting completely worn out; the sides of the mouse, the three feet that were still stuck on the bottom, and the textured scroll wheel had all seen better days.

I may post a full review of this item later down the line, but for now, here are my quick thoughts on the mouse:

1) The mouse has two scroll wheel (dubbed “MicroGear Precision Scroll Wheel”) options: precision (click-to-click scrolling, which we’re all familiar with), and a free-spin mode, where the wheel will spin continuously for a few seconds with one quick flick of the wheel. The latter is great for scrolling through several pages of a document, but so far, I see no personal use for it.

2) I love the rubberized feel of Logitech mice, and this is no exception. The stow-away receiver is nice, too, though the button used to eject the receiver out of the bottom of the mouse has, at least one, launched the receiver like a cannonball being shot out of a cannon.

3) This is the first notebook mouse I’ve ever used that uses AA batteries (1xAA). It’s also the first notebook mouse I’ve used that has the back/forward buttons.

4) As with every other notebook mouse I’ve ever used…the mouse is just too small for my hands! After about an hour of use today, my right hand started cramping up. I should probably just start using a desktop mouse with my laptop.

- Naturally, one would except the episode immediately following a season premiere to be a let down from the prior week. Since I treated last week’s Office episode as a premiere, I didn’t expect much out of tonight’s episode.

The episode was fairly funny in bits and pieces, but overall, I was right not to expect much from tonight.

(I expect to read a bunch of dissenting opinions on other blogs tonight.)

Personally, I thought the writers should have given more time to the “date” between Michael and Pam’s landlady, as well as the parking lot situation with Kevin and Andy. Michael’s jerk-dom was also pretty over-the-top in the episode, especially with the way he acted in front of the landlady (though I did chuckle at his reaction to seeing her for the first time).

Breaking news! Michael’s single! Where’s Jan staying? Ooooh…I hope she hooks up with Hunter! That would make for an awesome storyline! Also, did anyone notice that the chair model looked a hell of lot like Jan, and Michael’s description of what the model might be like describes Jan to a T? Anyone wanna bet on the over/under on the number of weeks it will take for Michael to get back with Jan? I say three weeks, and I’ll take the under.

Poor Kevin! Oh well…in the immortal words of Michael Scott, “You don’t deserve her.” LOL. Also, I didn’t realize that there were so many ways to ask whether or not someone is fat. I’m surprised Michael didn’t ask if Phyllis’ friend looked more like Pam or Phyllis :P.

Great investigate work by Dwight, by the way. Why the two of them have to go and butcher “American Pie,” though, is anyone’s guess.

The whole scene with Jim joking about a marriage proposal, followed by the talking head where he shows the ring, I thought, was puzzling. Did Jim really want Pam to move in with him ASAP? I thought Jim was joking when he initially said that a proposal was “happening,” and, of course, we found out that this was not the case. He bought the ring a week after they started dating??? I guess that this was the writers’ way to play off Jim’s dorkiness, but I thought the whole scene was awkward. Joking about marriage after what Pam went through with Roy? The fake-proposal scene was fairly unfunny as well, though I love how my sister fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.

(Upon further review, I think the first Jim/Pam scene would have been a heck of a lot better if we were able to see Jim and Pam’s faces during the entire conversation.)

Favorite moments:

• Kevin: “I will quit. As God is my witness, I will quit if this is not fixed.”
• Pam: “I definitely remember your dinner party.”
• Michael: “Hello, Oscar Meyer Wiener…lover,” followed by Michael’s request to look for “liberal girl-type friends who trust [him]” Real subtle there, Michael.
• Michael: “I want to play ball with my kids before I get too old, and before that happens, I need to get laid.” That entire diatribe might have been the highlight of the episode, up until the ultimatum at the end.
• Michael again: “Wish I could, but I can’t. Well, can, but won’t. Should, maybe, but shorn’t (sp?)” At least he’s being honest!
• Jim: “Michael, you didn’t even know her,” followed by Pam shaking her head at him.
• Michael, once again, looking at the date cards: “Wendy…a juicy red-head.” I totally missed that joke the first time around!
• Michael: “You wanna see what I walked out on? This is going to blow your mind…and you can’t see her whole body (pointing)…she had a boob job…” followed by Jan saying “Michael?” Haha!
• Michael: “What do you do?” Dwight: “Wait ’till next year’s chair catalog comes out and find someone that’s still alive.”

Until next time!

Tags: Deals, Technology, The Office by Peter
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So I just got around to updating WordPress to version 2.5. Let’s hope I didn’t foul things up.

(I agree with Krunk…there needs to be an easier way to update WP. It didn’t help that WSFTP kept throwing up left and right. I had to create folders remotely first, before I could upload the new WP files. And don’t tell me that there is a setting in WSFTP that allows a user to transfer non-empty folders; I am fully aware of that, and never had a problem with the transfer of non-empty folders until today.)

Anyway…

Quick-hitters:

- Oh no! Between my sister and me, we have over $30 in ECBs expiring on the 17th, and there is absolutely nothing worth buying t his week or next! What to do???

- Somebody help me. I have Hunter’s song (from The Office) stuck in my head!

You took me by the hand

Made me a man

That one night

You made everything alright!

Argh!

Again, a one topic blog!

