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FutureSonics EM3

Intro

Ok, I’m convinced that USPS (United States Postal Service) is a good mail courier. My headphones arrived yesterday… the same day I tracked the package and found out it arrived in the country.

Though it was priority mail, it wasn’t nearly as pricey as the normal known couriers (FedEx, DHL, UPS, etc.) Shipping it via FedEx et all would range from 70-100USD, which was like 70-100% of the price of the item itself – this was unacceptable. Fortunately my friend’s relative decided to go the much cheaper USPS, which at first I was apprehensive only because of the “safety” aspect (it is a small package and can easily get lost/stolen).

Anyways, there’s quite a backstory involved: On the 16th of June, I had asked a friend to purchase the EM3s for me since his dad was coming home on the 23rd of June. He completed the transaction on the 16th, while at the end of the business week, we figured it was still enough time to get to his dad (since a 3-5 day shipping schedule is pretty much reliable in the US). To cut a long story short, it didn’t make it (it arrived the day after he left). One thing led to another and we ended up agreeing that his relatives ship it internationally, and which is what the initial paragraphs were about.

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iTunes 4.9 design flaw

One of the obvious additions (or probably the only addition, save for some bugfixes) of the iTunes update is the explicit provision to handle Podcasting. I’ve never discussed it before like I did with RSS, and I won’t today.

Suffice to say, it’s a great thing to have, and either you’re down with it or not. Obviously I am 😉

What this post is about however is not about Podcasting per se, but some design/UI flaws I saw with the iTunes interface when it comes to the said feature. No life-threatening stuff at all, but still quite irritating… and I hope they fix/correct them on the next update.

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FutureSonics EM3… No. Actually, a primer on in-ear headphones.

Future Sonics EM3

Actually, Music as a primary category for this post is erroneous… should’ve been “Audio” or something.

Anyways, I’ve gone ahead and done it again, ordered a “ridiculously expensive” audio product. Along the way, you’ll find out that it was actually cheap (hahaha like every other thing I buy – except for the powerbook) but right now, I don’t think I stand a chance of convincing anyone that dropping 100USD for headphones that look like this is actually a steal!

So why did I get them? Read on…

WARNING: THIS IS AN EXTREMELY LONG READ. UNLESS YOU’RE REALLY INTERESTED IN AUDIO, DON’T BOTHER Read More

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Kelly Clarkson: Breakaway

I just finished listening to Kelly Clarkson’s album Breakaway. For those who don’t know her, she was the first American Idol.

I think she really found her genre; pop/alternative bordering on rock… sorta what like Pink does. In fact, if the songs go “heavier” she can even pull of an Evanescence-ish angle.

Well, whatever it is she’s trying to do, her voice and style fit it perfectly. One song that particularly caught my attention was “Because of You” – I can probably think of a bunch of people who could claim that this is their song. One of the better sawi-songs if you will.

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Satya

Last night, we watched a Berklee Jazz band here in Manila. GP, being from Berklee, knew the band leader/keyboard player and was given complimentary invitations to what should’ve been a 2,000 peso per ticket show.

The band was ok, but there were a couple of major turn-offs on the whole event. One was the crowd were all sponsors. It kinda gave it a whole “pointless” feeling to the show. You want to share your music to the world but all people that ended up watching were “required” to because they actually are the same people that brought you here hehehe.

Another was the vocalist. She practically sucked. Sure she had a high voice, and could carry a pitch, but my god, jazz being jazz (and were still debating whether or not most of the repertoire should be considered as the “jazz” that we should’ve been expecting, as Katz would say, it was simply CityLite 88.3 music, hardly old-school)… especially in the “Berklee” context (as GP explained to me the Jazz culture in the school) she was definitely mediocre. The instrumentalists were good though, so basically if she hadn’t been there, we would’ve probably enjoyed it more.

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