Category Archives: reviews

Hello, Samsung Tab S8!

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When you buy online, you get a free slim book keyboard worth PHP 7k. Free delivery via LBC. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I think I finally achieved a happy compromise. Portability with bigger screen compared to iPad mini 6 that I had been initially planning to get. I checked my sister-in-law’s iPad mini 6 that was newly purchased by my bro—it was losing charge quickly and it heats up. They had to bring it to the Apple store/reseller for possible repair. Aside from that, the screen was so small, even for watching Netflix. I want something that I could chuck in my handbag, but it should not be that small.

It was hard to satisfy my requirements. 🫥

I can hold it with one hand, like when I read daily news in bed. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Now I can read all my newspaper/magazine subscriptions away from my desktop. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

It has an 11″ screen, but it’s narrower and easier to handle than my old 10.2″ iPad 9. It’s also lighter.

It can easily be shoved into my medium-sized handbag. This is great for when I leave the house, like for a coverage or a meeting, but I’m not expecting heavy editing work in between. Or when I go out of town for leisure but I need to bring a machine for “work emergencies” without lugging my Lenovo laptop.

It can fit in my handbag! Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I have installed this with all the apps that I usually use for work like MS Outlook, Office, Teams, Zoom, etc. It can do multi-tasking without freezing (unlike my old hybrid tablet Lenovo Miix 3) or slowing down. It also has DeX, which is a special feature of Samsung tablets that can change the tab’s UI into desktop mode.

The keyboard is a little tight but serviceble and tactile.

I can use my Logitech mouse for this but it’s more cumbersone to shift machines with one mouse. Just use the damn pen! What’s the use of a touchscreen if you don’t use it?

I can draft an article here on the fly if needed. Well, I used to work a lot on the first netbook, Asus Eee PC 701 (with a 7″ screen), and used it as my main word processing machine in the field, therefore, I can live with this Samsung Tab S8 tablet/keyboard combo.

I guess some gadget reviewers were right; this is how Chromebooks should have been. Google could have just stuck with Android and optimize it for tablet/hybrid laptop instead of going for the Chromebook OS where everything is done via browser. I mean, where’s the versatility in that?

I’ve always been chasing the holy grail for journalists everywhere: a word processing machine powerful enough for our daily tasks in the field but can fit into our handbags so we can be free to literally chase people for interviews.

I remember way back in 2006, one journo pulled out her Palm (or a Handspring?) with a stand and a folding keyboard and started typing away during a press conference. I turned green with envy then because I was lugging everywhere with me my 15.4″ Toshiba laptop that weighed a ton. Anything that would help me reduce the size of my bag was welcome. Since then, I had been looking for a word processing machine that can send emails that I can bring everywhere with me.

This brought me to investigate HP’s iPaQ and Handspring Visor. I had wanted those things so badly because that meant I could leave my humongous laptop behind and just carry with me that handheld device and just connect it via infrared to a small keyboard. Of course, I couldn’t afford those things at that time (early 2000s).

So when the Eee PC came to Manila, I grabbed one (PHP 18,000 retail price in 2007) and left my Toshiba at home and turned it into a “desktop”. I finally was able to carry one bag with me in the field for the first time. 😉 The other business journos followed suit.

But the tiny keyboard caused my carpal tunnel syndrome. I had to go to an orthopedic surgeon because my hands and wrist were in so much pain. When the doctor asked how I worked, I pulled out my netbook and showed him how I typed. Bingo, he said. He told me to change my machine and prescribed to me a nerve pain medicine (Pregabalin) and a combo of Vit B complex. And oh, wrist supports when I slept. I think I did that for several months until it no longer hurt.

So my remedy for my tiny keyboard? I upgraded to a bigger netbook. I can’t go back to huge-ass laptops! Then netbooks went out of favor (they were so underpowered), so I had to search again for a middle ground: thin laptops/ultrabooks then hybrid tablet-laptops. The last one was the super underpowered Lenovo Miix 3 that eventually Twin I destroyed. I had to go back to the traditional heavy laptops.

Let’s see how this Tab S8 would fare in the field.

HOT! HOT! HOT!

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I swear the Philippines may have carved out itself from Earth and made its own orbit closer to the sun. It has been freaking hot this week that I’ve been looking at possible staycation venues just to cool off.

Anilao Awari Bay Resort. April 2019. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

But I remembered that we still have the reservation at Blue Ribbon from last year so I asked management if we could book it on 17-19 April. I shortly got an email from them confirming the dates.