- So I’ve been a Vonage customer for about eight months now, and how can I put this nicely? The service stinks!

Well, at least I figured the service was garbage. I was able to make outgoing calls at a 20% success rate—one in five!—and incoming calls were a crapshoot at best (so much so that I started forwarding calls from my Vonage line to my cell phone.) I figured the problem had to lie either with Vonage, or perhaps Time Warner was messing up my phone connection. All I knew was that I was paying $24.99, and then $14.99, a month for a virtually useless phone line.

(Remember: I had a one year commitment, which was necessary to claim the $300 Circuit City card, as well as the $175 rebate on the Linksys PAP2 Phone Adapter.)

Recently, the Vonage line got so bad that I would get nothing but a busy signal, no matter what number I called. I decided that enough was enough, and began troubleshooting. I logged in to my Vonage account, and under Features…Bandwidth Saver, I lowered the sound quality to the lowest setting. That didn’t seem to do a damn thing.

I decided to log in to the PAP2 to see if there was some setting that I could fiddle with to fix things. I had to log in to my WRT54G router to pull the PAP2’s IP, and that’s when I decided that I would assign a static IP to the PAP2.

(Tangent: For some reason, I’ve never had luck with port forwarding and DHCP. For example, my secondary computer would always pull an IP of 192.168.1.110, but uTorrent would often report that the ports I left open for that computer were not so. it was only when I manually assigned the IP of 192.168.1.110 did port forwarding work properly.)

I logged in to the router, and saw only a couple of pages, one of which was asking for WAN info. Thinking that it wanted my IP info, I didn’t bother with that page, and looked through the other pages for anything to tweak. I found nothing, and that’s when I decided to read the manual (!!!).

(Manuals? What do we do with manuals? We throw them out the window! After all, I have techno-joy! ;-).)

I found that the DHCP could be disabled via the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) menu, which could be accessed by dialing **** on a phone connected to the PAP2. I dialed ****, entered the command to disable DHCP, and heard a broken “Invalid Command.” I tried again, and got the same broken message.

I hung up the phone, and noticed the “Phone 1″ light on my PAP2 shut off. I turned the phone back on, and heard something along the lines of “This line is not set up for Vonage use.” ARGH!

I accessed the IVR again, checked the status of DHCP, and found that it was, indeed, disabled. OK…I then proceeded to manually enter the IP, subnet mask, and gateway. I hung up the phone, picked it back up, and heard another error message: something along the lines of “Your adapter cannot register with Vonage’s services”.

It turned out that the PAP2’s IVR was about as good as most companies’ IVRs; in other words, they all stink. Too bad I couldn’t scream “OH MY F***** G*D” at the PAP2 :P. It took me seven or eight tries to correctly input all my information.

While browsing through the manual, I figured out that I wasn’t forwarding my ports correctly. Apparently, there are four port ranges that need to be forwarded: More importantly, I was supposed to use UDP and not TCP:

Set up port forwarding on your router. You must specify that four port ranges be forwarded to the IP address of the Phone Adapter. These four port ranges are as follows: 5060-5061 (UDP), 53-53 (UDP), 69-69 (UDP), and 10000-20000 (UDP).

After forwarding all ranges to the new IP of the PAP2, and changing the protocol to UDP, I picked up my phone, and immediately heard a dial tone! I placed a call—FYI, I had been using WaMu’s customer service # as a test call throughout—and immediately heard the WaMu recording! Finally!

The moral of the story? Don’t throw your manuals out of the window…unless you can find PDF copies :P. Let’s just hope that the service continues to work well.

Until next time!

Tags: Blog, Cust. Service, Technology by Peter
4 Comments »

Short blog entry today…here goes!

Quick-hitters:

- I put up my sister’s old laptop on Craigslist a few hours ago.

Anyone wanna bet on the over/under for the number of 419 scams I get between today and the end of the week?

I’ll set the O/U at 5.5, and I’ll gladly take the over.

- Current rebate-o-meter:  ~ $1550, including the $38 I’m still being scammed out of by XGBox/MGE.

Why I still count those rebates as pending, when it’s obvious that they are scamming me, is beyond me.

- I am happy to announce that I am no longer a Woot! virgin!

Over the weekend, I placed my first ever order at Woot.com, if you can believe that.  I picked up a Soyo Bluetooth headset + Bluetooth adapter for $15 shipped.  My sister needed a BT headset anyway—her Motorola HS820 is still acting up—and I always wanted a Bluetooth adapter.

- The UngsungBlog hit a pair of milestones recently!

My blog entry on March 20 was my 250th entry ever!  W00t!

Also, yesterday, Akismet caught its 1,000th spammy comment!  One thousand spam comments?  Does this mean my blog has finally “made it”?

Coincidentally, yesterday was the exact day that my 1&1 hosting account was renewed.  Let’s go for 3,000 spammy comments by this time next year!

- I made a huge batch of tuna fish salad today (the recipe can be found here), and it took a higher power to keep me from plowing through an entire box of Wheat Thins with the salad.

(And yes, Hank, I threw chopped Roma tomatoes in to the salad, and it was awesome.)

If I weren’t already stuffed, I would make myself a tuna salad sandwich with a third slice of bread.  I think I’ll just enjoy my chilled bottle of Mexicoke instead.

