A year, $1260 dollars later, my (failed) fitness journey ...

September 2016, I decided to hire a personal trainer due to my skinny fat around my upper body. From the very beginning I clearly mentioned that my intention was to get rid of my skinny fat (which means that even though I'm not overweight, I have too much body fat around 25% for my case). The response was that it was just caloric balance, I had to burn more calories than I ingest which is a quite disappointing response but I went with it since I really wanted to get rid of my fat.

Since the whole thing was subsidized by my employer I only paid $120 a month, not too bad for a personal trainer although I only got 3 half-hour sessions a week (most sessions lasted only slightly longer than 25 mins but to be fair at the end of the 25 min I had no strength left to continue the session anyway).

Needless to say I was quite disappointed with the result. Although I gained some muscle mass and feel that I'm more fit now than last year I did not achieve my goal, my skinny fat persists. I had three assessments through out the year and according to the omron fat measurement device my body fat dropped by around 5% which translates to 5 lbs of fat.

The thing is that this omron device is more like a moron device :) The accuracy is absolutely abysmal. One time after a prolonged exercise session I measured my body fat percentage and the device showed that I lost roughly 4% compared to my previous measurement. The next day I measured my body fat again and I gained that 4% back LOL what happened was that after a weight lifting session your muscle expands due to water intake, and water has higher electrical conductivity than fat and hence the drop in body fat percentage. So I don't really know how much fat I lost this past year although looking at the mirror I don't look any different, sigh ........ a $1260 lesson, ouch!

Aorus M7 Gaming Mouse Review (Don't Buy!)

Not too long ago (second half of last year) I received a brand new Aorus M7 gaming mouse (due to someone's kindness). I used it mainly with my gaming laptop for roughly about 2 to 3 hours a day. Barely less than a year in, the wheel was already squeaking ........ For an $80 dollar mouse this is embarrassing  :) Note that most reviews you find online will not tell you this as most of them are nothing more than disguised advertisements since they just list the features in a greater detail ..... not too mention that most of them did not even use it for a prolonged period of time

I have much lower confidence in Samsung products now

The exploding Galaxy Note 7 and to a lesser extent the Samsung washing machines have grabbed headlines recently but my experience with Samsung products started when I purchased my MSI gaming laptop (see my other review on MSI on this blog), and much more recently I had the privilege to interact with one of their engineering units in person and one thing I must say, I now have much lower confidence in their products than ever.

A few years back I would recommend Samsung products to my friends and family without a doubt, seeing their rise as an electronics power house, usurping the invincible SONY, gave me a sense of security in purchasing and using their products.

However, my first indirect purchase of a Samsung LCD screen changed all that, the MSI Ghost Pro 4K came with a 4K panel made by Samsung (SDC4852) and boy, what a disappointment it was, first the viewing angle stability is very bad, next, the color reproduction (with a measly 47% of Adobe RGB), brightness, and contrast is complete trash, not to mention the 48Hz refresh rate you can check it out on notebookcheck.net and to top it of they're using pentile pixelation to qualify for 4K, in short they cut lots of corners.

My recent run in with their engineering unit only exacerbates the situation, although due to the NDA I can't spill the beans here, so when the Note 7 explosion happened I wasn't surprised at all, just like what my friend used to say "shocked, but not surprised".

But at least now I know why Samsung's logo is oval because they've cut all corners possible :)