Bruno Mars Sunday

I’m having a lazy Sunday. Well, a sentimental and lazy Sunday.

I wanted to listen to Bruno Mars’ Grenade. Then It Will Rain. Then The Lazy Song.

So, here’s all three videos for everyone who’s enjoying a sentimental and lazy Sunday.

 

 

iPod Touch vs Kindle Touch

So I’ve had my Kindle Touch for more than two weeks now and I must say I’m enjoying it so far.

But the screen refresh is still an issue for me. I might return it. Or not. It depends.

Anyway, I decided to write a short blog entry comparing my reading experience on the iPod Touch and my Kindle Touch.

Truth be told, what got me into the whole e-book reading experience was my iPod Touch. The iBooks app was pretty cool for me and I got to read maybe 4 or 5 books on my iPod Touch. I enjoyed it for a while. But it did give me eye strain. I experienced head ache some of the time so I would stop reading for an hour or two and then resume reading.

With the Kindle Touch, since it does read like paper, I don’t get the headaches as much. Not when the turning of the page works properly. When there’s a glitch and the Kindle refreshes the page every time, that’s when I get the headache. Probably because I find it annoying. Otherwise, I’m fine.

By the way, the Kindle Touch is only supposed to refresh the screen every 5 or 6 pages.

This is it for now. I’ll be going back to reading The Great Gatsby.

Inheritance: The Last Book from the Inheritance Cycle

I just read a book review right after deciding to write one and just before writing one. I’m afraid it might’ve clouded my thinking and thus producing a review a little less “epic” than what I was gunning for.

Image owned by Amazon.com

 

Okay. So what I wanted to initially say was that I enjoyed the book and it had such an effect on me that one day, I woke up worried/paranoid that someone was attacking my mind and I needed to sleep again to protect myself.

I enjoyed the book. I couldn’t put it (well, my Kindle) down for days. But it did have some flaws. A lot of the mysteries that were uncovered in the first three books remained unsolved and a lot more questions were raised in this book.

You see, I’ve waited for this book as soon as I finished reading Brisingr. Worth the wait? Yes. But it kind of looks like the whole thing was rushed and I am just a smidge disappointed that things ended the way they did. Although, I must admit, that whole fight scene with Galbatorix was satisfying, save for the fact that there was Dauthdaert. I think it should’ve maybe been Zar’roc or Brisingr who killed Shruikan.

Anyway, this book is a must read only if you’ve read the first three. Otherwise, you won’t get most of what’s in it.

The Kindle Touch: Good for Reading But Needs Improvement

This week, I also got the new Kindle Touch (yes, I got a lot of my online shopping items this week) and the amFilm Premium Screen Protector.

Since I marked it as a gift (for myself, obviously), it came in an unmarked box. And inside the box, was well, the box for the Kindle Touch (KT).

No, it didn’t come that way. I was too excited and immediately powered it up and I was only able to take some pictures after two days.

To be accurate, the one I got was the Kindle Touch with Special Offers. As you can see from the picture above, that’s how the ads are being displayed when the KT is in sleep mode.

When I took the picture, I took off the flash because there was glare from the flash. Yes, there’s glare. I haven’t tried reading under the sun but I did read by the window yesterday. It was perfect and I did feel like I was reading a book.

 

If you can see from my poorly taken picture, the display from my KT looks like as if it’s really ink on paper. The very small triangular thing on the upper right hand of the KT is for when you bookmark a page. What you do is you tap on the upper right hand and it automatically bookmarks a page for you. You can go reading another book or shop on the Kindle store. When you tap on the book that you bookmarked, it’ll go to the page you bookmarked. This whole bookmark thing, I found really clever. I used to do it with my own books – fold a small part of the page of the book I was reading so that it formed a triangle. I wasn’t fond of the real rectangular bookmarks with ribbons then and I’m not now. I also tried reading on my iPod Touch and when you bookmark that, a red bookmark thing appears. But this bookmark thing on the KT, I thought was cute and clever.

Anyway, the KT is NOT perfect. I have several concerns:

• The page refreshes! Every. Single. Time! In the three days I’ve owned the KT, there was a time that it didn’t do that. I don’t know what happened. I haven’t dropped it and no heavy pressure put on the KT to make it behave that way. I made sure to turn off the Page Refresh option but it still does it! It is an annoyance to me.
• I found that the KT isn’t as intuitive to the touch and I feel that it is a little slow. But that’s coming from someone who’s used to the intuitiveness and fast response of the iPod touch. But this is not to say that it’s not useful. I do like the tapping on the margin for page turns and I do like the convenience of tapping on a word to see the definition. I can’t imagine pushing on some buttons to get to a word.
• I wish there was something for adjusting the contrast/brightness. While I think that the display is clear, don’t get me wrong on this but I do think/wish that there was something for adjusting the contrast. I personally might’ve adjusted the contrast a tiny bit just to make the ink darker. But that’s just me.
• The Kindle Store is a little weird. So I saw an ad for the Best Books of 2011. I tap to it, right? It redirects me to a page that says that an email has been sent to me. I go to my email and click on the link. Then I check out the titles and see a book that I might be interested in. I go to my KT and click on the Shopping Cart icon. I type in the title of the book I’m interested in (The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan) and I was surprised to see that it didn’t come up in the search. Weird. Why advertise something that won’t come up in the search using the KT?

