Why Would I Write

  • The Selfie ‘Expert’

    I’ve been watching movies in the cinema quite often over the past few months and when you are early, you get to sit through tons of advertisements before the movie starts. I wish we got to see more trailers, but I guess those don’t make any money for the cinemas.

    Anyway, what I’ve noticed recently is that we get tons of ads for phones. While the selling points of phones have changed over the years, one thing remains – the phone’s camera. However, since we’ve reached a point where our phone’s rear cameras are as good as they can be, the focus has now shifted to the other camera on phones – the front facing camera.

    I’m not sure who started the trend, but almost all the phone adverts these days are about their selfie capabilities. It’s like the advertisers are only pandering to the generation of narcissists. What happened to all the other unique features that make a phone great? Battery life, storage, graphics/performance, customization features, UI, security and all would make great selling points. But I guess it wouldn’t pander to the Instagram generation of today.

    When I purchase a phone, the last thing I care about is its camera. Because I know that cameras these days have all pretty much reached a quality that is acceptable on most phones. I don’t take many photographs and Instagram filters can salvage my shitty shots into something presentable. Also, if you have a cute subject (i.e. my dog), you don’t really have to try very hard.

    Maybe I’m too old (LUL age as an excuse) and I care more about reliability than anything else. The last smartphone I purchased and am currently using is the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4. Why? It has amazing battery life – I can be out all day and using the phone actively and still have battery left to spare by the time I get home. I’m not a fan of lugging power banks around just to make sure my phone still runs.

    It is fast – apps run smooth, even multiple apps at the same time with the not too recently added splitscreen feature, and I had no problems with dual-SIM operation (I used to travel a lot for work). The display is standard – nothing to shout about, but it’s large enough to make watching YouTube videos and Twitch streams a pleasant experience. 4G and GPS works well, and there’s a slot for an additional memory card if I choose to use it (64 GB onboard is sufficient at the moment). Oh, it also charges really quickly and looks pretty sleek. And the fingerprint sensor is in my preferred position (behind). With the customizations I made to the launcher so I don’t have to use the default MIUI, it’s the perfect device for me.

    I guess I strayed away from the point of the blog post – basically, phones are much more than selfie machines and marketers should think of other ways to sell their phones. If everybody is doing the same thing, nobody is standing out from the crowd – who is going to remember your phone being advertised? The ads are going to continue and I’ll still sit through them, but I’ll finally be excited once they start showing new or different ones in the cinema, until then, I’ll try to arrive just in time for the film.

  • Battle Bay Review

    I’m not much of a mobile gamer, mainly due to the fact that most touchscreen games have terrible controls and that I’d rather game on my desktop instead of my phone. The best mobile games for me have been quick and simple puzzle games that don’t take a long time to load and play. Games you want to play while waiting in line for something or while taking a shit (though I’d much rather read books or reddit these days). In the past, I scratched the itch with games like Hoplite and Pixel Dungeon. Recently I’ve gotten back in 2048. It’s such a fun and simple game. Not a lot of thinking, but satisfying to make progress in. Easy to drop in and out of.

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  • #livingmybestlife

    If religion is for everyone then why are some people ‘better’ at it or on a higher level? I mean, it’s supposed to be a way of life. If you’re not elevated enough, you have to suffer with the rest of the non-believers.

    How can one person be closer to god than the others? How do we even know that they’re really closer? Is there some sort of scale or progression meter that tells a person how close they are to being next level? How does one decide that a person is ready to lead a church or not? Do they really get visions from god?

    How do we know they’re not hallucinations, delusions, or just lies? There’s no way to verify. I could write a story about seeing a flaming chariot on the way to work and a burning bush calling out my name, but when I tried to record it on my phone, the video only showed a black screen and a voice faintly calling out a word that resembled ‘George’. Then the next day, I woke up and there was blood on my wrists and I hear the voice of Christ (how do I even know what he sounds like?) telling me to sacrifice my dog and paint my eyes with her blood, so I could see the truth. I did all that, and I started seeing the true intentions of people around me. And as you read this, feeling incredulous and think that I’m joking, I’ll tell you that you don’t believe me because you haven’t seen the truth yet. You don’t know the truth, I do! You can’t tell me otherwise because I have seen it. There are no more wounds on my wrists because it’s a miracle.

    People will tell me I’m crazy and will recommend that I get checked up or sent to an institute. They’ll say I’m blaspheming. But I can say it’s the truth because I experienced it, and that you should believe me! Religion! It’s my calling! I know what’s going to happen to the world! However, nobody is going to be able to verify if I’m lying or not.

    Assuming I was telling the truth, does that suddenly elevate me to a higher status? Since I had visions and god spoke to me. Will people be more inclined to take my word as truth? Beats me.

    Why do we care or bother about what happens to us after we die? Why not make the most of what we know for sure – our lives that we are currently living. Sure, we don’t know for sure if we’ll be alive tomorrow morning, but we do know what we’re capable of doing in the next minute or hour. Just focus on that instead of trying to score brownie points for a proverbial next step. Like, who cares what people think of you after you’re gone? Why not work on the people who do care while you’re still around?

    It’s as if there’s not enough to do in this life already, people are doing more things to make sure they’ve got a good shot at going to heaven. What is heaven? Nobody knows. Everything we’ve read about it – all written by people who haven’t been there. There’s no proof it exists, yet so many people are living their lives to get there someday.

    If god really wants everyone to live in paradise with him, why not just take everybody in? Why does he need the clause that you must submit your life to him in order to be accepted? What happens if you get to heaven and choose not to be a Christian anymore? Do you get kicked out? Do you get sent to hell?

    Why do people call other people ‘bro’?