I got a call from a phone number beginning with 668 followed by 8 digits. I had no idea who it was, so I did not answer. I got a second call from this number a few minutes later. No voicemail messages were left. I got a third call today, and I decided to answer. It was one of my clients requesting emergency computer repair services.

I know that this client is Indian, but the country code for India is not 668. I received a text message from this number with the address of where I have to go. The text message shows that the sender's number begins with 011-668, which implies that it's an international number. This country code doesn't appear on most sites that list international country codes. I found one that claims it's a code for Austrian mobile phones. I'm not sure if that is true or not, because it's the only site that lists it.

I have a client who is a semi-retired school psychologist. She needed to install software for recording diagnostic information about students, and she had difficulty doing it on her own. I attempted to uninstall and reinstall the software, but that didn't work. I tried a few other things and decided that I wouldn't be able to get it to work, at least not on a Monday.

I recommended that she contact the technical support department at Pearson, which makes the software. She wanted me to stay to answer any technical questions they might ask. I assisted with setting up remote access to allow a technician to attempt to fix the problem.

An hour later, the problem was still not resolved. I told my client that the technician who was working on it remotely should be able to handle the problem, implying that I should leave. She pleaded with me to stay, so I did. For three hours, I sat there watching as someone else did the work. The technician eventually gave up and wanted to get a higher level technician to work on it. My client was tired of the whole thing and asked to put an end to it. After the support session was terminated, my client paid me for my time and thanked me for staying the entire three hours.

Duran Duran had a concert last night that was streamed live on youtube. I checked twice to see if they were performing "Hungry Like a Wolf", which is their only song that I like. I had better uses for my bandwidth than to listen to the rest of their stuff.

Duran Duran always reminds me of an incident from my childhood. There was a television show called Solid Gold, which my sister liked to watch. The show involved playing the top ten songs of the week while professional dancers performed on stage. Andy Gibb was one of the hosts of the show, and he had some interesting ways of pronouncing words. When he announced Duran Duran, it sounded like he said "Brain Brain". My sister also thought that was what he said. When we realized that he meant "Duran Duran", we both laughed uncontrollably for a long time.

The crisis in Japan seems to be fading from the media already, but I am still following the developments in the nuclear power plant situation. I have been reading about workers getting exposed to radiation while trying to keep the reactors cool, and I keep wondering why robots aren't being used. I understand that dexterity beyond what we can achieve with current technology is required to connect power lines to the pumps, and to repair the pumps, but dexterity is not required to dump water. Large buckets dumping water from the air missed due to winds. A robot could just walk in with a hose and be right on target.

Ionizing radiation may interfere with the computer system of a robot, but shielding should not add too much weight for this to be practical. Even if shielding of electronics isn't possible, a fully hydraulic robot is theoretically possible to develop, which would be entirely immune to all effects of radiation.

Japan's robotics research is very advanced. This should not be a problem. An ASIMO is probably far more capable than what is needed for this. It doesn't even need to be an android. A remote controlled vehicle with a water cannon would suffice. Maybe instead of robots, we need to bring in the Mythbusters.


EDIT: They need these:

My mother wants me to go shopping with her, because there is a fruit that she likes and she doesn't know what it's called in Chinese. She wants me to find out the English word for it and help her find it in the Chinese-English dictionary.

Instead of going directly to the supermarket, we first pass through a place that has a televised bottle labelling contest in progress. My sister is also suddenly there, although I don't recall her leaving with us. We watch one of the contestants demonstrate his special labelling technology which uses lasers for the entire process of making the bottles, cutting the labels, sticking on the labels, and burning in text and images onto the labels. A judge carefully inspects and makes notes on a diagram of the bottle showing exactly where all the defects are. I can see some tiny bubbles underneath the label.

My mother asks me to leave with her. My sister stays to continue watching the labelling competition. A gigantic snail is being roasted out in the street. We stop right in front of the supermarket, but we take another detour instead of going in. Next to the supermarket is an Asian pharmacy.

My mother wants to get diagnosed for some condition but doesn't tell me what it is. I stand outside listening. She apparently has a problem with breathing. She can inhale without problems, but exhaling forcefully is very difficult. The doctor sits there puzzled.

My sister arrives and we both go inside. The doctor starts writing a prescription for herbs. It is clear to me that he does not know what he is doing. There was no discussion to try to find the underlying cause of the problem. I want to tell my mother that this guy is incompetent, but I know that she won't listen to me.

The scene suddenly changes. I am in front of a cafe and see my 7th grade math teacher. He suddenly shouts out "Don Rickles". Don Rickles is actually there and my math teacher happens to look a lot like him. They apparently know each other because they frequently meet at the Don Rickles Look Alike Club.

The alarm awakens me.

I am still receiving issues of Newsweek in the mail. I haven't gotten a bill, but I got two renewal notices. I also received a plastic wrapped package containing six copies of the February 28, 2011 edition. Each copy has a different name/address printed on it. Mine is on top. The addresses are all in the same neighborhood, but they are not in the same building.

I just received an email which appears to be a sales receipt for pearls. The intended recipient appears to be some kind of bridal business. There are no links or attachments to indicate that this is some kind of weird scam/spam/malware.