Philippines 2018 - Two Seats For Me

Before going to the Philippines, I remember being miserable. I was going through some stupid stuff like... emotions and stress from work. I got drunk two nights before my flight on vodka and Coke Zero because I had too much on my mind. I wish I had cranberry juice instead but hey, I mixed what I had. Strangely, the lack of hangover made me watch PewDiePie videos on my PS4.

Drunken mess aside, I wanted to go to the Philippines to be happy and not miserable if that made any sense. My mother and my sister couldn't go for reasons beyond their control so it was just me and my brother on the flight. We had to cancel the first set of tickets we had booked with China Airlines, which means we booked more expensive tickets with Cathay Pacific. We're big dudes and we had a row close to the window. 

What's On My Phones?

Knowing me, I have a few backup phones because I'm never satisfied with the battery life of just one phone and bringing along a powerbank is too bulky. Aside from the usual social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat, I usually have a whole selection of apps that I instantly install once I get another phone. They might not be for everyone but they're mostly free so you could easily try them out. I'll try to get to them as quick as possible.

Nova Launcher is a go-to launcher. I even bought the Prime version at full price just because I wanted to support the development team. However, I sometimes want something simple and quick. That's where I use Evie Launcher. It's a basic launcher that's quick and recommended for those who never used a custom launcher before. For wallpapers on said launchers, I mainly use Backdrops. Quite a lot of choices and they're all quirky and colorful.

Nova Launcher

For browsers, sure, Google Chrome is the most common but I despise not being able to block ads on sites that I visit. Opera and Brave Browser come in handy. Opera lets me sync open tabs and bookmarks from different devices as well as blocking majority of the ads.

Oppo and how Canada's midrange is boring

With my recent trip to the Philippines, I didn't expect to have a newfound love for cellphones. I have an LG V20 and I absolutely love it for being a media powerhouse along with having a wonderful wide angle camera that my aunt loves. Before the V20, I had a Samsung S7 as my daily driver with a modest Moto G5 Plus as a trusted backup. These are miles ahead of the Samsung Discover and Blacberry 9220 that I used in 2015. So this means I'm a sucker for cellphones and this whole post is just me fawning over a cellphone.

(c) NoypiGeeks

I wish I took my own photos of all the advertising because it's insane, even at the airport. Oppo (stylized as OPPO) recently launched 2 cellphones in the Philippines, namely the Oppo F5 and the F5 Youth.

They look like the iPhone 7, especially the F5 Youth since the lack of silver antenna lines make it look cleaner. That's the thing about these phones though. They run ColorOS which is technically still Android but definitely makes the menus look like it's running iOS, down to the icons and notification menus.

"Oh, it's a MediaTek processor so it's cheap and crappy and won't get updates!"

Exactly! It's supposed to be cheap since the common person who doesn't care about technical specs won't really notice whether the processor is either MediaTek, Kirin, Exynos, or Snapdragon. I used to sell cellphones and never once did a customer ask "What's the processor on this phone?" They would ask relatively common questions like "Is the camera good?", "Is this phone Android or iOS?", "What's the storage on this?", and "Can I use a memory card with this phone?"

I would admit the Oppo marketing got me, I admit. I didn't need it but it's way more interesting than what midrange phones Canada is stuck with. Heck, even Huawei phones in Canada aren't that varied. You either go with a great phone like the Huawei P10 or you go with a disappointing one with the Huawei GR5.

Even though it's still technically a Chinese phone and god forbid, someone buys those instead of typical Apple, the F5 is still a wonderful phone that feels premium with its polycarbonate body, wonderful front and rear cameras, and 18:9 aspect ratio which is the trend right now thanks to the Samsung S8.

The Oppo made me realize that Canada isn't a priority when it comes to midrange phones. The closest thing to a midrange phone that can compete with the F5 is the LG Q6, which the F5 takes the lead. The F5 has a fingerprint scanner and way better cameras than the Q6. For screens, the Q6 has Gorilla Glass 3 while the F5 has Gorilla Glass 5 so scratch away with those keys and forks in your pockets. The F5 has 4 gigs of RAM while the Q6 has 3, yet the F5 Youth also has 3 gigs of RAM but is still better than the Q6. The only thing these phones have in common is the facial recognition.