Overall, the KT delivers in it’s promise of being a great ebook reader. It does fast page turns, connects via wi-fi fairly quickly and easily and you can lose yourself reading (save for that annoying refresh thing that it does). But I think it can use a software upgrade to maybe fix the whole contrast thing and being able to find things in the Kindle Store.

Do I love it? Because I don’t like it refreshing every page, no. But I like it enough to give it a 4-star rating.

Shoe-pping Online with Shoe Room

I don’t like shoes a lot and I guess that’s the reason why I don’t have a lot of shoes. I stick to flats and sneakers and rarely do I go out in heels nowadays (but let me admit that I do miss going out and walking in high heels). When I go into the mall, I still gravitate towards high heels and rarely look at the flat shoes.

But Helga Weber blogged about Shoe Room and I was intrigued. The designs she picked and blogged about were super cute that I had to shamelessly copy them. Not all three that she got, just two.

I took some pics to show you what they look like:

This is silver with red lining.

 

An all black pair of shoes for when I go to the office.

Blue and red shoes for an outfit that doesn’t exist in my closet.

Finally, the shoes come in this reusable bag.

Shoes cost less than Php 400 each and shipping for all three shoes was Php 60.

To be honest, they fit perfectly but I haven’t been able to walk around them yet. And since I haven’t walked around in them yet, I’m hoping they’ll be comfortable for walks around the city.

Check out Shoe Room. Abby is really nice and accommodating.

RIP Steve Jobs

Due to complications from pancreatic cancer, Steve Jobs passed yesterday, October 5, 2011 at the young age of 56.

I was surprised to be really affected by the news of his death. I wasn’t expecting to be saddened this much. It’s almost as if a long-lost friend had died.

I owned the first two generations of the iPod Nano. I was given these and when I finally was able to afford to buy myself an iPod, I opted to go with the iPod Touch 4G.

And like any geek, I cringe every time somebody calls it the “iTouch”.

I never hesitated buying my iPod Touch. I thought it was cool. I could read books, watch movies and listen to music – everything I like doing. I use my iPod touch every day during work. Music kept me awake whenever I felt sleepy. Or when I didn’t feel like talking at work since having the iPod plugged in your ears basically says “I’m a loner and I don’t want to socialize”.

While I loaded music videos and movies onto my iPod touch, I never really watched them. I felt I’d rather spend the time listening to music. My music library grows everyday and I hope to fill it up with more songs through the years.

Without the genius of Steve Jobs and his team, the world would’ve never experienced the simple pleasure of having portable music. Yes, we had the Walkman back in the day but it was an effort just to lug cassette tapes and/or cds around.

Steve Jobs once said that design “is not just what it looks like and looks like. Design is how it works”. Truly, Steve Jobs was a wonderful designer by integrating sleek looks and functionality in almost all of Apple’s products. His genius and creativity is now evident is present in almost all of latest gadgets. Steve Jobs helped shape our modern world. For this, we are thankful.

Steve Jobs, you will be truly missed.

The All New Kindle

When I first logged onto Amazon today (yes, I log on quite a few times in one day), I was surprised to see a letter. I quickly scanned through it and was excited to learn about the all new Kindle Touch.

Yes! A Kindle that has a touch screen instead of the keyboard. I’ve been hoping Amazon would release one. But Amazon didn’t only launch just a Kindle Touch. They also launched Kindle Fire, a Kindle Touch with Color, something I’ve also been hoping for because I’d really like Kindle to have because I want to see book covers in color instead of just black and white.

From the looks of it, Kindle Fire will have the same capabilities of other tablets already in the market – the iPad, the Galaxy tab or the Playbook. It’ll have apps and media playback. It boasts of cloud storage, something I’m not quite sure if it’s available on the other tablets.

I’m quite excited for reviewers to get their hands on these new Kindles. From the reviews, I’ll decide if I’ll get just the Kindle Touch or go ahead with the Kindle Fire.

Your thoughts?

Remembering 9/11/2001

Thank God my family and I were nowhere near New York and Washington DC on that fateful day, September 11, 2001.

I remember that night vividly. I was sitting around in my dorm when George, my landlord said in a rather casual tone “World War III na” (World War III is happening now). I was alarmed and we immediately switched the TV to news.

