Leslie flashed a CyanogenMod 10 (CM10) nightly build on my LG Optimus Black (Thanks, Les!). HUGE improvement! I previously said “it’s a little bit laggy due to the low-end specs as well as all those virtual machinery and hardware abstraction layers”. Scrap that! The lagginess, it seems, was due to the Android version (Android 2.2 Frozen Yogurt and later Android 2.3 Gingerbread) and the LG Touch UI. With CM10, which was based on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, everything was snappier. There’s a fair bit of instability (hangs mainly, this is a nightly build after all) but it’s quite usable. Looks like this phone can go on as test phone for another year. Maybe I could even use it as secondary/backup phone.
Apple EarPods: One Less Reason to Get an iPhone 5
Grabbed a pair of EarPods yesterday. They were out of stock in quite a few stores but I finally got lucky.
The EarPods come in a case that acts as a cable wrap and is really pretty and, more importantly, functional. The earphones themselves are just as beautiful. It’s got a curvy organic look. Supposedly it was designed for the human ear. They’re not in-ear headphones but they are shaped in such a way as to deliver the sound directly into the ear canal.
The sound is definitely better compared to the old Apple earphones. The sound is not as tinny as before. Definitely there was an improvement in the mid and low range. The bass is definitely not the thumping, at least in the ear, kind of way but I guess they also had to consider voice.
I’m quite pleased with them. Too bad, because now that I have them, there’s one less reason for getting an iPhone 5 :P
A Great Day
“It’s a great day!” Jeanne declared as we were leaving the mall. And I indeed it was.
The day started off as most Sunday mornings, i.e. lazy. But after a small brunch, we headed off to our favorite picnic grounds: UP. On the way, we stopped by the roadside for some corn. Then we stopped by Petron for barbecue from Ineng’s Special BBQ (barbecue cooked just right), halo-halo from Chow King, as well as drinks.
It was sunny when we got to UP. But not hot and there’s a cool breeze blowing. We set up our picnic mat under the shade of a tree and had late lunch, dessert, and snacks in quick succession. After resting a bit, we then went to the chapel for mass.
After mass, we headed over to the mall. While Michelle went shopping, Jeanne and I went to look at some electronica then to the bookstore to read a few books. We ended up also getting a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit. After the bookstore, we went to the grocery and bought some essentials. James caught up with us as we were paying. We then went to Yoshinoya for dinner, where Michelle rejoined us, before heading home.
Yes, Jeanne. It was a great day!
Investing In The Philippines
After the riots in China, both the FoxConn factory and the anti-Japanese riots, US and Japanese companies are finding out about the true costs of being in China. Maybe it’s time they focus more on the Philippines. There may be separatists down south and corruption everywhere but at least workers, and people in general, don’t have the tendency riot the way they do in China. Yes, not even with all that corruption.
For the US, the Philippines has been one of the destinations for business process outsourcing, why not manufacturing, too? For Japan, it has been one of the destinations for outsourcing manufacturing. And has something in common with: disputes with China over sovereign territory :P
Books
I love books. My siblings and I grew up on a steady diet of Dr. Seuss and The Bernstein Bears. This was followed by a whole lot of books from my parents’ bookshelf. There’s The Book of Knowledge, The Fascinating World of Animals, the dictionary (which I tried and failed to read from A to Zymurgy), a whole bunch of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books, and so much more. You can say that that bookshelf to me then was what the Internet is to me today.
At around 7 years of age, I found and read The Hobbit. Followed soon after by the full Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I don’t know exactly when I finished it but I recall when I was 9, I was telling my schoolmates about lembas during recess. That means I could be in The Two Towers or The Return of the King by then. I even tried to read The Silmarilion. I’ve read many more novels since but nothing ever came close to JRR Tolkien’s books. They have a special place in my heart. And I sure hope Jeanne will read them someday, too.
Yes, books definitely were a huge part of my childhood. So I’ve always worked towards instilling Jeanne a love for books. I give her books once in a while and we read them during bedtime. Sometimes, on trips to the mall, we visit the bookstore. Today, we went there again, I sat down and she got book after book from the shelves and we read and read them. And she enjoyed it so much she didn’t want to leave. It’s great to see progress in your parenting.