The Oppo F5 is still way better than the crappy phones sold at Walmart. The Acer Liquid Zest is technically a phone but its meager 8 gigs of storage and below average battery life is nothing to be hopeful for. The F5 is still a way better buy than the pathetic BLU phones in stock, not the good BLU phones that have some quality to them. The only phone close to being a gem in Walmart's selection of unlocked phones is the Moto E4 but it's still overpriced by a hundred dollars in retail stores.

The prices for plans in British Columbia are already terribly high. I mean, 1 gig of data and 300 local minutes for $90-$95 if you want a phone like iPhone 7 or the Samsung S8 isn't really something that you head on to the store for 2-year contract. Retailers who sell postpaid plans would definitely hate you for going prepaid and bringing your own unlocked phone since they would rather sell you a postpaid monthly plan rather than a prepaid plan even though you're in the country for less than 3 weeks. The common ground between price and plan is the midrange, or at least it should be.

Good midrange smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy A5 2017 on a postpaid plan would just be 10-20 dollars cheaper on a 2-year contract, assuming you're lucky enough to catch them on a good day where they give you bonus data, because everyone wants data and the big companies don't want you to have it for cheap.

That's why I loved working for a prepaid cellphone company for a time because of no long-term commitments (Everyone's afraid of commitment, AMIRIGHT, GUYS? HIGH FIVE!). With no contracts, it just meant that people would bring their own unlocked phone and that would always make me happy to see what people bring in. It could be a crappy phone like a 2010 Motorola Spice, which looked like a suppository, or a OnePlus One which is a wonderful phone from 2014 that made me realize that unlocked phones are way cooler.

So after all this rambling, I'd really wish for more midrange phones to be sold in Canada, not just Oppo but Vivo and more of Huawei's lineup, because I know they'd make a good impact and give everyone an opportunity to have a good phone at a decent price. However, knowing Canada, the government would definitely just listen to the three big phone companies and put the kibosh on it since they probably can't overcharge everyone.

Wishful thinking.

I Need To Work On My Writing

A few days ago, I remember doing a little fun Facebook challenge where you come up with one way to introduce your friends. Someone comments and then you deliver a paragraph or two on how you'd introduce them. I thought, hey, this could be fun. I had some friends comment and, no disrespect, I wish a lot more commented though. Would've been a great writing exercise and it's clearly the only exercise I take. It took me around 10 minutes to finish up a little scenario and I really enjoyed it because I can tell I still have bits and pieces of creativity remaining after years of cynicism and suicidal thoughts.

What I don't like is how I can't transfer this little creativity I have to something more expansive. I wanna write novels, memoirs, compilations of short stories but I can't finish them because I can't focus. I can't try to make things unique. The tone is all over the place with the novels I write and I hate it. I wanna work on it. How the hell am I going to get published if I can't type anything, goddamn it?

Maybe I haven't found my writing voice yet. Maybe I never will. Maybe I never had one to begin with.

A Message From Cora Miller

I remember doing a post about how stupid these spam bots that pretend to be women and just advertise websites. I had fun doing that a while back and once in a while, I just read them for fun on how elaborate they get. I found a simple one so it's not as detailed as before so I won't be able to enjoy the lore that comes with the seedy sex website.

I might sound crazy to you but I am a huuuge attention-freak, that is why I'm posting lots of my near-nude photos or other spicy pictures.

That's just weird. If you want attention, just post on Instagram and follow 690 people. Surely you'll get all the attention you need. Also, "spicy" is a funny way to describe near-nude photos. I know memes are referred to as spicy but really, near-nude photos are just mild at best.

Nevertheless, it's been quite a while since I have heard an unbiased opinion, so I was thinking, maybe you'll be the the only one who can tell me the truth?

Sure! The truth is that there are chemicals in the water that TURN THE FREAKIN' FROGS GAY! Do you understand that? I'm sick of being social engineered, it's not funny!

(Thank you, Alex Jones from InfoWars for that joke.)

Have a great look at my sexy photos and please, don't tell me that I'm amazing, everybody else is saying that, I want to hear your real opinion and in case you have one, maybe I can buy you a coffee later?

Asking for someone's real opinion would cause the person being asked to lowball their answer to be nice. How will that scenario go anyway? "Your photos suck and you look like a smacked ass." "Thanks, let's get a latte."

Waiting your reply.
Many kisses,
Cora

No reply for you. Well, technically this is a passive aggressive reply but still.

That was fun. I'm going to look for more spam emails to make fun of for no reason.