Notes:
Songs in bold have been placed on "repeat track" mode either on my Zen or my foobar player.
Songs in bold and with an asterisk * were once played non-stop the entire day.

July introduced me again to the wonderful pop group… the Vengaboys!

• Vengaboys - We Like To Party (BCM Remix)
• Vengaboys - Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!! (XXL Version)
• Vengaboys - Kiss (When The Sun Don’t Shine) (Hitradio XXL)
• Vengaboys - The Vengabeat
• Vengaboys - Superfly Slick Dick *
• Vengaboys - Megamix (Long Maxi Edit)

Who said I’d have to wait for Christmas just to listen to this great pop song?

• Whigfield - Last Christmas (Major Version)
• Whigfield - Last Christmas (Major Mild Eq Version)

Ashley’s new songs for some sort of ad are all good. But these are my faves…

• Ashley Tisdale - Never Gonna Give You Up - I call this ashleyrolling!
• Ashley Tisdale - Too Many Walls

I didn’t expect I’d like the new LP album this much. I’ve been listening to it for weeks and I really couldn’t pick just a few favorite cuts. No tracks were put on repeat mode because the album itself was on repeat mode.

• Linkin Park - Given Up
• Linkin Park - Leave Out All The Rest
• Linkin Park - Bleed It Out
• Linkin Park - Shadow Of The Day
• Linkin Park - What I’ve Done
• Linkin Park - Hands Held High
• Linkin Park - In Pieces

Mamma Mia! is a fun movie. It’s a musical so I don’t get why some people criticize it for the story. I thought the whole point of musicals was the music. But I guess people who are not very familiar with ABBA songs would really find it hard to like this movie.

• Amanda Seyfried, Ashley Lilley & Rachel McDowall - Honey, Honey
• Dominic Cooper & Amanda Seyfried - Lay All Your Love On Me
• Cast of Mamma Mia! - Voulez-Vous
• Julie Walters & Stellan Skarsgard - Take A Chance On Me
• Meryl Streep, Julie Walters & Christine Baranski - Super Trouper

Okay, I confess… I’m a fan of the Philippine version of the Korean TV series My Girl. The original version is one of my favorite Korean TV shows. Although our local version is certainly not as good as the original, I still enjoy seeing the scenes I enjoyed watching last year from the original.

• Sam Milby - My Girl - my current ringback tone!
• Yeng Constantino - Sabihin Mo Na

Great songs by the stars of singing competitions…

• David Archuleta - Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me * - I want a full length version!
• David Cook - Time Of My Life
• Leona Lewis - Better In Time

Sentimental songs…

• Aaron Carter - I’m All About You *
• Richard Marx - Right Here Waiting
• Bryan Adams - Let’s Make A Night To Remember
• Michael Learns To Rock - Breaking My Heart
• Bryan Adams - Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?
• Michael Learns To Rock - Out Of The Blue
• Bryan Adams - (Everything I Do) I Do It For You
• Michael Learns To Rock - Blue Night

I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of their music…honestly.

• Bukas Palad - Humayo’t Ihayag (Original Version) *
• Bukas Palad - Gandang Sinauna at Sariwa

I’m not too updated on the latest remixes but here are two good ones I really liked…

• Rihanna - Take A Bow (Seamus Haji Radio Edit)
• Rihanna - Disturbia (Jody Den Broeder Remix)

Of course this report would not be complete without…

• Britney Spears - She’ll Never Be Me - The full length version finally leaked! Yay!
• Britney Spears - I’m A Slave 4 U
• Britney Spears - What It’s Like To Be Me *
• Britney Spears - Cinderella
• Britney Spears - Radar (Versatile House Remix)

I thought this was going to be the last part of the series but I was wrong. The last part will be a compilation of the last photos I took while we were there in Davao and that’s part #9.

The original file said it was created back in December 28, 2004. That was almost 4 years ago! But looking back, it feels like I made this back in the late 90’s.

Everytime - Cardcaptor Sakura AMV

It may not be as good as the others but during that time, I just wanted to make one with a slow and mellow song for a change. And let’s not talk about the song, okay? I already know it doesn’t really go very well with the video. hehe!

I’ve already added to my favorites in YouTube some of the CCS music videos I made but have been uploaded by someone else. My most popular work arguably is the one with the song “This I Promise You”. Of all the music videos I made, that’s also my favorite and it’s obvious why.