Wheeeeeeeeee!

So I could dive in the morning, then have breakfast, then work. Then dive again in the afternoon to take a break from work. Lovely. ❤️❤️❤️ I need to order the diving donut and new freediving flippers soon. ❤️❤️❤️

In Maricaban Island, Batangas. May 2019. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

But before this, maybe I can book a room at Twin Lakes Hotel in Tagaytay to be able to have a cooler break this month before the AGM season starts after Holy Week. Face-to-face meetings are back so I may have to physically attend some of those.

I should also book succeeding Anilao trips early. Oh wait, I still have a Boracay trip with B. 🤪

Twin I said one of the reasons why she doesn’t want to live in Singapore is that there are no coral reefs there that we can go to in a heartbeat. Yep, that’s true. Only jellyfish in Palawan Beach 😂 Or you have to go to Indonesia to have a proper beach getaway.

In the throes of my anxiety attack because of that painting that was sent to me early last month, I ordered something from Shopee to make me feel a bit better, like a love letter to myself: a made-to-order planner cover for only PHP 600. It’s PU leather so it’s cheaper than the real leather version of this, which is around PHP 1,600. I think I will order that later. But this one still looks good and looks sturdy.

Tadah! Maroon (color of UP) side by side with the plastic ring binder planner that it will replace. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I’ve been a planner junkie since elementary. I feel more organized if I jot things down and not rely so much on electronic calendars (they’re for alarms only for me).

Gold hardware. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

The manufacturer gave me a choice of colors for the cover and the hardware. I figured to get myself my school color and gold hardware to match. It looks lovely and I think this will hold up better than the Filofax Domino I bought from Kinokuniya in Singapore (always my first stop after dumping my stuff at my hotel whenever I fly in). That one was a bad binder as it got frayed within a short amount of time. So much for its advertised leather cover 🤨.

Planner pages. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I make my own planner pages because I could customize it. I download it from this blog that I’ve been following for years since it also offers pages for Midori Travelers Notebooks (which I searched for in Osaka). The Filofax fillers are hard to come by in Manila plus they’re more expensive here compared to the ones I buy in Singapore.

The numpad from Mofii that I ordered from Lazada also arrived today. I discovered I could not work without a numpad since I do a lot of computations for work. 😂 very ironic for somebody who evaded Math courses in college. But I deal with a lot of financial reports and doing simple financial ratios are easier with a numpad.

Pink! Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I really don’t like pink but I was forced to get this to match my raspberry Logitech keyboard.

My colleague in Shanghai has been telling me that he has been feeling angry and betrayed by his manager who hasn’t been responding to him, especially now that he needs to renew his working visa. He has been all over the place a few days ago and didn’t feel like working. I said you owe yourself basura days because we are not robots and there are just times that we are not 100% up to the task. We should excuse ourselves when we don’t feel like it. I told him I learned this from one of my bffs who lost her daughter to placenta abruptio when she was giving birth. She suffered from depression after that and in her grief, she allowed herself to slide during some days when depression strikes and her thoughts go back to the events that led to the death of her precious daughter. She just couldn’t comprehend the death and she was the one who told me that we need to accept that there are just things we could not find answers for. So she allotted basura days for her mental health.

She also told me to treat myself once in a while and create our own happiness.

So I told my colleague, this has been the one I’ve been doing for over a year now—just accept there are basura days and just make up for it the following day. So yesterday was my garbage day and now I’m still doing the digest that I need to publish tomorrow. And I’ve been treating myself to simple things like what I’ve been buying for myself to make me feel better or make me inspired to do my work, like my keyboard, my planner, the materials for my urban sketching. Then tomorrow I will be going out to work, do some urban sketching in between, talk to fellow journos before the start of the presscon, just interact with the outside world so I won’t live in my head anymore.

My colleague said he will adopt my strategies.

We gotta create our own pockets of happiness because sometimes the world is unfair. Self-love, because sometimes the world is harsh.

New toy

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My streaming/podcasting mic, Fifine K670B. Photo CallMeCreation.com

I’ve been playing with this thing the entire night by recording my audio. For less than PHP 2,000 (PHP 1,750 to be exact since I bought this during the 10.10 sale), I was able to score a good USB condenser microphone for my interviews. As I have mentioned before, I will be joining my high school friends in their Youtube series, interviewing people about anything under the sun that interest the kwarentals, or those aged 40 and up. They already ran the teaser last week and then they will interview me next month before my debut in December in time for our high school reunion.