(A tuna salad melt sounds awfully good, though!)

- While watching the Lakers-Warriors game (gee, Lakers, that was an awesome last 90 seconds of regulation!), I determined that high definition TV is just not that enjoyable on a 32″ TV.

Methinks I need a bigger TV.  Where the hell is that damn IRS rebate?

(I might be the only person I know that might actually plan on spending that rebate check; everyone I’ve asked so far plans on depositing the rebate check in his bank account, or using it to pay off credit card bills.)

I’d love to get a 42″ LCD HDTV, but 37″ is probably all I can afford right now.  I’m wondering…is the 5″ increase really worth spending more money on?  I still have a $300 Circuit City GC burning a hole in my pocket, and I’d like to spend it sometime soon.  Maybe I should just pick up a cheap 37″ LCD (Olevia?) the next time one goes on sale there.

Then again, with March Madness ending soon, I’ll only have the NBA Finals to look forward to in HD.  And when the hell is The Office coming back?

Until next time!

Tags: Blog, Deals, Food, Technology by Peter
5 Comments »

I was supposed to post this last night, but I “misremembered”

(Misremembered is now my new favorite word in the English language, replacing “Traveshamockery.”)

Quick-hitters:

- Current rebate-o-meter: $1,500 and rising, once I get my hands on the President’s Day ads.

Current injury-o-meter: three (sore shoulder, sore knee, sore right pinky). The shoulder is really bothering me; I haven’t been able to move around pain-free in the shoulder for more than a few minutes at a time.

And yes, I’m popping Tylenol like Tic-Tacs.

(Tangent: I’m dangerously close to running out of Tylenol. If I run out, I may seriously consider taking some Advil Cold and Sinus I got from CVS [free, naturally] just because it has Ibuprofen in it. Loyal readers: have you ever taken a multipurpose pill just for the relief that a single medicine in the pill may provide?)

- About a month ago, my sister decided to switch cell phone carriers, from Verizon to Sprint.  I signed her up for a Sprint SERO (employee) plan:  1250 min/mo for $49.99, and she opted to get a Palm Treo 755p.  Sweet phone, although I hate the fact that you cannot multitask on a Palm OS powered phone.

(I know, I know…it’s my sister’s new phone, so why am I calling it my new toy?  Probably because I’ve been playing with it while my sister has been waiting for her Verizon contract to elapse.)

My sister’s purchase of the Treo also meant that she no longer had any use for her PDA:  a Dell Axim X51.

(One might argue that she had no use for the PDA to begin with, but I digress.)

She told me to keep it or sell it, and although I have zero use for a PDA myself, I have kept it.  I can see why Dell got out of the PDA making business; the PDA drains the battery like nobody’s business, and the PDA lags even with just a single program running.  It’s like the equivalent of running Windows Vista on a computer with 512MB of RAM.

I’ll probably sell it soon, but in the meantime, anyone have any suggestions for cool apps to install on the Axim?

- Last week, I returned to MPK twice!  The prospects of tons of free food will cause me to do that.  Allow me to summarize:

I was home on Tu-W for Chinese New Year.  Each parent did their own prayer (my mom first) on a separate day, meaning double the food for me!  On Tuesday, while burning money and stuff, my genius sister threw a huge stack of paper on top of the fire.  A large piece burned off the stack, and went floating right towards me.  If not for my cat-like reflexes, I probably would have been burned in the face.

The near-death experience was worth it, though, for the banana-leaf-wrapped rice stuff my aunt made for us to take home, as well as the roast chicken, stew, steamed buns (filled with pork, egg, Chinese sausage, and shrimp), and a “cake” made out of turnip, dried shrimp, peanuts, and flour.  Good stuff.

We were summoned back to MPK this past weekend, because my aunt wanted to go to Manna Korean BBQ for her birthday.  Never one to pass up free food, we met up with the rest of the family on Saturday afternoon for lunch.  I finally met my cousin’s girlfriend awake (:P), and, as is the norm for Korean BBQ restaurants, I stuffed my face full of BBQ beef and short ribs.  After lunch, we went to my cousin’s house and Wii-ed all day.   I think that’s how I hurt my shoulder.

On Sunday, my aunt came by to make more steamed buns.  Midway through cooking the second batch of buns, I heard a loud POP eminate from my stovetop.  I went over and immediately noticed that my parents’ electric stove turned off.  I went to their circuit breaker, turned off the stove, and turned it back on a couple of minutes later.  I noticed that the lights flickered, and another loud POP came from the stove.

(I was told that, on Monday morning, the landlord turned off/on the circuit breaker switch again—apparently, my testimony was not trustworthy—and declared the stove dead after it popped again.)

I was under the impression that most of the steamed buns were made for my oldest sister to take to work.  That was not the case; my mom told me to take half of the batch home.  We were talking about fifteen buns or so!

Then again, was I going to pass up free food?  Yeah, right.

I think I need to go on a serious diet.

- Finally, how hilarious is it that the Jason Kidd to Dallas trade is being blocked by one Devean George???

(You Laker fans remember Devean George, right?  He was the “fifth Beatle” on the 03-04 team that got destroyed by Detroit in the NBA Finals that year.)