And there it was, the scariest thing I ever saw: the first of the twin towers on fire, smoke and fire everywhere. Commentators were narrating that an airplane had crashed into the twin towers and that it was a terrorist attack.

Moments later, we were horrified to see a second plane crash into the second tower.

My dorm mates and I were staring at the TV stupidly. We were all kinds of scared. We watched in horror as we saw the first tower crumble down, shortly followed by the second tower.

I remember praying for the lives lost and for the people who were determined to rescue lives. I remember panicking inside and thinking about what I had read in the bible and wondered if this was really the start of WWIII. After all, everyone knew that the great country of America would not take this attack sitting down.

Indeed they did not.

Almost 3,000 lives lost. Families broken. Dreams shattered. Parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, fiances and fiancees, sons and daughters, friends and loved ones lost.

Luckily, more than 3,000 heroes emerged. Yes, these are the men and women who saved other lives in the midst of danger. Yes, these are also the men and women who stood up to against terrorism. And these are also the people who helped the bereaved and grief-stricken survive.

September 11, 2001 was the worst day and the best day of mankind --- so far. It was the worst as we have seen effects of extremism and the suffering and violence and evil that comes with it. It was the best day because on that day, we showed what we as members of the human race, are capable of. We are capable of great acts of love and courage and kindness and bravery and heroism.

#Wewillneverforget

Something Borrowed, Something Blue

I spent a few days and a weekend with Emily Griffin’s “Something Borrowed” and “Something Blue”. What made me read these books? I had just finished watching “Something Borrowed”, a movie that came out earlier this year.

As what it usually is, the book is better than the movie. No surprise there. The movie did have some nice quirks to it but not enough to compare it to the book. The book was well-written but had some dragging moments. Despite these dragging moments the book, it was infinitely more entertaining than the movie. I wish the movie was more faithful to the book. Now that I think about it, I hardly recognize the book after seeing the movie. Ethan wasn’t supposed to be that prominent of a figure in the movie. He wasn’t in love with Rachel at all. Claire wasn’t this crazy girl who was in love with Ethan. Somehow, Dex and Marcus wasn’t as annoying in the book. Darcy was likable in the movie but very annoying in the book. The confrontation scene was all wrong too. It might’ve been way better if they stuck with the book version.

The movie version keeps all the significant moments intact but I wish the scriptwriters found the perfect balance between movie writing and the book.

“Something Blue” for me is far more entertaining than Something Borrowed. I actually chuckled at one point. This is the book where Darcy realizes she’s been shallow and where she begins to mature and actually know what love is. Something Borrowed created the perfect back story for Something Blue. It’s definitely a better read. Funnier. More heartwarming. Ingredients to the perfect chick-lit.

My recommendation: Read the book, then watch the film and then read Something Blue.

Here’s the trailer for Something Borrowed, out on DVD since August 16, 2011.

Adele – Someone Like You

Tonight, a BBM contact was listening to Adele and I could see what he was listening to. So out of curiosity, I checked out Adele’s discography.

“Someone Like You” was the most interesting title to me and so I went to a site that could play the song for me.

Listening to the lyrics reminded me of my great love so far.

I was asked by a new girl friend last Friday night if I ever really thought of us (him and me) getting married some day. I answered truthfully and said that it did come up in the conversations we had then. I did like the idea but I don’t think I could’ve married him.

I didn’t believe then that he was the best match for me, hence our break up. Plus, thinking about it now, it wouldn’t have worked out anyway. I know myself. I’m secretly a workaholic but lazy at the same time. I’m thinking that I couldn’t have possibly fit him in with the life I had after graduation.

I had gone to Phoenix One where I met some of the most talented people I know. I wasn’t even able to finish the two year course because I went to the US for a couple of months. When I came back, I was expecting to go to the US again within the year so I decided to work in the BPO industry while waiting. I worked nights since I had to work US hours. What was supposed to be a few months working the night shift ended after four years and two companies.

I loved the night shift for a short while but I was tired all the time. I really can’t see how we could’ve fit each other into a schedule, especially now that I know that he works in the BPO industry as well. We probably wouldn’t have the same rest days, hence we couldn’t really spend time together.

I work days now. He still works at night. Knowing myself, we probably would’ve broken up sometime in the last three years. And I’m not just saying this to console myself. I know it. Because he tried really hard to keep us together but I wanted to do nothing after work. I still don’t want to do anything after work except Friday nights.

In the end, he is with the best girl for him because she gave him what I couldn’t or wouldn’t.

This realization, my friends, is what I can call closure.

What pops out most from Adele’s song? This part right here:

“Never mind, I’ll find someone like you. I wish nothing but the best for you two”.

And it IS over for me.