The audio is crisp and picks up my voice really well. There is also a 3.5mm jack at the back of the mic for earphones/headphones monitoring. You know, kinda like what recording artists put on their ears to monitor their own voices so they can easily track if they’re going off-key because the backing music can easily drown out their audio. This is really neat. There is also a converter so I can hook this up to a microphone arm if I don’t want the stand blocking my LED monitors when I’m interviewing or doing podcasts/streams.

The base is heavy and solid so the mic will not topple down. Overall this is value for money.

‘Til They Take My Heart Away
Burnout

I’m so happy with this purchase.

When the world shut down

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This book/TV series by DC Comics and Warner Bros is about an apocalyptic world, shut down by a virus that caused the Sick. Remember, this story was published in 2018 but the scenes are very 2020/2021. When the world shut down, chaos reigned, it was every man for himself.

The main protagonist, Gus, is a hybrid human-animal. His kind started appearing alongside the virus that has killed millions worldwide. They still don’t know what it is and how to cure it. But somehow they thought killing and harvesting the organs and bone marrow of these hybrids would lead to a cure.

Mind you, these hybrids were children of humans who had just the bad luck of being born during the pandemic that has lasted for 10 yrs. They were born from human parents. Dissected for cure. Get that. So Gus and his kind were hunted down.

So anyway, the scenes played in the series would have been preposterous pre-COVID-19. But having endured the pandemic chaos here, yeah, I can say everything is possible as the scenes played in the DC Comic/TV Series are all too familiar to us. ✅ The world is run by military guys/militia of some sort who think the way forward is ham-fisted rule, killing at will, and no care for the little people. And pretend they know what they’re doing. (Oh lord, sounds like the Philippines). ✅ People suspected of being infected by the virus were shunned, vilified, or worse, sent to summary execution (sounds like the early days of COVID-19 pandemic here) ✅ food and durable goods scarcity ✅ the privileged live like the world hasn’t changed and deluding themselves that they can keep the world from changing ✅ everyone has lost loved ones either from violence or the disease ✅ flora and fauna flourished in the absence of humans who hunkered down as they quarantined. For years. ✅ As humanity rode waves upon waves of the virus attack. (oh yeah, we’re now just emerging from a long lockdown due to COVID-19 Alpha strain. And it seems like the vaccines in Indonesia aren’t working that well on the Delta strain that has brought India to its knees so God help us if Delta starts to overwhelm us here).

But in the utter darkness of the world, there is still some goodness left. In Gus’ pandemic, goodness is in the form of Jepp, the ex-American football star who became an unwilling protector of this hybrid. Alongside is Becky, a.k.a. Bear, whose family died of the virus and the only family left was a hybrid who was taken away by the militia known as the Last Men. In our current situation, the goodness comes in the form of… common people like us who come to the rescue of those who are less fortunate. Those who had been unselfish. Those who had been giving whatever they could for those who are hungry and dying. In the Philippines, it can be seen in the rise of the community pantries to feed those who did not have safety nets.

After bingeing on 8 episodes of Season 1, I come to the conclusion that: 1) It’s really handy to know how to drive a manual transmission vehicle. I have always known this, that’s why my family insisted on driving manual cars. Because living in the Philippines is like surviving the apocalypse where every disaster imaginable occurs regularly. 2) DIY skills should be in everybody’s priority of things to be acquired during a pandemic. 3) We should rough it out more so we can survive in some isolated forest in case we need to keep ourselves from being attacked by zombies or bad humans. 4) Learn how to survive with less luxuries 5) Grow our own food. 6) It sucks to live in a condo so better invest in a little cottage somewhere you can survive a pandemic. 7) Preppers are right all along. They’re not crazy.

I am working on these things now because we’re still dealing with Alpha and Beta strains of COVID-19. The Department of Health said that Delta is already here but it hasn’t overwhelmed us yet like it does India. The rest of Southeast Asia is still on a lockdown as they battle it through another wave of the virus resurgence. As long as we haven’t found the right vaccine to overcome COVID-19, we will continue to suffer from these waves.

Trese: A review

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Well, what can I say? I was full of trepidation about Trese being brought to life as an animated series but good that I was wrong about my fears. It was better than I expected. The animation could be better (since I am more of a Japanese animation fan) but the storylines per episode are good representations of what Philippine myths and folklore would look like in modern Manila setting. The nuno sa punso though would be hard in Manila since we don’t have enough soil here as everything else is concrete. But the writer of the comics (Budjette Tan) and the Netflix series were able to transport the nuno into sewers and popping up from manholes, which made sense. I didn’t like how this season ended, kinda cliche but the preview of the next season is more intriguing because it seems like the manananggal here is cunning.

