Quarantine Stories Part 19

I bought a Fitbit! I had been thinking about getting a Fitbit for a while now so that I could monitor my heart rate more proactively and so I could check how many steps I take each day. However, it wasn't until a friend of mine shared some of the statistics her Fitbit was providing, like how much sleep she was getting. It was then that I decided I wanted to get one. Another friend purchased his Fitbit from the main store in Lazada so I decided to get mine during the Lazada 5.5 Sale. (I got more than P1000 off!) I chose the Fitbit Charge 5 because I was telling my friend that wearing a watch all the time sometimes felt a bit heavy on my arm so he suggested I get the Charge 5 instead of the Sense, which is like a big watch. Hopefully, my new Fitbit can help me lead a healthier lifestyle.

My new Fitbit Charge 5

That wasn't my only recent gadget purchase. I also bought a cooling pad. I had been noticing that whenever I play Steam games, especially Scythe and Terraforming Mars, my laptop would heat up. So while doing some errands recently, I passed by Datablitz to purchase a Redragon Ivy Laptop Cooler. I didn't really feel like studying what cooling pad to get so I decided to get the exact same one that my nephew asked me to buy for him about a year ago. I figured he researched what he wanted to get so the Redragon Ivy must be at least a decent cooling pad. Another friend said it has a pretty big fan so it should be good.

Redragon Ivy Laptop Cooling Pad

I also purchased an electric fan. I've been working from home a lot since the pandemic started and I noticed that while I do have air conditioning at home, because of its placement in my apartment, only my upper body usually feels the cool air. My lower body tends to feel a bit hot. I felt that having an electric placed on the floor and directed towards my lower body would help me feel cooler overall. I passed by the SM Appliance Store and this Hanabishi floor fan was the smallest and most inexpensive one I found so I decided to get it. So far, I haven't been disappointed and it has indeed helped me feel cooler overall.

Hanabishi Floor Fan

I also had another game night! My friend Cla had been wanting to play board games for a while so we decided to schedule one.  I decided to bring my Herbaceous Sprouts which I purchased back in 2020 and hadn't played with other people yet (I only played the solo variant) and I'm glad people had fun playing it. We also played MicroMacro - Crime City (I had previously played an online version of this), Tiki Topple (this was such a fun game), and Canvas (which I just played for the first time last month). I played Canvas horribly, with one of my paintings scoring really low. While I ended up in last place, I did put together a pretty cool and interesting painting called Precious Pride. (The person in the painting looks just like Freddie Mercury in Queen's "I want to break free" music video!)

Precious Pride, my best painting in my most recent game of Canvas

I also finally went out for drinks on a weeknight for possibly the first time since the pandemic started. My friends Pia and Marco wanted to have drinks and they invited me to join them. Since my project at work had just completed and I wasn't too busy, I decided it would be nice to go out and. We ended up in The Spirits Library which was an interesting bar along Guerrero Street in Poblacion. There was a really good band (or I guess technically it was a duo with a singer and a musician) performing the night we were there but I forgot their group's name. I also like the cocktails I got to try. I surely wouldn't mind going there again.

While we are still in a pandemic, I guess because most people are vaccinated and boosted, we are now able to do more things that we avoided in the last two years. I still make sure I have my mask on whenever possible. Hopefully, things continue to get better and Covid starts becoming more like the normal flu.