racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

Buyers beware.  From the Northwest Indiana Times:

A Best Buy customer threatened to kill a female employee Tuesday after
complaining that he purchased a $1,300 computer, only to find wooden
blocks inside the box once he got home.
…
Store employees told police Papadatos admitted the box’s seal was
intact when it left the store, so if wood was inside the box, it came
from the factory. Police took Papadatos to jail and took the box of
wood into evidence.

He should have checked the package before leaving the store!  I think that’s what any self-respecting buyer of equipment that expensive–or any amount, for that matter–should do.

(via DIGG)

Want to blog but your mind’s somewhat absent?

Try Strip Generator, a flash-based app that lets you produce simple comic strips.

Check this out:

(via Peter and Twisted Mike)

Another twist in this “reality” show I’ve grown quite fond of watching:

A new hunk is in town: Sam replaces Jenny. 
I could just see the elation in the ladies’ eyes as the new guy
arrives.  I’d say the same would likely be so for the televiewers
at home.

Was surfing around Bidshot,
one of the leading local auction sites (or used to be?) here in the
Philippines, and I was annoyed to see so many xXx marks around ad
descriptions and messages.

Turns out Bidshot has gone full-strength in its filtering out of
contact information such as email addresses and telephone numbers.  And
they do this to the point that all possible spellings of numbers are
blocked out.

Read more at Pinoy.Tech.Blog.

I’m quite fond of watching Pinoy Big Brother,
the latest “reality”-based series in which 12 “housemates” stranger to
each other stay inside a house for a hundred days.  They get to
nominate two people for eviction every week.  The televiewers get
to vote to determine who would be kicked out.

This week, it was Rico.

Watching Pinoy Big Brother makes me feel like playing the Sims
all over again.  It’s a mix of entertainment and social
engineering.  I loved creating my Sims characters and playing
around with how they relate with each others (of course, some money
cheats were quite helpful in many instances–remember rosebud or
klapaucius? ).

I wonder what juicy video and audio recordings the show’s crew get to
see.  They say the Big Brother series in other countries doesn’t
exercise as much discretion as they do in this local version in what
they show–i.e. they get to show some nudity and perhaps some sex.

But the Filipino audience, after all, may not be ready for such things in mainstream TV.

At any rate, PBB is a joy to watch.  Check it out for yourself.  Here’s a small photo-gallery of the remaining housemates.