A month ago, I got this pair of Levi’s jeans from The Landmark for a discounted price of P1,750. The original price was P8,500. Slim fit, low waist, great detail, made in Japan, trusted brand, and a limited edition. And it’s black. Levi’s Black. Close to 80% off, rounded. For the record, nothing inedible has ever climbed my “most favorite” list faster than this 2-years off season pair of jeans (I did a quick research on Levi’s Black and found that 2-year off season bit out. No, I’m still not turned off).

I’ve been wearing them every week since.

It occured to me that at the rate I’m washing and wearing the same pair, they’d fade on me faster than that memory of a really bad one night stand. Or they could accidentally get bleached at the laundromat. Or they could get ripped apart after I find myself recovering from a freak knee-on collission with a tumbleweed rolling at 50mph while I happen to be prancing in one of them unmapped patches of deserts scattered all over Las Piñas (where they have a different time zone than the rest of the Philippines, allegedly). I stopped doing my GDP-related presentation as a solitary tear threatened to make a free fall down my left cheek. The fear swelled uncontrollably from my gut, upping me to my feet with a jolt, and then suddenly, BEHOLD! An epiphany.

When I got my pair a month ago, there were two of the same kind the “sale” rack. Both sized 30 and black (but not Binay-black). Both of them in the same pristine condition. Both on sale. There’s a slim chance that the other sized-30 jean-clone is still on sale in that same mall, unwanted and unnoticed, waiting, nay, WANTing, for my crotch to fill, and re-fill (again and again, repeat to fade), its crotchular section.

I went home tonight with my second pair of the same slim fitting, low waisted, finely detailed black Levi’s that I already owned.  Total cost for two pairs, bought one month apart: P3,500. Total savings: P13,500.

There’s this scheming, marketing ploy I’ve read off a magazine not so long ago saying if you happen to find a pair of jeans that fit you perfectly well, get a second pair of the same “everything.”  It might take a while for you to find a better fitting replacement/favorite, it added.  Since I pride myself as always being the obedient but logical one, can somebody please help me wipe this stupid grin off of my face?!

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Kids, I have to warn you that fishing out your camera on the LRT platform can be very dangerous even if it’s a mere point and shoot camera you’re using. Fast forward to Sunday afternoon while we were lounging at the San Mig Cafe inside the Oceanarium after a day of walking around Manila, I was reviewing my shots and came upon this:

Sunday noon-time Quiapo crowd taken from the Carriedo LRT platform

I don’t know if it’s typical of Quiapo to be this crowded but I wouldn’t be caught dead swimming with that swarm. I’m not really a crowd person is why. I zoomed at the photo to see if anybody’ll stand out. Yeah, one person did.

Same photo. Magnified.

See him yet? Let’s zoom in a little more.

See him now?

Wide view… magnified… magnified… hold it right there Supafly! LOL

Supafly at 100% magnification

Now, the big question after this exercise: “Can your point and shoot camera do that?” /gloat

• In Photos: Two Eclipses and a January
• Cam Phone Shooting Tips From Your Rockstar Paparazzi
• “Dayo” Animated Movie Character Photos

Whew! This took too long. I’m sure there’s an easier way out there but I’m old school (i.e. a noob) so I rocked the hard way. If we’ve had interactions in the past year and if in those moments I was crazily snapping away like a loon, then most probably you’ll be in one of the 250 odd “fritzparazzi” photographs I used to come up with this vid. I was too tempted to use photos of other bloggers from most events because I later realized I was missing a month’s worth of pics off my archives, July 2009 to be exact, but thought better. This should do, I hoped.

So I start out with the Baconator and end with a snap of the lunar eclipse that happened on New Year’s Eve. Ok, that’s a lie. The ending’s totally different and I might end up getting killed for having that up LOL. Watch the vid already so you’ll know what I mean.

This one’s for you. For the company, the good times, your work, your craft, your dedication, and your passion. I hope that one day, I could at last measure up with the amount of efforts you have put in this endeavor, with or without Google AdSense.

Happy New Year, everyone! Here’s to a better year ahead of us all. And world peace.

Cheers!

