Quarantine Wishlist Pt. 3

But first, an update on what's been fulfilled on my previous wishlist: Quarantine Wishlist Pt. 2

I think I got most of them already so yeyy. As you know, my wishlist is really more of a personal to-buy list hehe. So yeah, my wish list is my command lol hahaha. I got Stiles, new mugs, a diffuser, Corelle plates, and Tefal cookware. I'm also growing three kinds of Basil now and they're all looking sad huhu. Still on the lookout for cute placemats though, but that can wait.

What's next?

Hotel quality beddings in gray

Most hotel linen suppliers who've gone retail this quarantine only have white available, and I'd like to have the same quality sheets in gray! Any recos?

Messy Bessy Muscle Relief Rub

Still waiting for Messy Bessy to revive this crowd favorite. Hope they don't reformulate using coconut oil cos I'm not a fan of coconut based topical products.

Instapot or any good quality multicooker

I kinda removed this from my previous wishlist but after seeing the Baumann Living Duo, I kinda want a multicooker again! Or not cos it's gonna eat up a lot of space...

Wireless charging case for Apple Airpods 2

There's just so much wires on my desk right now. I have 2 lightning cables (for my phone, tablet, and airpods), microUsb for my fan, DC for my diffuser, and 2 type C for my husband's phone. Argh.

Fast wireless charger

I'm eyeing the Choetech fast wireless charger cos it can charge 2 devices simulataneously but that's gonna wait til I get a good deal on a wireless charging case. 

Get monetized on Youtube
I have a long way to go but I'm working on it, unless Youtube makes policy changes that will make it harder for small youtubers like me to earn money. Lol

Yeah that's it for now.

Making A Mess Can Be So Relaxing

Life has been getting hectic for a long time. But this year is the first time it affects us at a global level. The coronavirus pandemic is forcing everyone to adapt. With no time to prepare, most of us have turned the home into an office, a childcare centre, a classroom, and many more. It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions and packing all your lifestyle activities into a confined space doesn’t make things easier. In a word, it’s not just been stressful; it’s been stressful for everyone at the same time. And that’s quite an achievement in its own right.

Now more than ever, we need to learn how to relax. The first and most important action you can take for yourself is to stop bottling your emotions up. It isn’t a healthy answer to a lasting and global situation. You need to take the time to talk about it and allow yourself to vocalise how you feel. Surprisingly, you’ll find that a lot of stress-coping mechanisms encourage discipline and order, from removing the emotional clutter in your life to building a positive routine. These are all effective. But ask yourself: Why use discipline, when mess and chaos are the quickest way to let go of negativity?

Photo from Unsplash

Finger painting on the canvas

Painting can be daunting if you’re not educated in this complex art. It’s odd to hear about artists explaining how liberating they find the process of creation when most amateur painters start their journeys with a numbered canvas and a selection of brushes in different sizes. Liberating? There’s way too much discipline to unleash your emotions at this stage! So, remove the brush and simplify your connection with the canvas. Finger painting gives you new freedom of self-expression that ties you back to your emotions. It’s a raw, direct, and accessible experience. You can grab everything you need from companies such as The Sydney Canvas Company and start your self-exploratory journey. If you’re worried about stains, a pair of latex gloves can do the trick!

Muddy hands are happy hands

You can find plenty of inexpensive pottery supplies and beginner’s kits for the home. However, if you are completely unfamiliar with clay works, it can be a good idea to watch a few tutorials first. There’s something wonderfully tactile about pottery that brings you back to happy memories of being a child and playing with malleable dough or salt pastry. As an amateur potter, you can get hands down with your creation and make something that could be undone and redone until you choose to bake it. It’s a never-ending process during which the clay washes away your worries and negativity.

Dough art, something messy you can eat

Pottery has only one disadvantage: There are only so many pots and decorative items you can make. Pastry art, on the other hand, offers an infinity of options that all start in the same way. A little flour, butter, and eggs that you can mix in a deliciously sticky mess. But, let it rest, and you can shape your mess into an elegant and yummy shape, for cookies, pie tops, or anything else you want to do.

Is it time to add a new function to your home/office/classroom? Creating a nook for messy art could be a nice addition to your multipurpose environment. After all, we all need to let some steam go, and what better way to do it than by creating your very own messy workshop? Relax and let your fingers do the rest.

Keep safe goys

It's signal no. 3 here in Metro Manila and the wind is getting crazier as the night pushes on. I thought typhoon Rolly had the most violent winds because it got out Century Bob shaking and our CR vent covers levitating. But this is much worse. We couldn't feel it so much inside the unit because the wind is slapping at the other side of the building but heck when we opened the main door, which was facing the wind, I couldn't freaking close it because of the pressure!