My second favorite would have to be Overprotected (Part 2) simply because I really enjoyed making that one. I like seeing music videos where the song is in sync with the video. Then there’s Overprotected (Part 1). I got the idea of making this Overprotected series from another AMV with the same song and concept. (I know… I am so unoriginal.) I liked what she came up with but I thought there were some things I could change to make it look better. Just having one music video won’t do justice to the first movie so I decided to split it in two parts.

I also made a karaoke version of the popular “At The Beginning” music video. I used an instrumental version of the song but I seem to have lost my copy of this video.

“Loop”, my only music video for Tsubasa Chronicle which features the ending song of the first season is also up in YT. This was actually made after “Everytime”.

It’s funny that some of these videos still mention the old address:
www.cardcaptors-syaoranandsakura.com
I’m feeling a bit regretful that I no longer own that domain name. It was special to me not only because it was the first domain name I had registered but also because it had the name of my one and only fansite and my first website too. Oh well… I had my reasons.

My next plans include adding a music video page here listing my videos and probably some stories behind them too. As for making more music videos, I might make some again in the future. I actually have one more CCS music video which I didn’t get to finish. I also have an idea for a second Tsubasa Chronicle music video. But the chances of me making videos again are very slim. Maybe if I will have the time…

Explore Davao - Part 7 (40 photos)

We went to this fruit farm to study how bananas are harvested and packed. I learned a lot of things there. I didn’t realize before how stringent farm rules could get. All the rejects they accumulate there in a single day would probably be enough to feed one family in one year! And we are not yet even talking about the tons of boxes that don’t pass their tests. I hope all of those don’t just go to waste. Seeing things like this just makes me rethink of my own decisions in life too. One thing I’ve promised to myself is that I will no longer waste money on fancy stuff especially if it’s just for my own pleasure.

The last part of this series will be next. Get ready to see some crocodile action!

In this last episode (#154) their main topic was the future of the fandom. I had a smile on my face when one of them (I think it was Matt) said that there are still many listeners of their show who they haven’t heard from yet. I was smiling because I know I’m one of those fans who just doesn’t have the time to participate in forums or even comment in news articles. I now consider myself a casual Harry Potter fan. But there was a time that I was so obsessed with anything HP that I even spent lots of money on merchandise. I was never really that type of fan who collects pictures and media though. My priorities have changed since but I still read the news and listen to a podcast.

We’re less than 4 months away from the release of the Half-Blood Prince movie and we’re still waiting for a proper trailer. News says that we’ll have one by Tuesday. I hope it’s really good even though we all know the movies can never be better than the books. (The only movie for HP which I was really happy about was the Prisoner of Azkaban.)

I’ve only read Deathly Hallows once so I plan on re-reading the whole series before movie 6 comes out. But I’m sure I won’t have the time to do that so most likely I’ll be listening to the audiobooks instead. I have a feeling there’d be fewer episodes of MuggleCast to come. And anyway, I’ve lost my copy of Sorcerer’s Stone. But I think I’d read the actual book for Deathly Hallows because I have the U.K. adult edition which has that amazing cover with the locket.

Now here are some pictures from the final book’s release day: July 21, 2007. You won’t see me on those pics because that was still the time when I didn’t want Little Wolf’s identity to be revealed. hahaha!

Aw… Good times. I remember not having any sleep that day. I just came from work and of course I worked on the night shift. I tried not to read the book too fast. I knew that it was the last Harry Potter story I’ll ever get. It helped that I’m a slow reader when it comes to novels. I think it took me 2 weeks or it might have been a month… I have the worst memory just so you know. Anyway, during that time I avoided the internet and any other HP fan who might spoil it for me. I got spoiled in book 6 and I wasn’t gonna let that happen again. Not in the final book. So I finished reading the series in the best way a fan could ever have done.

Okay, that’s about it. I just wanted to get this posted here so I could read this next year and know that I’m still a Harry Potter fan even after a year of the final book’s release.

I bought my ZEN 16 GB last March (2008) in Electroworld at the SM North Cyberzone branch. I paid in cash so I got a discount in addition to the following freebies: wire management silicon case, leather case and wall charger. These items are usually sold separately in other stores but I got the whole package for just 10,000 pesos. I consider myself lucky for finding this great deal. There’s an option to extend the warranty but I didn’t get it because I’m sure better players will be available by next year.