Note: You may want to watch the full HD sized format of this vid straight off its youtube page. You’ll see the detail better that way.

• Sampling Lumix ZS3′s HD Video Shooting Capabilities
• Block your May 9, 2009 for iBlog5
• The Clear Halloween Dance Party, Fritzparazzied
• 3D Animated Intro Vids from the 2008 Philippine Blog Awards
• In Closing, Thank You Eraserheads for the GREAT Time! (with Video)
• Countdown to Midnight (Video) from the iPhone 3G Philippines Launch

The thought hit me last night between sips of my scrumptious Bulalo soup and Sago’t Gulaman during dinner: What if the Internet died? What if it totally stops working and disappears from the face of the Earth? Is that even remotely possible? The answer: yes. Highly improbable, but not impossible. In the event that the Internet does end, the world as we know may change but not before these things can happen:

Online sellers will have to peddle on the streets

Hosting will be a gig and a chore rather than a service

Domain registrations will rightfully go back to the Registry of Deeds

Big halls like the World Trade Center will forever be booked and become one big chat room, divided into zones/categories

No more AdSense earnings

No more spam

No more blogger events

Hits will be painful

SEO guys will be jobless

Forum moderators will have to use mics to be effective

Scammers will be con men in trench coats in dark alleys or in corporate weare in malls doing MLM

Weather/torrent/RSS news feed addicts will convulse in withdrawal

_________ (fill in the blank with your take, share them in the comment section)

and my lame list could go on and on and on…

Cracked.com, however, egged its readers to come up with their take on “The World of Tomorrow (If The Internet Disappeared Today).” As expected, submissions of Photoshopped images came in droves. From the hundreds, they narrowed the best down to 20. #1 is HUHLOLZ, trust me!

In a totally unrelated note, here, have a radio transmitter.

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In the living room a while ago, my gaze lingered on something familiar: a small black book that’s been sitting on a shelf untouched for a while now. I took it, saw the familiar silver letters on the textured hard cover, and remembered it was what Nina gave me for my birthday this year.

I took one more drag of the cig I was smoking before I began flipping through the pages. If this were effective, I thought, maybe I should have this with me wherever I go, just in case I or someone else needs it. First I opened it where Nina left the bookmark (more snapshots of the content after the jump).

Hmmm, it seems Nina knows me too well LOL. The mere thought of “getting some” already made me giddy with pure delight. That page soon got me started on a fliping frenzy, half-thinking that maybe this book’s supposed wisdom can give me a month’s worth of days filled with happy thoughts. It’s worth a try.

flip

Somehow, this reminded me of Pau and his awesomeness, or is it Momma Petrelli of Heroes when we were still wondering what her powers were.

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And this one reminded me of Elyoo‘s plurk the other day.

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LOL, done that. Next!

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This one reminded me of Arpee‘s special award from BlogBank in last year’s Philippine Blog Awards (by the way, nominations for this year’s PBAs is now open. Make sure to submit your nominations ASAP).

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Hmmm, interesting… I’ve never done this bef… or have I? (thinking) LOL Maybe when I wake up in the morning, I ca… OK, too much info. (awkward)

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Um, Mr Book Writer, sir, what if I can’t whistle? kairitang suggestion lang, hmp.

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This is actually something Billycoy would do. Or Rens. Sorry, book, but that’s not how I roll.

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LOL, does this not have Manolo written all over it or is it just me?

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Don’t start!

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Maybe later. Don’t be overly suggestive, book, because I’m blogging about your random pages! Now, behave!

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WHAT’S WITH THE PERSISTENCE?! I’m THIS close to putting you down now, book! I’M SERIOUS!

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… now we’re talking! HUHLOLZ!

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And then there’s “singing”: because not everything in this book is perverted.

We all have our ways of coping from a bad day. The last page I’ll share with you is more of a long term proposed suggestion.

flip

Couldn’t agree with you more! w000000000000000000t!

Book’s back cover with the names of its authors.

If you want some good vibes, drop me a note and maybe I can share with you some more random pages off the book. Maybe they can help.

Thanks for the book again, Nina! Happy Sunday morning, everyone!