The proposed deal, where

New Jersey would have sent Kidd and forward Malik Allen to Dallas for Harris, veteran swingman Jerry Stackhouse, center DeSagana Diop, guard Maurice Ager, George, two future first-round draft picks and the maximum allowable cash inducement of $3 million,

the deal is being held up because Devean George may be losing out on a ton of money in the following off-season.  George has what are known as “Early Bird Rights,” simply meaning the Mavericks could go over the salary cap to re-sign him next year; he’s a free agent at the end of the season.  Of course, this assumes that the Mavs would consider giving George a long-term, big-money deal.  And if he puts up any more 0-for-11, 0 pt performances like he did on Wednesday, he might want to consider going under Witness Protection.

How pissed off must Mavs fans be right now?  The one guy keeping them from Jason Kidd is a guy averaging 3 ppg, and shot a pathetic 0-for-11 the day after exercising his right to reject any trade proposal!  After that game, how did George NOT catch the first flight out of town, headed for New Jersey?  Hey George, if you’re going to block a blockbuster trade, you might not want to put up and 0-fer the following night!

The funny thing is, George might actually be doing the Mavs a favor!  How is replacing incumbent PG Devin Harris with Jason Kidd going to make the Mavs championship material?  Last I checked, Kidd is 35, and he can’t shoot.  Is his defense really going to be the difference between an early playoff exit and a ring?  And don’t give me the “Kidd’s a triple-double machine” argument.  How many strong rebounders has Kidd played with in his career?  When you’re playing alongside pivot men like Jason Collins, you’re going to get a few more boards/game than you would normally expect.

In any case, Devean George might want to start looking for an apartment in a city other than Dallas.  He’s gonna need it, real soon.

Tags: Food, Sports, Technology by Peter
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Quick-hitters, a non-sports variety:

- File this under the “moms-will-be-moms” category: a while back, I overheard my sister saying that my mom couldn’t go on a trip anywhere for an entire year. Knowing of my mom’s various ailments, I began worrying: did she need some medical procedure soon?

So you could imagine my horror (and eventual frustration) when I found out that she couldn’t take a trip this year because her fortune teller/purveyor of woo-woo told her not to.

Grrrrrrrrr.

- Current rebate-o-meter: $1,700 and rising, and that factors in the $70 in rebates I got this past week.

- Twice this week, I have completely drained a set of AAA batteries in my LED flashlight because I left the damn thing on overnight! Thank goodness Costco now sells Kirkland Signature AAA batteries (thanks Krunk for the info). For the record, this is the flashlight I own.

And no, please don’t suggest that I buy one of those flashlights that work by shaking the flashlight first.

Now, some quick-hitters from the sports world:

- The whole Brian McNamee-Roger Clemens saga has been nothing short of an incredible side show. First, there was the steroids versus B-12/lidocaine debate, followed by the taped phone call between the two, and now there’s a report that McNamee injected Clemens’ wife with HGH??? I didn’t even mention the fact that McNamee allegedly kept evidence of Clemens’ ‘roid use since 2000, in the form ofneedles and photographs of bloody gauzes! Seriously, what’s next? A fuzzy video of the injections themselves?

By the way, tell me that Clemens’ lawyer, Rusty Hardin, did not just compare Clemens’ situation with the Duke rape case. A disgraced DA ruining the lives of three college students by blowing up a flimsy rape accusation is the same thing as an ex-trainer injecting a guy with steroids? Sure it is. And I don’t remember the three Duke students secretly recording a conversation with the alleged victim, with the victim constantly asking “What do you want me to do?”

(OK, the latter point was an obvious reach. But if this entire situation doesn’t scream “three ring circus,” nothing will.)

- One point I missed about the Shaq to Phoenix deal, as mentioned by a reader of a sports web site (where I read the comment from, I don’t remember at this moment):

(paraphrasing) Now that Shaq has been traded to Phoenix, does he have to return to Miami when Miami and Atlanta face each other in March to finish up that game?

(You may recall that the NBA ordered the Hawks and the Heat to replay the final minute or so of a game where Shaq was incorrectly disqualified after picking up a foul late in the fourth quarter. I mentioned this exact possibility in an earlier blog entry.

I’d love to see David Stern force Shaq to suit up with Miami for that one-minute replay, while forcing Miami to bench Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks.)

- Was it just me, or did I hear Jay Bilas give love to UCLA, calling them the best team in the nation? Granted, he added a “when healthy” disclaimer, but I’m sure the Bruins would take the love any way they can get it.

I can’t wait for the NCAA Tournament.

- About a week ago, my sister’s iPod mini decided to stop working; the hard drive decided to go click-click-click.  I knew that it was possible to open up the iPod to replace the battery, and I was aware that iPod minis use a Microdrive (basically, a hard-disk based CompactFlash card) as its storage device.  After doing a bit of research, I found out that one could replace the Microdrive with a flash-based CF card.  This serves two purposes:  1) you could replace the Microdrive with a CF card and turn your iPod mini into a flash-based MP3 player, and 2) a CF card probably uses less energy than a Microdrive, thereby increasing battery life.

