Month: August 2007

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Pantene Pro V – Full & Thick

So I opened a new bottle of shampoo this weekend. I ran out my existing regular Pantene Pro V. I had picked up some new Pantene Pro V at Costco awhile back when they were on sale. They had the regular kind (Smooth & Sleek), but I decided to try out their Full & Thick (Fuerte Y Abundante) in this new stylish bottle. Boy was I wrong to choose that. It made my hair really rough and hard to comb (my tail). I usually like my hair soft, but that’s the opposite of what Full & Thick does.

Oh well, looks like I’m going to find some new shampoo.

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Lost Bank of America Check Card

So on Saturday, after my haircut, I went to deposit some money into my Bank of America checking account. Everything went through fine, until I got back to the car. I was still enjoying my mocha frappuccino when I thought to myself… did I remember to take my ATM card. Let me back track a bit. The barbershop that I’ve been going to has a Starbucks next to it. Across the street is a Bank of America. So I start searching through my pockets and my wallet, but my ATM card was no where in sight. It couldn’t have been more than 5 minutes and there was no one around or anyone I noticed when I was leaving the ATM. So I run back to the ATM, but the card was no longer there. I started searching the around the area and the trash bin and so on, but didn’t find anything. I tried to remember back to the time when I was leaving, cause usually if you don’t remember to take your card, it starts beeping like crazy. However, I don’t recall it beeping at all. The only explanation I could come up with was that I had taken the receipt and left and it was on the screen asking me if I wanted to make another transaction. Receiving no response, it reset and ate the card. However, I couldn’t eliminate the possibility of someone taking the card after I left.

Anyway, I take out the BofA receipt and call the customer service phone number listed on it. Unfortunately, going through the automated answering machine, it informs me that they are currently close and I should call back on Monday. I was like F*CK! F*CK! F*CK! There was really nothing I could do at this point, so I drove home contemplating what my next move was. Since this ATM card could also act as a debit card, I needed to report it stolen asap. Thank god that this account only has about $300 in it, so I wasn’t too worried. Worse case scenario would be to lose all that $300. Anyway, when I got home and checked Bank of America’s website. The latest transaction was still just my deposit. I clicked on their Contact Us link and apparently they have a 24/7 hot line to report stolen/missing credit and check cards. Awesome!

I give the number a call and was quickly assisted is blocking the card. The rep gave me 2 options: To issue me a new card (takes 7-10 business days) or temporarily block the card and allow me to search for it and call back when I find it. I opted for issuing a new card and if I really needed to access my BofA checking account in the meantime, I can always go in and see a teller.

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Soccer

So last Thursday, a bunch of my co-workers and I decided to play some soccer. I suck horribly at the game, but like to think myself as a null-op, someone who’s contribution and damage to the team balances out to 0. The game has always been tiring the last few times we played, but this one being the first time this year was extremely hard on my legs. My legs were so sore the next day, I could barely walk (even after a 12hr sleep). I had actually gone to bed at 12am that night and slept till 12am the next day, and still didn’t want to get up.

My legs remain sore for many days and was still feeling it a bit this morning. Walking was not a easy task and I’m pretty sure people thought I must’ve walked like a penguin. It was especially hard in the morning, because even the slightest touch of the bottom of my foot was somewhat painful. I guess running back and forth for 2 hours trying to kick a ball (or block it) wasn’t really something my legs have been trained to do yet.

I decided to take a few days break from the exercise bike, but today was able to almost fully recover up to my 9 miles in 30 minute exercise regiment.

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Death Note (Anime)

I just finished watching the Death Note anime series. Although the series finished airing a month or 2 back, I wasn’t in a rush to finish watching it since I’ve already read the entire manga 2 years back. The reason I actually started reading this manga was I heard it was done by the same artist as Hikaru no Go, one of my favorite animes/mangas so far. I think it probably ranks 2nd after Rurouni Kenshin. I was walking through a bookstore the other day and noticed that Death Note mangas have already been licensed and is sold in bookstores.

