Thank goodness I haven't exhibited flu-like symptoms like many of my students have--or claim to have: "Sensei, I am exhibiting flu-like symptoms and am unable to attend class today." Hmmm... sounds like a cut and paste job from an email sent by the dean. Oh well, what can you do? I have yet to exhibit anything–knock on wood–but you never know. So I got my seasonal flu shot and am anxiously waiting for the H1N1 vaccine. Of course, if I catch something, then maybe I can take off and rest for a week or so. I'm sure some of my students would appreciate a reprieve from my weekly quizzes and writing assignments.

Anyway, I got an email from President Obama asking me personally to spread the word about their new Flu.gov website. Yes, I get an email from him often, like everyday, sometimes three times a day. Of course, much of it goes something like, "with your tax deductable support we can..." But seriously, the email comes directly from him...

Anyway, everyone, check out the site for the latest info on H1Ni, and please stay healthy and germ free. And always wash those hands!

Thanks for the comments, guys.

Last week, I dropped by the Apple Store in Tyson's Corner to ask about the "heat" in my Macbook Pro (MBP) and they told me to make an appointment with the techs at the store. Of course, they were too busy for a walk in, so I went home and made the appointment online to meet a tech at the "Genius Bar."

On Tuesday late afternoon, I went to my appointment to talk to one of these so-called geniuses. He asked me a few questions and checked a page that apparently recorded what exactly happened when my computer froze on me. He said that the report suggested that the CPU was "burning out" and that it might need to be replaced. He also wanted to run a diagnostic on the fans since that is probably the reason why the CPUs were burning up in the first place. But the fans were not in stock and if he needed to replace the fan, he wanted to do it all at onece so once they got the parts, they would contact me. The order probably went out the next day, Wednesday, and they got the part Thursday, and they promptly contact me. I went in on Friday to turn in my MBP and they told me that they'd work on it over the weekend. So far so good.

On Saturday I got a call. Wow, that was fast, I thought. But the guy working on my computer ran a diagnostic and told me that he found nothing wrong with it. The CPU looked fine and the fans were working within normal parameters. (I knew all those years watching ST:TNG would come in handy.) He asked me what I run and I told him that I use Parallels and often burn DVDs which, of course, requires video conversions. These are, he said, jobs that require a lot a juice and so make the Intel CPUs work harder and hotter. It's unavoidable. But the Mac conked out on me, I protested. Are you saying that's unavoidable? I tried very hard not to sound like a whining college professor, but he seemed pretty adamant about his position, reminding me that MBPs are known to run "very warm."

Okay, fine. I huff internally. I'll pick up my computer tomorrow.

In the mean time, I decided to take things into my own hands and do some research. Now there is a lot of stuff out on the Internet and a lot of it is not very reliable, so I read and read, checked and confirmed what others had written, and came to one conclusion.

Macs need to do work out some bugs in their operating system, hopefully when 10.6 comes out in a few months.

In the meantime, I have figure out a way to keep my computer cool by patching together the different thoughts that different people have written on the Internet and trying some things on my own.

1. I downloaded smcFan Control which provides my with a current reading of the heat of my fan. When the computer is working like a horse, temperatures surpasses 190 degrees F. Very hot. Like I said previously, you could fry an egg. Since I'm a nerd, I also downloaded the iStat widget which will load onto the Dashboard. It gives me all kinds of info including CPU temps, RAM usage and disk volumes, but most of it is incomprehensible to me, but it looks cool anyway.

2. I then began to pay attention to the Activity Monitor when the computer ran hot--as many people mentioned in their Internet posts--and saw some things that freaked me out. My Brother printer was using over 40% of my CPU, even though I wasn't printing anything. I turned it off and the CPU usage went down as well as the core temperature. My printer usually goes into hibernation when I'm not printing or making copies, which is copacetic with Windows, but not with the Mac OS. I Googled around a bit and learned that the Mac often tries to communcate with USB hardware sometimes unnecessarily and raises the temperature. Oooooooh. So I also unplugged my external DVD player and disconnected my external hard drive, and temps went down rather dramatically.

3. As I researched, I learned a little about kernal_tasks which also seemed to spike when I had these external devices plugged in. But I also learned that it also goes into action when other internal devices are turned on, such as the Mac firewall, Bluetooth and wireless connection Airport. I set the firewall to default settings and just turned off Bluetooth and Airport--which I kept on even though I am plugged in with ethernet.

4. Finally, I also make sure that I quit any application I am not using.

As a result, my Macbook Pro is at a cool 133 degrees. It used to be around 145 degrees even when I wasn't doing anything except type in MSWord and surf the Net. Now, the surface area around the speakers and keyboard isn't even warm. 

Next project: I think my battery's dead. What is the lifespan of a computer battery? Does it go kaput if I keep the computer plugged in? Should I just disengage the battery so it won't keep recharging unecessarily? Any thoughts?

For the past year and a half, there has been a steady stream of J-doramas focusing on special police forces and terrorism: Special Police, Koushounin, Kiina, Bloody Monday, BOSS, Mr. Brain. They were interesting at first, but they started to get into a rut. By the time they got to Mr. Brain with KimuTaku of SMAP fame, I was getting tired of all their tech gadgets and super intelligent heroes. This summer season, they have another one. Karei naru spy 華麗なるスパイ--The Splendid Spy.

It stars Nagase Tomoya's, but that's not what makes it interesting--although M will watch anything he's in.  It's actually a spoof of the spy genre. It has all this funky music from old spy movies, some of it sounding like James Bond background music, some similar to the riff of the bongo drums when the tension is high (like Mission Impossible). The opening credits seem to come to come straight out of a 60s Japanese gangster flick with a steel guitar playing in pseudo-Hawaiian mode and the sound of bullets firing--pthew!--every time an actor's name appears on the screen, a la I Spy.

The main character, Yoroi Kyousuke (Nagase), is a convicted con artist, but his government calls on him to help the badly dressed special terrorism force--well except for Dorothy played by the always delectable Fukada Kyouko--fight terrorism across Japan, especially against Mr. Takumi (Mr. Scheming), who has oily black hair and a short comb-tooth moustache like Hitler. Hmmm. He even wears a khaki shirt. On his first day, Kyousuke wakes up to the ring of the phone and is surprised to find that the phone is in the sole of a shoe--sound familiar, Chief? Then he goes to the office but first needs to step into a locker that promptly drops through the floor, hits the bottom, after which he enters a hallway with sliding double doors in which, of course, he gets his foot stuck--Missed it by that much. As you might imagine, I am paying attention as to not miss any references to the spy genre.

The first episode centers on a lackey of Mr. Takumi who attempts to kidnap the Prime Minister's granddaughter, played by Inoue Mao, and Kyousuke's con-artist talents help rescue her. But this is when I begin to think that this 90 minute first episode should have been edited more aggressively: The last half hour dragged out just a bit too long. There were were some funny jokes, but the pace slowed to a crawl.

Still, for a summer season in which I have yet to see a single interesting drama--Oh nooooooo! What am I to do?--I will keep my hopes up that the following 46-minute episodes will by as sharp and witty as it promises to be.