Armed with a Kingston Elite 4GB CF card, a generic iPod mini battery pack I got off eBay—I figured, if I was going to replace the Microdrive, why not replace the battery (which was giving me ~2 hours of play on a full charge) as well?—a pair of tiny screwdrivers, a blade, and these instructions, I went to work on the iPod’s casing.  I found that using a tiny flat-head screwdriver was not a good idea; I scratched up the top of the iPod really good.  That’s when I made the switch to my trusty blade, which made the removal of the top and bottom much easier.

After gutting the iPod and removing the motherboard from the casing—be careful when removing the ribbon cable that connects to the wheel—I was able to remove the battery fairly easily.  The Microdrive was a bit harder to remove, only because the black electrical tape and rubber feet around the sides of the drive were hard to remove.  Once I got all the stuff off, removing the Microdrive was easy.  I couldn’t properly attach the tape + rubber feet on to the replacement CF card, but the drive was sitting snug on top of the motherboard, and I thought nothing of it (besides, with no moving parts, the flash drive should be a bit more tolerant to movement, right?).

It took a firm shove to get the motherboard/battery/drive back into the casing, and I slightly damaged the rubber ring that protects the perimeter of the screen from the inside of the case.  I had to remove the innards again, delicately readjust the rubber ring, and more deliberately slid everything back in to the casing, but everything eventually went in just fine.  The metal clip, described in step 4 of the instructions, was an absolute PITA to get back in, though.  I had to force the metal clip back in, and it’s a darn good thing I didn’t ruin the ribbon cable!

Once everything was put back together, I crossed my fingers, connected the iPod to my computer, and was very happy to see the “Do Not Disconnect” message on the screen!  I had to “restore” the iPod via iTunes before use, but once that was done, I was able to start loading MP3s onto the iPod.  After fully charging the new battery, I ran a simple battery test; I left the iPod to play music nonstop, and got about four hours of play before the battery died.

A couple other notes of the newly “refurbished” iPod mini:

1) When removing the plastic top and bottom, try not to handle each piece too much.  I made the mistake of doing so—remember, I had a hard time with the metal clip that attaches to the bottom—and now, the plastic ends barely stick on to the top and bottom of the iPod.  I may try to apply some glue to each cap later on, but since the iPod spends most of its time in a leather case, I might not bother.

2) Every time I connect the iPod to my computer, I get an error message from iTunes, saying that it cannot read the iPod.  iTunes then asks me to restore the iPod again.  This isn’t that big of a deal for me, though, since I use WinAmp to transfer my MP3s to the iPod.  One of these days, I might try to figure out what is causing this problem.

Tags: Deals, Sports, Technology by Peter
4 Comments »

Quick-hitters:

- To all the loyal readers of the UngsungBlog, this is what I have to say to you:

We’re BROTHERS…’till the end of time!

Now excuse me while I go shoot myself in the face.

- I still have yet to play Super Mario Galaxy. It’s like I’m saving it for a special occasion or something.

- All these rants I’ve been doing lately documenting my horrible experiences with rebate processors have caused me yet another headache: tons of Google ads for work-at-home rebate processor positions

(Yeah, I know…why don’t I just Adblock Google Ads?)

Speaking of rebates…

- I’ve got an update on my ZoneAlarm rebates fiasco. I got this email from MyRebateOnline.com on Tuesday, the day after faxing in my rebate submissions to Fry’s:

Thank you for participating in the MyRebateOnline program.

Our records show that your rebate submission has been approved and your payment will be issued at the end of the pending period for the following product(s).

4000069-Buy ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 3-User Pack at Fry’s Electronics or Frys.com get $40 Check

Your rebate will be invalidated if you return your product(s) during the remaining return period.

After the return period expires, your payment will be released and processed. Please allow an additional 2-3 weeks to receive your payment.

So far so good, but no mention of the other rebate in question.

Fry’s.com emailed me shortly thereafter:

Hello Peter, we have received your faxed rebate submissions. Please
allow up to 78 hours in order to hear anything back from Fry’s.com in
regards to this rebate inquiry. Please let me know if you have any
further questions. Thank you!

Ok…

Earlier today, this email hit my inbox:

Hello Peter, in regards to your ZoneAlarm rebate in the amount of $40.00
we have since gotten in contact with the rebate manufacturer in regards
to your denial. They have stated that your rebate had been validated and
you were expected to receive your rebate by the end of February. In
regards to your other ZoneAlarm rebate in the same amount. They have
stated that the promotion has been closed with this offer and that you
were no longer able to resubmit. We will go ahead and give all of your
copies to our corporate office in regards to this rebate and they will
be issuing you a check. Please allow up to 1 month in order to receive
this check. If you have any further questions please feel free to
contact us. Thank you.

Sweet! We’ll see, though, if I actually see both checks.

- Unfortunately, these ZoneAlarm rebates aren’t the only rebates I have to fight tooth-and-nail for (yes, this is what we “rebate monkeys” have to deal with):

• AllRebates.com is currently giving me a hard time on a $25 rebate with the purchase of a Kaspersky software title. I have faxed in my resubmission twice now (as instructed by their customer service), and they have yet to validate my rebate.
• I’m still waiting on 2 $19 rebates for a supposedly FAR CPU heatsink/fan from back in May. I’ve emailed these clowns several times, and have heard nothing but “please allow x weeks for processing.” The latest reply, which came on 12/17, said to allow an extra month for processing. I’m about ready to go down the state AG/BBB route.
• I bought an American Telecom phone back in October, and have yet to get an update on the status of that rebate. I have now sent two emails to their rebate processor, and have yet to hear back from them.
• Finally, I got email notification of 2 $40 rebates submitted through CompUSA’s eRebates that were issued to me today. To my horror, I noticed that the email notification said that I would be receiving a pair of rebate debit cards, not checks. I know for a fact that I opted for checks, and yet they’re going to go ahead and give me stupid debit cards instead. Argh!