Anyway, there weren’t that many differences when comparing the anime to the manga that I noticed, though I didn’t think the story was able to be told in 37 episodes. I was expecting at least 50+ like Monster, though I guess that’s a good thing considering long anime series tend to drag on with fillers and recaps.

I still haven’t watched the Death Note movie and after watching the anime series, I’m not sure I want to anymore. Like most suspense and puzzle animes, once you’ve watched it once and learnt the trick, there really isn’t that much fun in rewatching it, even if it’s in a different form. I definitely felt bored through many parts of the anime series. However, if you’ve never read the manga, I would HIGHLY recommend this series or the manga. The storyline was excellent and the logical thinking animes have always been fun for me.

The only difference I’ve really noticed (or maybe remember) is the ending. Spoilers (Show)

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Trailer Spoofs

I was watching some trailer spoofs and thought, how awesome would it be that if the official trailer of a particular movie was nothing like the actual movie. Of course it has to be done well, but imagine the viral marketing! It’s like completely throwing a curve ball at the audience. These days, movie trailers reveal too much of a movie and you basically know the story and can pretty much guess the ending. It’s quite seldom a good trailer gets released that’s enough to entice me, but not ruin the story.

I mean just look at these trailers:

They’re just awesome and completely screws with your mind. Of course they’d might have to be a bit more tactful since if I saw that Mary Poppins trailer, I probably wouldn’t take my children to go watch it. Would you choose the family movie (The Shining) over the scary movie (Mary Poppins).

Speaking of trailers, you ever go into a Costco or Sears or Best Buy and think to yourself, they could definitely put much higher quality content on the screen to display the awesomeness of their HDTVs instead of some DVD or those stupid TV guides that tell you why an HDTV is better than a standard TV. It probably is easier to control the multitude of TVs from a central location if they all use the same inputs, probably regular composite video, since all TVs have that input. I mean if you play really good HD content, the image quality speaks for itself! If I were to ever have a store that sold TV, I’d just be looping all the free HD movie trailers over and over. Of course, only those rated for everyone.

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No Audio When Streaming Video Through Windows Media Player

So for the longest time, I’ve been having problem with the audio when I streamed videos from particular sites. At first I thought it was just Firefox, but IE7 had had the same problem. CNN, MSNBC, and Yahoo! (just to name a few) all had problems with the audio. However, when playing videos off my gallery that used WMP (e.g. Detective Conan – Childhood Ending), WMP would play the audio fine, so I had initially eliminated WMP from the list of possible culprits for the problem. It was starting to get annoying as whenever I wanted to listen to a news report on CNN or MSNBC, I would have to find it on YouTube.

Anyway today, when I was trying to watch a trailer on Yahoo!: Facing Windows (Finestra di fronte, La), I was pissed that there was once again no sound coming from the video. The reason I was watching this trailer in the first place was that the foreign title La Finestra di fronte is actually the name of one of my favorite songs that I’ve listened to repeatedly and without the audio, I was definitely not enjoying it one bit. The song’s actually called Gocce di memoria by Giorgia, but the they also have a version with no lyrics and played by the National Symphonia Orchestra just titled Finestra di fronte (wasn’t able to find it on YouTube). If you’re interested, Amazon.com has the soundtrack available: La finestra di fronte (Facing Windows) Soundtrack. Anyway, it turns out this was the movie the song was used in and actually the the soundtrack that I have.

La finestra di fronte - Facing Windows - SOUNDTRACK - album cover
(enlarge image)

So I started searching online to find out what could possibly be causing this problem. I quickly found this thread: Multimedia: No audio when streaming video

This was exactly the problem I was having and turns out the solution was as simple as changing a 1 to a 0.

Here are the instructions provided by xray88:

Make this registry change and I’m pretty sure it will fix your problem. If it doesn’t work, you can always change it back. It’ll work. 🙂

Go to the following registry folder:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\
    NodeCLSIDs\{95037DA1-6ED9-4B27-8CFF-9AD3DFB0B2F2}]

Double click on “Auto Insert” on the right side of the box.