I couldn’t wait for the 32 GB model to arrive in the Philippines and even if it was available, it still wouldn’t be enough to hold my entire music library. As of this writing, the 32 GB model is still not sold here (AFAIK) and it’s been almost 5 months already since I bought mine. Good thing I didn’t decide to wait.

Instead of discussing the main features which many other reviews have already gone into detail, I’m just going to list the “little” complaints I have on this little player. Let me warn you though that many of the things listed may appear to you as just plain nitpicking but I take stuff like this seriously that’s why I came up with this kind of list. And for the record, let me also say that I never regretted buying the ZEN. It will be so much better though if the following “issues” are addressed if not by a new firmware then probably on their next players.

Note: This review is for the Creative ZEN 16 GB model with firmware version 1.21.01. Items marked with an asterisk (*) can be considered as feature requests. Also, the list is not sorted in any particular order.

1. FM Radio reception is average - One of the main reasons I don’t like the iPod is its lack of the FM radio feature. And I don’t want to buy some overpriced accessory just to have something as elementary as the radio. So it’s good Creative (and many other players) has it but sadly, my experience with the reception quality has only been so-so. I don’t like how I have to position the player in some weird way just to get good reception on my favorite stations. I didn’t have this kind of problem with my old Muvo TX FM so I’m sure this can be addressed.
2. Bitrate info problems - When you listen to a song with a variable bitrate (VBR) and then you go to view the File Details, what you see on the bitrate section is not the average bitrate of the song. Alright, so that is probably too geeky for anyone to ask. But here’s something I really can’t stand: You can’t see the bitrate info in the file details screen unless that song is currently playing! What’s up with that?
3. No file size info for music and videos - I can understand if they left this info out for videos but they should at least have included it for music. The ZEN can show the bitrate info (sometimes) but no file size at all? They were able to show this with photos so I don’t think it would take a lot of work to show it also with other types of file.
4. Better podcast and audiobook support - We do have the ZENcast software for getting podcast updates so we could transfer them to the Zen easily. But there’s one problem I’ve noticed while using the software. If we choose the option to convert the podcast episode to a ZENcast video, the resulting file turns out to be a corrupted copy of the original. It does show on the player the real length of the episode but it doesn’t finish the whole clip because it’s corrupted. It seems like there’s a bug in the conversion process of the software. (I have version 2.01.01 of ZENcast Organizer.) As a result, I’m forced to use the original audio podcast files which mix with the music library. And as for audiobooks, they should also make a separate section in the player for managing them. I know Bookmarks can be a workaround on this but shouldn’t Creative be making things easier for the user and not more difficult?
5. Back button inconsistencies - It doesn’t always do what it’s supposed to do. Let’s have an example. Go to DJ mode then Most Popular and then play a song. If you hit on Back it would take you to the DJ menu and not to the Most Popular list. Very annoying. Same thing happens in the Lookup Artist page. Hitting the Back button takes me all the way back to the main menu. I thought the Back button’s purpose is to bring the user back to the page he saw prior to the one he’s currently viewing, just like in web browsers.
6. Album of the Day is not correctly implemented - It should have been named “Album of the Moment” or “Play Some Random Album” if it just picks a different album each time you select the option in DJ. There’s really no Album of the Day which the Zen will remember for that day. I don’t know if other players have it like this too but it’s definitely misleading to have it named like that. I remember reading a review before for the Zen saying that it’s really one album for each day. Don’t know where he got his ZEN…
7. FM Radio station name length limit - You can only have up to 9 characters which I find very limiting. Creative should have allowed us up to 15 characters because it would still fit on the screen anyway.
8. Seek To feature - It’s useless to me. I like just holding down the left and right buttons to go to a specific part of a track and yes it does that. The problem is you won’t hear anything until you release the button so you have no idea how long you should be holding it down. Yeah, it has the time elapsed info on the screen and the Bookmark feature too but those are not enough. I want a real-time track seeking feature. I expected the Zen will have something as simple as this but no it doesn’t. Even my old Muvo player can do this!
9. *Battery meter with hours:minutes left - It would be nice to actually see how many hours you have left. Of course, based on several factors like screen brightness, equalizer, etc. But that’s probably asking too much. Still, they can just add this in the Information page if they can.
10. *Change Order of Tracks - When playing music on the ZEN, you have this default playlist called “Selected”. You can actually create playlists right in the player itself although it takes quite some time adding and selecting tracks. Once you’ve got the songs selected, they’re stuck in the order in which you added them. I wish we could move the tracks around on this default playlist as well as on the saved playlists. A simple option like Move Up/Down on the context menu of the list should do it.
11. Play Count - One of my biggest gripes on the Zen is the way it tracks play count. Each time you play a song is considered a play count on the Zen. It would be nice to have it work like the audioscrobbler of Last.fm which only considers a count after you’ve played a certain percentage of its track length. For example, a 4 minute song can only be considered “played” after playing 2 minutes of it (if the setting was at 50%). If this was improved on the Zen, we can get a more accurate Most Played list on DJ mode.
12. *Continuous Video Playback - Why are we forced to go back to the video list each time we want to play a video? Can’t we just have it automatically play the next video on the list after the current video is done playing? Sheesh!
13. *Turn Off Display - Yes, the display will turn off if you have the player on hold. But there are also times when we want to save some power while still being able to control the player. I usually have the Zen in my pocket. (This is why I still prefer tactile buttons over touchscreen.) And it’s not convenient that I have to take it out just to turn off hold so I could move to the next song or lower the volume.
14. Better battery life? - Most of my songs are encoded in high bitrates and that really makes the player consume more juice. But I guess this can’t be fixed by a simple firmware update so there’s nothing we can do(?)
15. *”Recently Added” feature on DJ mode - Yet to Be Rated and Rarely Heard are great to have but having this additional list will make it easier to find the new songs we just added on the player.
16. *Browse by Year - It already has music browsing by Genre so why not have the option to browse by Year too? But I guess it’s better to have this once they’ve released bigger capacity players.
17. *Saving Playlists - It would be easier if we could just choose one of the current playlists to overwrite when we just want to replace an existing one. Although it’s in QWERTY style, the onscreen keyboard is not the most intuitive input design if it doesn’t come with touchscreen. Not that I’d like the ZEN to have one.
18. Keep the settings even after upgrading the firmware - Alright, I’m not sure if this is even a glitch so I’m apologizing now if it’s not. When I upgraded to firmware 1.21.01, the ZEN locked up on me so I had to use the reset hole. By doing that, I effectively lost my previous settings including all the preset FM stations I worked so hard to name and configure. I don’t know if it was the firmware or the Reset option that erased my settings though. I’ll probably find out after Creative releases the next update.
19. *DIVX/XVID support - Creative, Your Zen Vision M had this! And you called the Zen a replacement player? Once you get this feature back, then I will go asking for FLAC, APE, OGG, MKV and PDF support too. 
20. *Gapless Playback and Track Crossfading - Come on! Is it too much to ask, Creative?
21. *Visualizations - I kid. I kid. Hm.. but then the PSP has it so… 