(It seems I’m not the only one that is getting a headache from CompUSA.)

That’s what I get for playing the rebate game.

- Krunk recently alerted me to (what appears to be) a huge increase in the number of “auto-post” blogs lately (basically, these scammy blogs either rip material from other blogs, or quote entire blog entries). That same night, I got five separate requests from Wordpress to moderate comments; turns out, all these “comments” were just trackbacks from these scammy blogs.

Over the last three days, Wordpress has asked me to moderate nearly twenty (!!!) such comments, and there’s no telling how many Akismet caught and didn’t notify me of. It’ll be damn funny, though, to see this post ripped by a number of scammy blogs later tonight.

That’s all I’ve got for now.

Tags: Blog, Cust. Service, Technology by Peter
11 Comments »

Brrrrr….

Quick-hitters:

- Current rebate-o-meter: still at $2,600, though at least $300 in checks will be coming to me in the next couple of days.

Unfortunately for me, Christmas shopping isn’t yet complete.

(Tangent: I’m sure my loyal readers have discussed this topic before amongst their circles, but is giving gifts w/missing UPCs ever kosher? Are there situations where it is ever OK to do this?)

- Don’t you hate it when you’re mailing out a bunch of documents—rebates, naturally, in my case—and you are short a single stamp?

Argh!

- It took only a few weeks and several phone calls, but my condo intercom phone number has finally been changed! At least they didn’t take their sweet time to get the job done.

(Or, as my UPS guy put it, they averaged two [phone] digits every week.)

- Super-duper quick Week 13 (Fantasy) Football thoughts:

1) Here, read ESPN’s TMQ for my thoughts on the Pats-Ravens game. Everything he says, I would have said, except he writes about 20,000x better than I do.

2) Fantasy Football update: I’m out of playoff contention in three leagues, and have to win and get help to sneak in in a fourth.

I may have to retire the “(Fantasy)” part of my blog description.

3) It was sad to see the Redskins not win against Buffalo, and it was especially sad to see the reason why: two consecutive time outs in an attempt to ice the kicker. That is illegal under NFL rules, and it results in a fifteen (!!!) yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. The penalty made a possible 51-yard game winning FG attempt a 36-yard attempt, which Buffalo K Rian Lindell nailed to win the game.

Ouch.

- So I suffered a devastating loss today, and I’m pissed off about it!

(dramatic pause)

One of the feet on my beloved Microsoft Blue Optical Mouse fell off!!!!!

(:P)

I’ve had this mouse for years—the feet are incredibly worn out—and unfortunately, I must now find a replacement for it.

Right now, I’m eyeing the Logitech VX Revolution mouse sitting on my desk right now; it’s supposed to be a Christmas gift, but it looks awfully cool…

- A few minutes before I started this blog, I went to MSN Sports’ home page, and I saw a blurb about free agent CF Andruw Jones and the word “Hollywood.” It took a few minutes for me to piece together exactly what those words meant…

THE DODGERS SIGNED ANDRUW JONES??? THE DODGERS SIGNED ANDRUW JONES!!!

Yes, I’m fully aware that Andrew Jones, who signed for two years and a somewhat ridiculous $36.2 million, could very well turn out to be another Jason Schmidt (overpaid and came with injury risks but at least it was a short-term deal) . I realize he hit .222 last season, with a .311 OBP, and hit only 26 HRs and drove in only 94 RBIs. I understand that he had poor plate discipline last year, but consider the following:

1) The Dodgers just signed a 10-time Gold Glove winner coming off the worst season of his career to a very short-term deal. As pointed out by one of my new favorite sites (MLBtraderumors.com):

The salary structure to Jones’ deal is interesting: $9MM in ‘08, $15MM in ‘09, and a $12MM signing bonus. That setup could make Jones much more tradeable if the need arises.

If he completely stinks up the joint next year, who’s to say that we couldn’t trade him to a contender willing to take a chance on him?

(EDIT:  Whoops!  From what I’ve heard, Jones got a no-trade clause added to his contract.)

And, as a myopic Dodger fan, I have to believe that last season was the exception and not the rule, right? j

2) He’s going to roam CF in Dodger Stadium, meaning Colletti could now move Ethier or Kemp in a deal for a front-of-the-rotation starter (Bedard? Haren?). Or, if he could find the right sucker, perhaps he could dump Juan Pierre on somebody!

3) We just signed a Scott Boras client. Clearly any rumors of friction between Ned Colletti and Scott Boras were overblown.

By the way, I cannot believe Boras would agree to a deal that would make Jones 33 years old by the start of his next deal. What if Jones doesn’t age gracefully? Depending on what Jones does in the next two seasons, Boras might have just cost his client a great deal of money. Or, perhaps, maybe he made Jones extra money with this deal; maybe Jones never recovers from last season’s slump.