Change the Value from “1” to “0” and click OK.

You should be set.

I didn’t even have to restart either of my browsers and audio immediately started playing. It turns out that when “Auto Insert” is enabled, WMP has problems streaming content with mono audio. I have no idea what the “Auto Insert” thing does, but disabling it definitely got my streaming audio to start working again.

According to cwwl, there is another way to fix this without messing with your registry (for those who are scared to screw something up):

First Thanks to xray88 for the registry change it works.

If you do not want to change the registry do this. The registry fix is the best solution but the fix below will work for the faint at heart.

  1. Open Windows Media Player
  2. Click on the “Now Playing Tab” and select “More Options”
  3. Select the “DVD Tab”
  4. Click on the “Advanced Box”
  5. Under the Out Put Box “click the down arrow” beside (AS is (no change)
  6. Select “1/0 mono”
  7. Click “Apply & OK” and “OK” again
  8. Exit Media Player

I tried following these instructions, but they started to differ after clicking the Advanced button. A ffdshow video decoder configuration appeared and it did have the Output tab, but nothing similar to any of the instructions that follow. I wonder if the bug is actually an ffdshow bug then.

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New Printer: Samsung ML-2010

I just installed my Samsung ML-2010 yesterday, which I purchased about 1.5 years ago. My trusty Minolta PagePro 1250W has been running low on toner for the past month and shaking the toner cartridge no longer worked. I guess it’s about time. I mean I have been using it for about 4 years already, since junior year of college, and that was just the starter toner (no refills, no new toner cartridge).

After college, I realized I don’t print much anymore. With PDF printers, I hardly ever need hard copies of anything. I think the majority of things my printer has printed over the last 2 years has been stuff related to rebates.

The Samsung ML-2010 is actually rather nice. It has a 1200 x 600 dpi resolution and can print up to 22ppm (page per minute). It was extremely easy to setup. Just plugged in the existing USB and power cables (didn’t even have to open the new power cable) and my file server detected a new printer. Unfortunately, it didn’t have the drivers available, so I had to download them off Samsung’s site. But after that, sharing it, test print, and printing over network all worked flawlessly.

Speaking of USB cable, it didn’t actually come with one, which I always find very stupid, considering the cost of a USB cable is probably less than $1. Ungsunghero says that retail stores probably pressure the manufacturers into not including the cable or else they won’t sell it or recommend it to potential buyers, since they probably sell USB cables at a 500% markup, maybe even more. But that makes you wonder how DVD players or speaker systems are allowed to come with cables. I mean they don’t come with the best cable available (*cough* PS3 *cough* HDMI *cough*), but they do come with a cable that can at least prove it works. When I buy a printer and take it home, there’s nothing I can do to even test it if I don’t have the cable to connect it to my computer. I mean, if I bought an OEM printer, I can understand it’s just the printer itself and no cables will be provided, but this is a RETAIL printer… Sigh…

Back to the printer. Ungsunghero claims that it’s also very easy to refill toner cartridge. However, I do remember him telling a story about how he was coughing out black smoke.

I would include a picture, but I’m too lazy tonight. That was referring to a picture the printer and not Ungsunghero coughing black smoke. But if you do have a picture of Ungsunghero coughing out black smoke, do send it this way.

I’ve decided to list my old laser printer for sale:
Windows Live Expo
Craigslist

and see if anyone bites.

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Comments

For the longest time, I was thinking… people haven’t been commenting on my blog lately and I was sorta sad. Turns out it was my fault. Whenever WordPress puts a comment into the moderation queue, it sends me an email alerting me that a comment is being held for moderation. However, about 2 months ago, I started getting spam in that email address, so I blocked it in my control panel. Apparently, I forgot to update that WordPress with a new email address to send me the notifications.

So today, when browsing different parts of WordPress, I landed on the comments section and noticed I had 94 comments in my queue (those which passed Akismet). Of course, when rerunning the comments through Akismet again, it drop down to 35. I believe the actual number of comments was around 25 which actually approved.

