accessing the numpad on a laptop

[Wopple]

In order to use the numpad, I have to press Fn-ScrLk to turn num-lock on which makes some of the keys act as a numpad. Then I have to press Fn-ScrLk again to turn it off so I can use those keys normally again. I need to do this a lot and it's very inconvenient. Unfortunately, this feature appears to be hard-wired in the laptop and therefor inaccessible to ubuntu for a simple remapping (xev won't read any events when the keys are pressed). So instead I was hoping to manually create numpad keystroke events. For example, maybe I hit menu-m for numpad 0. I see that you can make menu be a key for choosing the third layer, so one possible solution would be to set the third layer keys. I don't know how to do that or if it is even possible. So, is there a way to do that? Or is there another way to accomplish this?