HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!!

"This has become a big commercial holiday, it seems that companies are trying to make us believe that the more we spend on our loved ones, the more we love them, and I'm not falling for that" - Ellen Degeneres

Yeah! You nailed it girl! I LOVE ED's outfit here, and the message of the monologue I just have to share this.

And... I wanted to talk about Valentine's day. A friend of mine once told me that she doesn't get the fuss over Valentine's day (she's in a relationship for a long time). My automatic response to this was, it's not about the lovers, it's about Saint Valentine, and she said that's the perspective of single people. Not exactly true, but sure I was bluffing. In all honesty, I don't know anything about St. Valentine. I just learned that he's not just one person, but it's a name for 14 martyred saints of ancient Rome (Thank you Wikipedia!). I don't remember Saint Valentine being discussed in my school years. But it's not about him, or them, the celebration has been deleted from the Roman calendar of saints. It's all about love. But, really, what's the hype all about? It's good for business, but to say we celebrate being in love, shouldn't it be an everyday thing?

But what am I to say? By a single person's perspective (and by single person, I mean me), it's just another pressure to date. As another friend (she's single too) had told me, Valentines is singles awareness day. My dilemma is, I'm 29, and you know, the older you get the higher the pressure. Sometimes I get annoyed on people asking when am I getting married, and I'm like, what are you talking about? I'm not even dating. But the good news is, I'm not giving in to any of that. I admit, I sometimes get lonely being alone. Sometimes I listen to love songs and I find myself wishing I have someone to hold. It's a natural thing, but I'm in no way in a hurry to find someone to celebrate Valentine's day with. I always say, in God's time, I'll find it.

Besides, being single have perks, like I don't have to worry about spending, which is great because this is the time of the year that I'm really broke. But then again, celebrating doesn't mean spending. And love is not just for lovers, but also for friends and family and music boxes. :D

Smartphone Inconveniences

When I saw signs that my Sony Ericsson K750i is on the brink of destruction. I felt the urge to get a new cellphone. A lot of people treat their phones like oxygen, but me, other than call and text, I use it as a clock. But don't we all love the technology we have now and do different things with cellphone? So when I was deciding for a new one, I list camera, music player, wifi and JavaScript capability as requirements.

But then, just when I thought I've had enough with gadgets, I found myself longing for a an Iphone. I hate to admit it, but I fall for it, I used to like one so badly I would countdown my postpaid contract end date to get one. Hear me out okay. I work for a company that used to be an exclusive carrier of Iphone, and when you deal with Iphone issues at least 3 times a day, you find yourself falling for the most expensive paper weight. I would check on Iphone users' forum and read about cool apps, I often see it on CNN, TEDS, and a lot of TV shows. Then I learned that my friend Mike teamed up with other game developers and put up a game studio developing games for iOS. So I decided, I'll get an Iphone!

But then, when you see too many people around you getting one, it becomes less and less appealing. I sometimes pride myself as someone who doesn't fall for something that everybody is into. It's fun to find music that feels like my own private experience, music that not everybody gets. So there, I totally lost interest on Iphone. A stubborn reasoning, but thank God that's me. It's just not worth the price. Instead I got an Android. Okay, so it's not the kind of music that I was talking about. To date, Android is the world's best selling smartphone OS. But then, it's a lot cheaper and my favorite wireless phone brand carries Android so why not?

oh no, my phone is a lot smaller than this hehehe

I got me a Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini. Like many other new gadgets available, it has a touchscreen instead of a keypad. The camera has 5 megapixel resolution with a LED flash, it can take HD videos. The internet loads faster than my previous phone. I'm pretty satisfied. I love it.

Except that I have not really enjoyed the "smart" side of it yet. Maybe it's just me not being tech savvy, but I thought that a smartphone is supposed to do everything you need to make your "on-the-go" lifestyle a lot easier. I have some things to diss. (Now if you are a fan of smartphones, don't get too agitated, for this post, I'm only referring to my phone.)

The Apps. There are too many of them! But I only want a dictionary and a carbon footprint calculator, but why does it seem so hard to find a decent one. Maybe because I'm only looking for the free ones and most of the free ones requires me to connect to the web to use the application. I mean that's not fair, I shouldn't be required to add more charges on my phone bill just to understand what sigmatism means or help me decide if I should prioritize buying a vacuum cleaner over a water closet. Sometimes I have those moments that I feel like an idiot and I need a smart advice hehehe. Help me smartyphone!

Call Restriction. There are times when I don't want to receive calls. Not that I'm avoiding people, but calls from telemarketers offering loans are just annoying. Specially when they ruin my sleep. This function is one of the first things I checked and I was just dumbfounded when I realized I can't do it with my new phone. Now if you own the same phone as I do and you think I'm wrong, you might want to help me because I've checked call and security settings and there's just no option that would let me put a call barring. Or do I need to download an app for that?

Battery. Now I thought the battery issue is unique to Iphone, apparently not. At most, my battery lasts 2 days, my old phone would last a week without charging. Now as a defender of planet earth, this is a problem. As much as I want to conserve energy, my phone won't let me. Uh oh...

Messaging. If you are someone who likes to send GMs, forget getting an Android. The messaging uses a chat approach and there's no Send-to-many option. There's no inbox or outbox. Instead, there's a thread that stores my SMS exchanges for every contact in my phone book. It's not that hard, except that there are more steps and redundancy involve if I want to forward a heartwarming message to my friends. I figured that on Christmas and other holidays, I will insert my SIM to my old phone just to greet everyone. Another problem for this chat approach is when I have to share prepaid credits to my family. It's a more complicated process and I don't want to make a long post out of it, so I won't go over that anymore. Bottom line is, I want the old school messaging!

Those are just some of the things that irked me. Generally, I like it. Next time, I'll talk about the good things about it.