Therefore, in order to make all comments equal, here are the lists of post which had comments that have been held in comment for way too long (in no particular order):

I’ve been tempted to just like Akismet be the spam filter and not go through the moderation process. However, seeing how 94 comments drop to 25, it still shows Akismet has some work to do.

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Powdered Donuts

So when I was shopping at Safeway today, that box of powdered donuts kept flashing at me telling me to buy it. Of course I succumbed and now I regret the decision. They’re so addictive!!! I’m not talking about the big powdered donuts. I’m talking about the little bite-size powdered sugar baby donuts (or as they called it, donettes). That stuff is like crack! Every time I walk by it, I pop another one in my mouth. They’re so bad for me, yet I always go back for more. Just typing this makes me want to eat another one.

So I was telling Ungsunghero about how addictive they are and he mentions how powdered choco donuts are damn good too. I was like… WO! They make powdered chocolate donuts too!?!?! I’ve been missing out! I was actually contemplating about driving to a 24hr supermarket to see if I can find chocolate powdered donuts. Ungsunghero corrects himself and said he actually meant to say mini chocolate donuts, which I agree are awesome too.

But wow! Why haven’t they made chocolate powder baby donuts! I would so buy that. Just thinking about it makes me drool.

Hostess, are you listening? WE WANT CHOCOLATE POWDERED BABY DONUTS!!!

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$25 Costco Cash Card For Signing Up For American Express

So I recently got a packet from American Express trying to get me to sign up friends and family for the American Express TrueEarnings credit card (Costco credit card). At first I didn’t care much for it, but after reading through the details, it seems like a good deal for both me and whoever I’m referring.

I received 4 of these postcards to distribute to friends:
amex trueearnings credit card $25 costco cash card referral

If you sign up, you get a $25 Costco Cash Card after your first purchase and I get a $25 Costco Cash Card for referring you. When I signed up for my Amex card, I didn’t get any type of sign up bonus, so I personally think this is a good deal for those Costco members who haven’t gotten the Costco Amex. You can read my Credit Card Arsenal entry to see why this card is that great and a must have for any Costco member. Some say that it’s not worth getting a Costco membership just to get this credit card, but I’ve always seen it as a bonus that I get for having a Costco membership. I mean, even without this credit card, I’d still have my Costco membership.

Here are the details:

Carry the TrueEarnings Card from Costco and American Express and we’ll give you a $25 Costco Cash Card you can use to pick up something for yourself.

  • You’ll earn 3% cash back for eating out, 2% for traveling, and 1% back everywhere else, including Costco.
  • There’s no annual fee for the Card with your paid Costco memberhsip.
  • There’s no limit to the cash back you can earn.
  • You’ll have the flexibility to pay over time.

Visit americanexpress.com/costcofriend to learn more and sign up today!

UNIQUE ID: 3071220387
EXPIRES ON: October 14, 2007

——————

  • A $25 Costco Cash Card will be awarded within 14 weeks after your first purchase appears on your monthly billing statement. Costco Cash Cards are for first time Cardmembers only. See application for details at americanexpress.com/costcofriend. Applicant understands and agrees that American Express Cardmember who referred him/her may be compensated with a Costco Cash Card if his/her application is approved, and may be able to tell if his/her application is declined or approved.
  • Eligible Purchases earn a rebate of 1, 2, or 3 percent as follows: 3% at restaurants; 2% for travel purchases from airline, lodging, car rental, cruise line, travel agency, and tour operators; and 1% on all other Eligible Purchases. “Eligible Purchases” do NOT include returned purchases, Fees, Finance Charges, Cash Advances, Balance Transfers, purchase of American Express Travelers Cheques, American Express Gift Cheques, and other cash equivalents. Rebates are awarded each February in the form of an in-store coupon redeemable for merchandise or cash at any U.S. Costco Warehouse. To receive the rebate your account must be open and you must present the coupon at Costco prior to the coupon expiration date. Rebates less than $1 will be forfeited. Forfeiture rules for late payment also apply.

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