4) We didn’t pay $90 million for five years of Torii Hunter, or $70 million or so for five years of Aaron Rowand.

If the Dodgers could work a deal for one more bat (Scott Rolen, maybe?) and/or another starter (not necessarily a front-of-the-line guy), I can’t help but be optimistic about next year’s team. Rolen seems to be a good possibility, given his awful relationship with Cards’ manager Tony LaRussa, and especially considering the latest spat between the two. As for the starter, I just hope we don’t decide to overpay for Carlos Silva or Kyle Lohse.
Of course, if Colletti keeps Ethier and Kemp, that means Pierre will eat into the playing time of one of those guys. Why, oh why, did we have to sign Pierre last year? Why couldn’t we have just re-signed Kenny Lofton last season?

Until next time!

Tags: Sports, Technology by Peter
3 Comments »

Sorry, loyal readers (all none of you), but a number of things have kept me away from blogging for the last few days.  Being under the weather doesn’t help.

Quick-hitters:

- I think I have found a drink that is more awesome than Mexicoke.

Mexicoke with a wedge of lime!!!

Methinks I have to go back to Costco to get another case of Mexicoke, and some vials of insulin ;p.

- Current rebate-o-meter:  ~$3200.  And that total comes after receiving about $200 in rebates earlier in the week.

I need help.

- So Kobe Bryant is whining again, eh?  What else is new?  More on that another time

(Maybe.)

- So with the World Series nearly set, here are my quick thoughts about the MLB playoffs to date:

1) Go Rockies!

2) I was giddy for about five days after the Yankees got knocked out of the playoffs.  The Ung-hex lives (more on that later)!

3) Assuming the Indians don’t choke…Cleveland v. Colorado, eh?  I wonder what the Vegas odds on that World Series match up was.

4) Hey Boston!  How’s that [unnamed RFer who formerly played for the Dodgers] working out for you?  Oh, and Julio Lugo too.

5) Should Boston SP Josh Beckett have pitched in Game 4 of the ALCS?  Absolutely.  Why else was he pulled after 80 pitches in Game 1?  Besides, pitching him in Game 4 gives Boston a chance to pitch him in Game 7!

Of course, if Wakefield won Game 4, everybody would have praised Boston manager Terry Francona.

5) Finally, and most importantly, as freaking annoying as Tim McCarver has been, he can’t hold a candle to the sheer number of f**king annoying commercials that Fox has been airing during the playoffs!  Those AT&T commercials (Prague-Chicago-whatever???):  really really stupid.  Those iPhone commercials?  Equally stupid.  Starburst/Snickers commercials?  Absolutely stupid.  And don’t get me started with those “This is ouuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrr country” Chevy commercials.  A few more of those, and I’m going to stab my ears with a screwdriver.  I can’t believe I long for the days of “I’m lovin’ it!”

Yeah, like annoying the holy hell out of me is going to get me to purchase your products.  Actually, I think I get it! Maybe these companies are threatening us with these commercials!  Buy our stuff, or we’ll be forced to continue playing these really stupid ass commercials!

Sheer genius!

That Taco Bell commercial about the rules of dating is pretty funny, though.  Crack that whip!

- Here are my super-quick (Fantasy) Football thoughts for the week:

1) I’m now 1-5 (ugh), 2-4 (thanks LT), 3-3 (bleh), and 3-3 in the BargainShare league (poop).

2) After the Patriots ran over a legitimate opponent in the Dallas Cowboys, running their record up to 6*-0, I guess I can finally admit that the Patriots are far and away the best team in the NFL.   That Tom Brady guy is a pretty good QB!

By the way, Patrick Crayton, feel free to be quiet.  After the loss, Crayton relished the thought of facing the Pats again this season.  Of course, the only way that would happen is on Super Bowl Sunday:

“If they make it to Arizona, we will see them again. Seriously, I’m not backing down from that statement,” receiver Patrick Crayton said Monday, a day after a 48-27 loss to the Patriots.

You do realize you are playing on a team that can’t defend against the pass, is completely under-utilizing the beast that is Marion Barber III, and haven’t won a damn thing since the team was QBed by a guy named Troy Aikman, right?  Yeah, you guys are currently the class of the NFC, but is that really saying much?  Not to mention, you’re one TO blowup or one Tony Romo “I do realize I’m Tony Romo, right” game from having to watch the Super Bowl at home, right?

(Argh, they just aired another stupid AT&T commercial.  And they followed it up with a Dane Cook/playoff baseball commercial!!!  Shoot me now!)

I will give Crayton props for one point, though:  at least he realizes that the Patriots’ road to the Super Bowl (Colts, Steelers, and maybe Jags and Chargers) will be a heck of a lot harder than the Cowboys’ road (Packers?  Giants?  Maybe the Seahawks?  Please!)

Well, it looks like this blog is going to run a bit long, so I’ll save the Ung-hex story for another time.  This time, I swear I’ll remember to blog about it!

- Time Warner is awesome.  I love them!

(I’ll allow everybody’s sarcasm-0-meter to cool off before I continue.)

In the past three days, I’ve had eight outages of 5 minutes or less (no cable or internet), and one four-hour long outage.  I called in to TW tech support to report the outage, and of course, I got the standard “Sir, we’re looking into it.”