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One early morning, I hailed this random cab for work. Story of my weekday life. I opened the door, told the driver my drop off point, got in, said “Thank you” like clockwork (I always thank cab drivers as a habit, no matter what city I’m in. This gesture, I realized, almost always promotes a good vibe between me and my temporary chauffeur), and got myself comfortable on the back seat. No biggie, right? It gets better.

It took 2.5 seconds after my butt found its center of gravity on the cushion for me to notice the upholstery. No, more like upLOLstery. They reminded me of one blog post by Alexei a few months back where he showed another cab’s seat cover sporting animal prints.

OK, I may have been a bit harsh with my judgment so, here, see for yourself and prove me wrong. Be ready to say HOOOOOLY MOTHER OF FRRRRRR!

Don’t say I didn’t warn you. My initial reaction was to get my ass off of the material because it looked as though it belonged to some hapless and now-extinct animal from the wild. An animal with ticks, also multi-colored but blood sucking and hungry, ready to find another host to feed on.

Oh lookie here, it’s got a bronze plate tag, awwww. They don’t make it like this anymore, do they? Huh-YEAH, because we’re in the year 2009 and not the 60s, THAT’S WHY!

I told myself that this is may be the very fabric that nightmares are made off but, hey, I’m getting off this cab in under 10 minutes so there’s seriously nothing to worry about. Only then did my pulse rate start slowing down to almost-normal.

Do note that all the while, I was on my feet inside the cab, my ass pinned to a closed window, my back glued to the ceiling, and both my hands were holding on a sturdy fixture for balance (my left palm was spread flat on the back window and my right had apparently grabbed the driver’s then tousled hair, God bless him).

Good thing this is an isolated case of bad taste. I’ve only seen one, so far, in my regular weekday cab ride of 8 years. That’s a 1 out of a 2,088 reandom chance if you allow me to get geeky with it (na na na na na-na-na, get geeky with it!).

Part Deux to this entry can be found here!

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Digital noise.  You’ve got to hate them like the smell of sun-baked scalp poised under your nose while you travel via the MRT, one typical rush hour Friday. 

I’ve been toying around with the ISO settings of the Sony DSC-H10, an 8.1 mega pixel point and shoot camera with 10x optical zoom and full manual settings, under a normal, single, energy saver light. To judge whether it is up to the challenge of capturing clarity under feeble lighting, I took several shots of a letter I recently received under different levels of ISO. Now, don’t go whining about my choice of subject. Its importance, we will later on find out.

At ISO 400:

(Just look at that full regalia of stamps! In the now where electronic email has probably rendered the snail mail obsolete, getting mail the old fashion way is a treat!) If you observe carefully, there are some ugly noise levels going on in the midtones and whites of the image but it’s nothing that Photoshop CS4 can’t handle. The thumbnail on the right shows us just that. Adjusting “curves” and softening the “noise” give me this “ho-hum” version. *yawns* boring picture.

Owing to the Sony DSC-H10′s manual setting function, levels for record mode (where users may even opt to set the cam to shoot thrice in bursts with .03, .07, or 1 different levels of exposure. Now, that’s hot technology right thurr right thurr!), color mode (normal, vivid, quiet, sepia, and B&W), ISO (up to 3200), metering mode of the exposure function (balanced, center, spot), focus (multi, center, spot, or .5m, 1m, 3m, 7m away, or at an unlimited distance), white balance (auto, daylight, cloudy, three levels under fluorescent lighting, incandescent, and flash), flash level (adjust flash levels from -2.0 to +2.0 of the normal flash level), red eye reduction (auto, off, or always on), contrast (decrease, normal, increase, or auto), sharpness (minus, normal, or plus), and steady shot (at half-press when shooting, always on, or off) can all be set depending on the user’s needs. Since I practically got grainy shit with ISO 400, let’s see how well the cam’s sensors can capture image at ISO 800.

At ISO 800:

Setting ISO levels at 800, the image appears to obviously look brighter and yet digital noise is reduced to a more manageable threshhold (unlike this one Verzio model I used where all my photos turned out to be REALLY SERIOUSLY worthless. Not to mention grainy).

