Confessions of an Online Shopaholic

I have been an online shopper for a very long time and I must admit, I am quite addicted. I've been hooked since I bought my very first digital camera from Amazon in the early 2000s and I've been happily shopping ever since.

Now you might ask, why shop online? Well, for one, it's very convenient. Sure, it's not the same as going to the mall, trying on a million pairs of shoes just to get a single pair. It might be fun for a lot of people but there's also the possibility that despite spending 4 hours looking at stuff, you might still not find that perfect pair of ballet flats to go with your new cute dress. All that work for nothing. If I did it online, I still might not have found it but at least I wouldn't have walked the equivalent of 5 miles amid a huge crowd.

Besides, I don't really shop for the experience. I only shop when there's something in particular that I want or need to buy. I don't like asking for anyone's opinion when I buy something. I'm a solitary shopper and my friends are all the same. That's why online shopping is perfect for me. I can just browse for what I need and with a few simple clicks, I can buy it. No fuss!

Another reason is the fact that I hate crowded places. Try going to any mall at around 2 PM on a Sunday and you'll get what I mean. I just don't like walking for hours in a mob just to buy 3 items. The mere mention of midnight sale also makes me a little nauseous. Why do that to yourself when you can do your shopping in less than half an hour at home? Seriously?

Now online shopping is not only convenient, it is also saves me money. This is especially true for gadgets and electronics. I bought my laptop for about 40% less than what I would have paid had I gotten it here. It was customized to my preferred specs, too. I bought my digital camera for 50% of it's actual price here. I even bought my running shoes at a 25% discount. All these were inclusive of International Shipping. At these prices, I'd be willing to pay cash than get it here at 0% installment.

Finally, I like online shopping because I have more choices. There are a lot of stuff in the U.S., Canada, U.K. & Australia that are not available here. For example, my purple laptop was only available here in Blue, Pink, Green & White. Of course, I just had to have purple so I ordered it from SonyStyle.com.



My shoes only come in white with blue or red trim here. I wanted dark with a pop of color so of course, I had to get the dark grey and green from Amazon.



Ipods are available here, of course, but how else can you have your funny quote etched on it for free if you don't buy it online?



Now having said all of that, I must say that online shopping is not without it's drawbacks. It doesn't have that instant gratification that you get from finding that perfect cellphone, actually bringing it home and using it the very next day. With online shopping, you'll need patience. You have to wait at least 2 weeks to get it. It could even take a month, depending on where it's coming from. It's all worth it once you get the item but the waiting might put a lot of people off.

There's also the possibility that the item could get lost in the mail. It happens very rarely but if you buy from reputable online merchants like Amazon or Target that have great Customer Service, this is not something to worry about. I've had very good experiences with them for the past decade.

You could also get hooked on it so much that you would buy even the smallest things online. It happened to me despite my FINANCIAL DISCIPLINE. I have ordered everything from silver jewelry, watch batteries, hard drive cases, lip balms, rechargeable batteries, dvds, audio cds.... I could go on and on.

I am proud to say though that despite all this shopping, I never paid for more than the actual price of a single item in the Philippines. I'm a pro at this so if you're thinking of starting online shopping and need advice, just shoot me a message and I'll be glad to help. =)

Backlit LCD vs. E Ink, which is better?

Consider this part 2 of my ebook reader review. I have a friend who is still torn between an LCD reader and an E Ink one so I decided to write this follow-up to my previous review.

The big question is, which one is better? There's no straight answer to this, unfortunately. Whether one or the other is better depends on what you need it for.

I have listed down several questions that helped me decide which one to buy. If you were as confused as I was a few months ago, try to answer these questions. It should help you decide what's best.

Question #1: Why am I buying this?
Do I need it to surf the net, or update my status in all my social network sites? Uhm, no. I had a laptop for that as well as my trusty old iPhone. When I'm at home or out with my friends, I don't even look at my cellphones, let alone post Tweets. I needed a book reader, plain and simple.

Question #2: How light is the gadget?
One reason why I never even thought of wanting the iPad is its size and weight. It might look cool but it's simply too big for my purpose. I needed a gadget that is small and compact and the iPad is definitely NOT that. Even the B&N Nook Color is a bit too big for me. I read in bed so having to hold up 1.5 lbs as I try to read is not my idea of relaxation. I wanted something that I can carry on long flights or out of town trips without breaking my back with its weight.

Question #3: Do I really need to read in color?
My answer is no. I literally have hundreds of books and very few of them are picture books. The picture books that I do have, and I'm particularly proud of this, are from my collection of children's books. Frankly, if you're interested in the type, I highly recommend actually buying the children's books. They don't really make great ebook material. I don't read comic books or magazines either. So that means, whether I'm reading a hardcover book, trade paperback or just a mass market one, I'm used to reading in black and white.