Some of the things I’ve asked here are probably too much to ask in a player like the Zen. But the purpose of this post is not only to provide points for improvement but also to give prospective buyers an idea of what the player can and cannot do YET.

I hope the Zen X-Fi is a sign of better things to come from Creative. I like some of the improvements in the X-Fi like changing the Reset hole to a button which is easier to use. (Too bad I’m still stuck with the hole.) This is a portable player and I can’t believe they expected us to be carrying a needle everywhere we go just in case we need to reset this thing! I’ve been in that situation more times than I’d like to remember so good job on that Creative. Just wish you had thought of it before releasing the first ZEN.

Let me also say that I don’t hate the iPod. There are just some things Apple does with their players which I don’t like. Heck, if Apple can produce an iPod designed for audiophiles and PMP nitpickers in mind like me then I’d buy it in a heartbeat but that’s already a subject for another post.

Part 1 (25 photos)

I’m not sure if this next boat is what they call a kayak but whatever it is, I really enjoyed paddling with it. It could have been more fun if only I wasn’t so weak and didn’t get tired easily. Having some arm muscles would certainly help anyone doing stuff like this. Something I was obviously lacking…

Part 2 (25 photos)

This was another first for me! Okay… so I didn’t really swim like real swimming. But still, it was the first time I was actually brave enough to make myself plunge in a huge body of water. I never even had been in a pool before I did this! (Unbelievable? Well it’s the truth.) I didn’t really dive into the water here though. I tried but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it! I’m such a wimp… I know.

Enough whining. The important thing is that I enjoyed as you can see with all the different smiles I was able to make there.

Next part on this series will showcase our trip to a banana farm. How exciting!