Power fluctuated around 4x, then the alarm blared off followed by an incomprehensible PA (I got the part where we're not allowed to use the elevators, but I'm not sure if it was an evacuation notice lol), and then yeah as expected power went down. Only for a couple of minutes though so thank God. I'm not sure if we're running on gensets right now but the hallways are lit so maybe not?

I hope everyone's safe and doing okay, sheltered at least from this raging typhoon. I usually enjoy rainy moods like this but when everything is intensified 5x and then you add the relentless grunting of the generators nearby, the hot-choco mood turns into hide-under-the-sheets mood real quick. 

Oh well, nothing's keeping me from making instant noodles so I'll beat it.

Keep safe and let's all pray for this to be over soon!

Twitter thoughts

Thoughts that came out too long for Twitter but too short for a one shot, so here they are:


❆ I'm getting a lot of site optimization offers from random digital marketers lately. All of them say the same things about my site: slow loading, unoptimized images, low index, blah blah blah basically your site sucks, so hire us. Their diagnoses, at this point, all sound templated to me, and I often wonder how they even arrived at my page in the first place if it weren't at least ranking for something. So ironic. So yeah, spam you go. Though of course, I admit that this site is terribly slow, unoptimized, has a lot of dead links here and there, and has a bunch of garbage code, sure. But nah, I won't get it fixed by them random emailers. How do they even find sites like mine anyway?

❆ Anyway haha. Let's talk about Miss U Philippines and all the controversy around it. General consensus is that QC is an unprofessional loser, and Taguig is a tea-baiting bitch who also can't accept defeat gracefully. Their defense? Alleged cheating, unfairness, and also vague statements of "hearing something I shouldn't have heard" that's horribly "devastating". Urgh, what a blur these two. To be honest, isn't it already an open secret that nobody ever really wins fairly in beauty pageants? Especially one that's majorly sponsored by an illicit politician? I wonder what they're griping about. Are they so pure to not know? Too blinded by idealism? If they're so sincere about changing the world and being real advocates of whatever if it is they're publicly fighting for, they should've known better than to join Miss U. Beauty pageants are a joke to real feminism. Who are you empowering really, apart from yourselves.

I really need to focus

Just a quick update on what's happening lately in my life. Actually nothing much has changed. Still procrastinating on work I'm too afraid to face because it looks overwhelming. Still religiously uploading Weekly Monotonies on my Youtube channel. Still busy participating in support groups to help grow my channel faster. Still trying to lose weight. Still feeling hopeless about this government. Still praying for healing and everything to go back to the old normal.

Everything is still hanging and I feel like I'm not accomplishing anything. But it's fine. I'm enjoying this break, if you may call it that. I'm enjoying vlogging and producing review videos. In fact I've gotten a bunch of really heartwarming comments from some of my Youtube videos that gets me really inspired to keep going. You know how I've always loved reviewing things so it feels really good when my content brings value to my viewers. I mean, that's the point really hehe. I'm nowhere near getting monetized but I'm happy enough that most of my review videos are getting organic views. Yey!

Let me quote some of the comments that really made my day:

"Thanks for this. Just the review I need. Confirming order now. Hahahha!!!"

"I purchased this cause of your excellent review and I got it today! "

"keep up with the awesome work you do on this channel :)"

"...for a channel with so few subscribers, your reviews are great!) I wish many subscribers!"

"This channel is so underrated with this kind of detailed review"

"Super clear enunciation"

"Thanks. Got one after watching the video"

"Very professional review. Great work."

I feel validated every time I read comments like those. Feels like I'm doing something right. But you know what, I still prefer reviewing on my blog because I can edit and add updates. But videos, I figured, are much better, and besides, nobody likes to read blogs anymore!

Another happy thing, that I hope won't get jinxed.. I might be getting some recognition later at work. Our office is celebrating customer service week chuchu and every department gets to nominate team members that they feel embody firm values. They sent out the nominees for Technology department, blind item style, and based on the description and scope of work of one of the mystery people, I feel like I made the list? Like I'm 99% sure it's me. The 1% goes to, wala, pa-humble ko lang, or maybe margin of error baka nagkamali ng pronoun at HE pala yung tinutukoy at hindi SHE. I'm pretty sure they refer to my team and I'm the only girl eh! So yun, my colleague has already congratulated me, on the same assumption, so if it's not, God help my tears won't stop. Charot. Sana may pa-grab food haha

What else. I got another allergy attack this week. But this time, naagapan ko agad. When it started spreading I resisted all urges na magkamot and drank antihistamine immediately. It mellowed down, then on the next days may pasulpot-sulpot na islands. But after two days wala na recurrence. If this was the same allergen, we're thinking Indian food na talaga is the culprit huhu. But which one? We use so many spice mixes. Thanks to my weekly vlogs we were able to narrow down the suspect ingredients. May silbi ang vlogs ko guys haha.