I like that the scenes are so familiar, like the MRT breaking down in the middle of Guadalupe, the Meralco building, Dela Rosa Avenue in Makati, Ortigas Center buildings, Megamall, Manila Bay nightscape and I could make out the buildings along Roxas Boulevard, and ABS-CBN front entrance.

My girls and I watched the entire Season 1 in English and it was…so-so. The cadence of the English language was clumsy. Maybe because the scriptwriters are Filipinos in the Philippines, so the conversations in English don’t flow naturally I guess? The accents were off, especially with the spells, which will not bother non-Tagalog speakers but it was grating to me. The English cast was comprised of Filipino-Americans or Filipino-Canadians and it is understandable that they may have trouble with the original language. However, I find it disturbing that Lou Diamond Philips (Mayor) sounded more Mexican while Carlos Alazraqui sounded like a cross between a South American or Spaniard.

When I rewatched snippets of Episode 1 again in Filipino, then it made more sense now. Liza Soberano was better than Shay Mitchell, even just in the monotone. Mind you, Liza grew up in the US (and she gets a lot of flak here for sounding more American than Filipino in movies and TV series) so both actors have that American twang but Liza’s monotone was similar to that of the Japanese voice actor of Kusanagi Motoko in Ghost in the Shell, which fit Alexandra Trese better. UPDATE: I will watch the entire Episode 1 to judge it better.

In the Filipino version, conversations in Tagalog were not the everyday Tagalog we use but it somehow fits. As others commented, this is not the Filipino dub/sub of Naruto, which was cringey.

I like the Ifugao chanting that they use as opening music, which gives it a more ancient, folklore Filipino flavor. The music of Up Dharma Down (UDD) at the end of the every episode is a good foil to the ancient music as UDD is the best representation of modern Filipino music today (yes, I’m a fan).

Filipino folklore is rich but was bastardized by the Spanish, who have demonized women–just look at what they did to the babaylan (Philippine shamans, usually female). The origins of the tiyanak in the colonial Spanish context is one example of that. The banishment of Mariang Sinukuan and Maria Makiling (some versions of the tale) is another one. Neil Gaiman is also a fan of Philippine folklore, which is a treasure trove of literary material. Even the local ones we have like the legend of the Seven Lakes of San Pablo, and the Mt Maculot (originally Mt. Maculog) in Batangas can be manipulated in so many ways, which I did in that novel that I wrote but burned.

Anyway, this is just the first attempt of the Trese team, I hope they get better support and better story telling next season.

The Kindest Thing

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I discovered Will Post on Spotify through his horribly beautiful song Kindest Thing. It’s horrible because the song killed me with a thousand knives all over again. It reminded me of why it was the best for me to cut all communication because I can imagine J in this song telling me the stuff Will Post is singing about. I cut all communication because I don’t want pity and I don’t want to feel his disdain.

The song is painful but the beat and the melody are happy, which is annoying because it makes me want to listen to this over and over even if I shouldn’t. Will Post’s voice is like velvet and it’s confusing because his singing makes me want to feel comforted but the lyrics just makes me want to say WTF!

I found Will Post’s live recording of “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” on Youtube, which is a song I always thought better played on piano compared to the upbeat chorus in the original by The Police. This matches his tone better. I hope he covers more songs like this.

I have been spending majority of the afternoon today listening to music because I’m testing my new Bluetooth speaker from Edifier, which sounds very good for the price of PHP 2,300+ (on sale on Lazada 6.6). The bass doesn’t break even if the volume is turned up since it has a subwoofer. It’s value for money as I can finally hear the rich tones of the bass in the piano or guitar. I find that this is best for acoustic music. It also doesn’t look cheap as it is made of wood.

Edifier MP260. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
It’s small but it packs a punch. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Even though it’s small, it can fill up the whole room. It has a digital clock and alarm and I don’t know why it does but oh well, let’s just say it’s a bonus feature that I didn’t ask for. It looks good on my revamped workstation. I’ve had so many speakers over the years because I am a music lover and listening on earphones just doesn’t cut it. I accidentally left my JBL Charge in Baguio in 2018 and I still mourn the loss. If money is no object, I would invest in Bang and Olufsen (they’re just so beautiful) or Marshall (their amps!) and annoy my neighbors. If I already have my own place, I would soundproof my room so I can blast music to my heart’s content.