Question #4: Can my eyes stand staring at it for hours on end?
I'm going to give you a 'for instance.' My primary reason for choosing E Ink is the length of time I will use it every day. I've already mentioned in my previous blog that I am a heavy reader. On regular days when I'm working, I read for about 2 - 3 hours before I go to sleep. On weekends that number gets doubled. I could read up to 16 hours in one go if I really like the book. It's not unusual for me to finish reading 2 books a night, from cover to cover.

All these questions made me realize what I needed. I might have been tempted with the look of the Nook Color but it doesn't really suit my purpose. All the extras are just fluff since I already have other gadgets that can do everything that a tablet can do. E Ink was the best fit for me.

...so I bought the Nook and I've been happily reading ever since.

Barnes & Noble Nook vs. Amazon Kindle

I'm a gadget girl. I'm totally obsessed with anything and everything electronic. If something has a charger or a USB interface, I'd certainly lust after it. Add a touch screen and I'm in 7th heaven!

I never thought I'd be this in love with gadgets. I never even had a cellphone until my 3rd year in college. I was an artist and I used to love creating with my hands more than relying on electronic devices. Case in point, I submitted my freshman Com 2 term paper, typewritten. I knew how to use Microsoft Office by then but I preferred the feel of a typewriter. You get what I mean?

Anyway, enough with the introduction. I've decided to document my ongoing love fest with electronics to help people. I will start blogging about my gadgets. Nice, right?

I'm starting with eBook readers. There are a lot of eBook readers around so I had to shop around before buying mine. I looked at all the readers and scrutinized their features for weeks before settling on my top 2: the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes & Noble Nook.

Nook vs. Kindle

Since I read at least 3 hours a day during workdays and about 5-6 hours on weekends, I needed a reader that's forgiving on the eyes. A full-color backlit touchscreen LCD might look über cool but try reading for 3 straight hours and you'll end up with a massive headache. That's the reason why I never wanted the iPad. What I needed was an E Ink reader.

I actually bought the Kindle but decided to return it because I realized that the Nook was a much better fit for me and here's why.

The Kindle had a lot of wonderful features. It's the most affordable reader at $139. It's also the lightest ebook reader with the longest battery life. It can actually last for a whole month on a single charge! That's heaven for a heavy reader like me.

What made me decide on a Nook, however, was all the 'what ifs.' First example, the expandable memory. While Kindle has the higher internal memory, it is not expandable. The Nook is expandable up to 16 GB. This could turn out to be a useless feature seeing as a book in normal EPUB format is less than 1 MB. I haven't even used 10% of my Nook's 2 GB internal memory. Now, I might end up not even needing 16 GB of memory but it's good to know I can expand it if I needed to.

Another feature than sold me on the Nook is the replaceable battery. As most of us gadget savvy people know, a rechargeable battery will only last for 500 - 1000 charges. The Kindle's battery is not replaceable. If the battery runs out, we have to send it back to Amazon to have the internal battery replaced. The Nook has a detachable battery so I can just buy a replacement battery when the old one has run through its cycle and replace it myself. I'm sure I'd have moved on to an upgrade by then but it's good to know this is an option.

Of course, this could turn out to be another non-issue because the Kindle lasts one month on a single cycle compared to the Nook's 10 days, so if we're being conservative and base the battery life on just 500 cycles, the Kindle's internal battery could last 42 years whereas the Nook's battery will only last 14 years.

So why the Nook, you might ask? First of all, it reads a wider range of ebook formats like EPUB, PDB & PDF. Other book formats are also easily convertible to EPUB via a free software called Calibre. It also reads graphics formats like JPG, GIF, PNG & BMP. The Kindle only reads the Amazon proprietary ebook format AZW, MOBI & PDF (I must note that unconverted PDF files don't look great on either reader). For all other formats, you have to send the file to Amazon and they will convert it to AZW for free. This could turn out to be a hassle though, especially if you need to send them 500 books to convert.

Now here's the clincher. I didn't really choose the Nook over the Kindle because of it's great features because if I were being very honest, I could go either way. The best part about my Nook is, it looks so cool with its LCD touchscreen display!

If you're still undecided, here are the side-by-side specs to help you out:



I hope this helps you confused people out there. Please post comments or send me a personal message if you have any questions and I'll do my best to answer them.

Mid-Life Crisis

I'm in the middle of a mid-life crisis.

Why so young, you might ask? The answer to that is, I'm at the perfect age to have it because how many people do you guys know who lived to be 100?