On my first major allergy attack I ate Tandoori Tikka the night before. Now this week naman I ate Tikka Masala! But I also remember eating Rogan Josh and Butter Chicken and got no allergic reaction.

So now, using the process of elimination we tried to get which ingredients are common among all those Indian spice mixes and crossed them out. The only common ingredient between Tandoori Tikka and Tikka Masala that are both not present in Rogan Josh and Butter Chicken is... PAPRIKA!

So yun, still have to test this out but I'm hoping sana tama?! Kasi mahal magpa-allergy test hahaha! Hay Lord!

[Review] Xiaomi BeBird M9 Pro Smart Ear Cleaning Stick

Heya! Here's a review of yet another Xiaomi product (yeah, big fan), this time an ENDOSCOPIC EAR CLEANING STICK! Might be disgusting to some of you but we all know how satisfying it is to watch big lumps of hardened dust and earwax being taken out of our unsuspecting ears. Well, here's just the product for that:

If you don't like reading, I hope you appreciate this video version I uploaded on Youtube. Don't forget to like and subscribe!

Alright, on to the blabber:

Product is packaged nicely and simply, which is classic Xiaomi. Box contains English user manual, and a couple of ear cleaning accessories. The metallic black unit sits right below the packet of paperwork, and it looks so pretty.

So there are two parts to the main product: the round base with the USB charging cable attached, and the ear cleaning stick which is with a metal cap.

The body looks and feels great, thanks to the color and the metallic build. It looks like an expensive pen.

The charging base, which also works as a dock and a storage compartment for accessories looks really good too. Only thing is the USB charger is attached to it, so in case it snaps off I wouldn't know how to fix it.

You can unscrew the top part of the base to reveal this compartment containing 10 other cleaning attachments that you can use in rotation, or assign to family members if a lot of you will be using. Smart design right? 

Personally I only use the standard spoon that's attached to the stick. I don't even know if I'll ever get the chance to use all of these hehe.

To start using the tool you have to download the BeBird app and connect the M9 pro to it via wifi. Step by step is included in my video here: https://youtu.be/7bdcWCnzmSM?t=140 (it's a link to a specific part of the video)

Once you're good you'll be able to finally see inside your ears! Of course with the M9 pro poked inside. I'd say the camera quality of this product is good. It's not super HD, but it's enough to see the parts you're supposed to clean. You can take photos and record videos using this one too.

I also found it useful in capturing my pimple popping sessions with my husband hahaha. I use it as a micro camera to focus on those little mounds of whiteheads.

It's so freaking fun!

I'd like it to be more HD though but I really couldn't complain. I'm satisfied with how it works and it has truly made ear cleaning more enjoyable!

I got this from Shopee PH for around ₱1,500. 

Oh dip

Just when I got so proud of myself for cleaning up the messy wiring on my desk, I get a BSOD first thing at work on Monday! Yey! I was so ready to be productive this week but somehow something just gets messed up. What heck right?

So apparently my Windows boot config got screwed up. Virus maybe? I tried fixing it to the best of my ability, of course with the supervision of our local IT support. The solution they gave me requires me to have a boot disk handy but I don't have that since I'm just a user lol. The USB installation media kit is probably with our desktop eng'g team. The solution has to do with rebooting using the Windows installer and accessing the Startup Repair option from there. Ideally it should scan the machine and fill in the missing startup files. But yeah, I don't have a boot disk.

Then I had the genius idea of creating my own USB installation media kit from my personal laptop. I knew I had one hidden somewhere but I guess I lost it so yeah, I decided to make my own. It took a few google searches, a spare 8gb flash disk, and give or take 2 hours for the USB media kit to be completed. Finally I have aWin10Home USB installer with me.

Right. So the plan was to boot into the USB installer and hope that the Startup Repair will work. I thought that maybe, just maybe, the BCD (boot config data) of Win10 Home and Win10 Enterprise are the same. So after a few minutes on the "Attempting repairs" screen, it failed.

Hahaha sorry that was anti-climactic. So yeah, I'm sending my laptop back to the office in exchange of a loaner. Hopefully it gets picked up asap cos I'm so friggin unproductive working on a Citrix frkn web environment. Damnit.

Also if my machine can't be repaired I'm looking at losing 3 years worth of valuable notes! All my meeting, and walkthrough notes, server names, credentials, and everything. All lost!

But thank God it's not so bad. Friday last week I was able to deploy a robot to a remote machine so imagine if I was a workday late in accomplishing that task I would have to repeat the entire development! Graaarr. We should really rethink our backup and versioning protocols. Argh.

So right now I have no choice but to work using my personal laptop and connect to firm network using Citrix. I don't like it but I have to carry on. What's worse is that my laptop has a busted fan so I have to work with the AC on because it overheats so very damn easily. Even with an electric fan pointed at it. Hayy.

Yeah so that's it. Hope you're all holding up well. :)