Stupid Time Warner.  Well, at least Time Warner lets me use their internet service to talk crap about them, unlike another company I can think of…

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!1111  They are airing a Chevy commercial!!!

*bang*

Tags: Cust. Service, Random, Sports, Technology by Peter
2 Comments »

This will be a two-part blog entry, and to satisfy all my loyal readers (all none of you), I’ll split today’s blog into sports- and non-sports entries.

Quick-hitters, part 1:

- The Office is back tonight!!! YAY!!!!!

Sadly, I missed Heroes, but I’ll catch it this weekend. No spoilers, please! I also missed my new favorite show: Law & Order SVU.

- Stupid me. I almost missed a payment on a credit card! It is due 10/2, and I just realized that yesterday. Worse, I won’t be able to get money into my checking account in time to make an e-payment! D’oh!

(Fortunately, I have money in my other checking account to make the payment, but that will require me to mail in a check. You people remember what a personal check looks like, right?)

- Another trip to the PO, and another bit of sheer ridiculousness. Another woman decided to hold up the line, filling out her damn forms. Unlike last time, this woman’s act was FAR worse: she had her back facing the registers, filling out her forms, and preventing others from going ahead of her, even when the clerks called on the next person!

She was acting so ridiculously that I decided to make a drawing of the situation, using my 1337 MS Paint skillz

(Tangent: I don’t have any “skillz,” as the drawing below will indicate.)

I’ll ask again: WHAT PART OF “PLEASE HAVE FORMS READY BEFORE GETTING IN LINE” IS SO FREAKING DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND????????

You should have seen her reaction when one of the clerks demanded that the next customer be helped before her. Damn stupid people…

- Congrats, Bank of Freaking America. You have finally topped my list.

(I can picture Hank thinking, “What could BofA do to top Time Warner?” Read on.)

In need of funds to pay off my credit card (the same one mentioned in the quick-hitters section), I ran off to BofA to withdraw some money from my checking account. I got to the ATM, inserted my ATM card, entered my PIN, punched in the amount of money I needed, and stuck my hand out by the cash dispenser, waiting for my cash.

That’s when the ATM spit out my ATM card, and said something to the effect of “Screw you; you can’t use this card.”

The account will be closed as soon as I get my lazy a$$ to a BofA branch to empty out the account. I would have closed the account over the phone, but apparently I need to empty the account first.

The list now looks like this:

1. BoFA (the “F” is capitalized for a reason now)
2. Time Warner
3. Citibank
4. CompUSSR
5. (tie) Parago, USPS, Buy.com, etc.

- I don’t know if you people know this, but I love food. My sister and mom came by this past weekend because their computer was on the fritz, so naturally I asked insisted begged my mom to cook us some food. She made us a huge pot of curry for lunch, and like the spoiled children that we are, we also got a special meal for dinner. I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s made with crepes filled with ground chicken, chopped long beans, peanuts, shredded coconut, and shrimp. You’re supposed to peel off pieces of the crepe, wrap it in a piece of lettuce, and dip it in a sauce.

Abso-freaking-lutely-delicious (sorry, no pics!). I have got to get the recipe for this stuff!

Oh yeah, the curry wasn’t half bad either. It was a bit thin, but who am I to complain?

- As for the computer on the fritz, my sister told me that the computer would turn on, but nothing would display on the monitor, and the hard disk LED would stay a solid red. I took the PSU out of that computer and stuck it in my secondary computer; the system turned on, but the monitor LED was flashing yellow ( = no input). So I figured that the power supply was shot, and figured that the entire system was as well. To test this, I stuck my spare PSU–a cheapy, FAR Raidmax PSU that weighed about as much as a can of soda (seriously!)–into their computer, and as expected, the system turned on, but no display.

I advised my sister on her options–build a brand new one or build a cheap one using some of the parts I had lying around–and she decided on the latter. I installed what used to be my primary computer–a P4 2.4Ghz on an Asus P4PE–into her case, hooked up all her drives, and the system fired up. To my amazement, I didn’t even need to repair Windows XP! I ran a few tests while my sisters were playing Guitar Hero, and handed my sister her newly-working computer. She offered to pay me for the parts, which I gladly accepted.

(Tangent: Was it not cool for me to enjoy beating the snot out of my sisters in Guitar Hero? I know that older siblings love doing that to younger siblings, but I, as the youngest sibling, really enjoyed the beatdown :P. I don’t remember ever talking that much trash after winning at anything before.

me <– can be a bad sport)

I got an IM from my sister that night, telling me that the “new” computer didn’t work! She told me that it had exactly the same symptoms as before! Argh…

Just for kicks, I hooked up the shot PSU to my DOSBox, and amazingly, it worked! I’m beginning to think that the surge strip, or the outlet itself, might be causing all the problems. Or maybe it’s the computer case…in any event, the computer will be back here this weekend. I hope it doesn’t rain; I feel like having a BBQ this weekend.

So now I have a dilemma. The computer left my possession in working condition, so am I allowed to charge my sister for the parts?

Later tonight, part 2 of this blog entry, including my Week 3 (Fantasy) Football thoughts.

Tags: Cust. Service, Food, News, Random, Technology by Peter
2 Comments »