I am torn between leaving or staying. If I leave, I will have to start from scratch and rebuild my rep again. If I stay, I might lose one big opportunity that other people would kill for.

I've soul-searched, soul-searched and soul-searched some more but I'm still at an impasse. I tried to think about what's more important to me but it's a total deadlock. It seems to me that I'd be damned if I do but damned if I don't.

Do you get that feeling? I do---a lot.

I hate that I'm so afflicted with indecision. Seriously! I think I've already mentioned previously that I am unable to make decisions. Every time I decide on something, I feel it in my bones that I should have made a different one. This has put me in a lot of fun situations in the past---well, maybe not fun but definitely interesting.

This is one of the hardest things I've ever had to decide on and it scares me. My decision will defintely change my life and change its whole course. That's why it's so hard to make up my mind right now.

What to do?

Closet Princess

I'm a closet princess.

Nope. It's not like it sounds. I mean I'm a closet princess, literally!

I've had a long standing affection for my closet. I've had it since I was small. I used to hang out in it when I was in grade school. I would sit in my tiny dark closet, doing nothing for hours on end. I have no idea why I thought it was cool to hang out in a small box that looked like an oversized upright coffin but it made me happy so I did it anyway. For some unknown reason, it just made me happy. =)

In the '80s, I had a small free-standing closet, half of which, I could fit into. In the '90s, I had a bigger built-in closet that was nailed to the wall. Two people could fit in it but I had it all to myself. What's not to love?

A year and a half ago, I had a walk-in closet made just for me. It has drawers, 3 hanging clothes racks, shelves for shoe & bags and nooks & crannies galore. It's always scented with lavender sachets mixed with the strong smell of Downy. It's everything a girl would want in a medium-sized closet. The first time I hung out in it, I was in the 7th heaven of delight!


Nope. This is not my closet although I wish it were.
I still hang out in my closet a lot. I have a small chair in there that I sit on when I need to do a lot of thinking. My friends would laugh at me everytime I text them from my closet but I don't care. Let them think I'm crazy.

I'm a closet princess and I'm proud of it!

My Space

I have a touch of O.C.D. Just a touch, but it's enough to make my life miserable sometimes.

For those who don't know, O.C.D. stands for Obssessive Compulsive Disorder. Ever watched the movie, 'As Good as it Gets,' or the TV show, 'Monk?' Those characters have it. If you haven't---hie ourself to the video store and buy/rent them---what's the matter with you?

I just have a mild case. I don't have to compulsively wipe down every room in the house with 70% alcohol or wash my hands every 5 minutes. I DO wash my hands more often that the average person but I don't consider myself as an extreme case. My O.C.D. is constrained to one thing---my bed.

My bed is sacrosanct. It represents everything that is pure in my world. Naturally, it has to be kept immaculately clean, subtly scented and covered with crisp linens at all times.

Ever since I was in grade school, I could never, ever lie down, sit or even touch my bed without taking a head-to-toe shower first. I am serious! This quirk has made it necessary to get a sofa bed for my room, purchased specifically for those times when I am too tired to take a full bath before bedtime.

I used to do a 5-hour commute to and from work every day. I remember coming home so exhausted that I would just lie down on our living room sofa and sleep there. That's not entirely because I was too tired to walk the 15 steps to my own bed. Oh no! It was because I didn't have the trusty sofa bed yet and I didn't want to dirty up my bed.

I will not change my bed linens without spraying the whole thing damp with Lysol. I have my 3 large pillows washed every couple of months, despite getting sprayed with Lysol every two weeks. Dust mites would never have a chance.

I've been trying to analyze where all this compulson came from. I've had it for as long as I can remember. I've had it even when I used to share my room with my two younger brothers and I was sleeping on the upper deck of a double bunk bed. It never went away even when I was moved up to having my own room.

Maybe that was it. Maybe that was when I started to consider my bed as a haven. It used to be my only personal space (that is if you don't consider my closet that I used to spend hours in, but that's another story). My top bunk was the only place where my brothers could not go because they were still too small to climb it. In my top bunk, it was just me, my pillows, my scary doll and I.

It was My Space.

The Secret Life of ME

A good friend of mine told me years ago to start a blog. I don't think she even knew that I used to write and I have actually been published. I don't know what possessed her to suggest such a thing but the challenge is now out in the Universe and I had to take it.

I started this blog because I wanted to post my thoughts, then I promptly forgot about it. I realized just now that I haven't written anything here lately.

That's why I decided to resurrect this blog from the depths of wherever it sank. This is for my own enjoyment but if anyone else finds what I write in here interesting, you're very welcome to read it.