It took a few fine tuning with “curves” and some not-so-serious tweaks on the “noise” level to come up with the image on the right.

So, what could happen if we up the ISO further at 1600?

At ISO 1600:

If you observe the elements of the image closely, not only will you notice that there is practically no noise left, you will also read about my passing the Mensa IQ Challenge I took last November 15. HUZZAH! HUZZAH! HUZZAH!

That’s it for ISO levels. Tune in next time for more exciting news (read: more gloating LOL) only here at fritzified.com.

• I dare you to take the Mensa IQ Challenge
• Mensa Day on February 22 at Fully Booked BHS

…because I did. I’ve been wanting to since high school (which seems eons ago already, come to think of it) and I finally gave in and went. And took it. And felt molested intellectually, afterwards. The day after the Elation Buffet Launch, I did. I mean, we did. 

Here’s the thing: If I don’t pass, you’ll never find out. If I do, however, that’s a different story. And by “story,” I actually meant sorry. Sorry because you’ll never hear the end of it. Imagine the state of my posts, post passing Mensa:

“Khthul khult tuhklthuu. Menkrukhldt.” That’s Mensan for “I’m srsly awesome, you’re not.” All this lower-IQ speak by trying to translate Mensan to English is making my IQ drop. Back to regular programming… Khukldhrrrtlidtl, umdtkhrrl hkthul!

Got the picture? I mean, got the Fritzparazzi-Mensan picture?!

Yeah, somewhere in those lines. Sad ain’t it? 

Dickery notwithstanding, we were told that IQ exams in league with the Mensa test could cost you at least P1,500. You get to only pay P500 (and P300 for students who can present a valid ID) for the IQ Challenge slated on November 30, 2008 at Fully Booked in Bonifacio High Street in Serendra, Taguig City.

The Mensa IQ challenge is explained in the following paragraphs:

“The only criterion for Mensa membership is to score within the top 2% (98th percentile and up) of the test. The test is culture-fair and does not test for math or language skills.

Limited slots are available to those interested in taking the Mensa test.  To avail of these slots, interested parties can pre-register at the online facility available at mensaphilippines.blogspot.com.  The deadline for pre-registration is  before 12 midnight of November 28.

Mensa has over 100,000 members in over 80 countries worldwide. Actress/Olympian archer Geena Davis, comedian John Cleese and science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov are some of the more prominent Mensa members.”

If like me you are still in the dark as to what IQ level you have, then this one’s the one to beat, pass or fail. Not passing may mean we are not in the top 2% of the population. IQ test results, however, can’t make any of us lesser rock stars. NOTHING CAN! I mean, come on, share my gloating lime light with me should I pass (I imagined it could be lonely up there LOLOLOLOL)! I and 5 others took the advanced Challenge last Saturday without as much as a single preparation nor idea what the questions would be like (no clues on what to expect here, so move along, people! LOL).  Also, think about it, if I don’t pass and you do, you can make ME not hear the end of it! That’s a sweet deal right there! 

For more details on how to sign up for the exams, click on the photo in this post. View the video below for the teaser. 

[youtube staVg3xU-Vs nolink]

Yes, that’s Kring right there, alright! LOL

• ISO variables on the Sony DSC-H10 (alt title: The Day I PWNT Mensa LOL)
• Mensa Day on February 22 at Fully Booked BHS

For the up and coming Philippine Blog Award‘s Bloggers’ Choice, my vote goes to our main man, Mike Villar. In the next several paragraphs, I’ll try to knock some logic into this decision primarily to convince myself why. LOL

Flashback, Winter 2005: I had been blogging for five months when I got a message in my then blog’s ShoutBox (shut up) from someone who I consider to be a somebody in the Philippine blogging scene. Only much much later will I find out that he isn’t really a “somebody” and neither is there anything that closely resembles the big, glittery, star-studded Philippine blogging scene that I wanted so much to belong to. Such ideas only existed in my daydreams alongside me quitting my day job, taking kick-ass photos, rendering short videos with 3D effects, and making it good in corporate. The big difference is, the latter three actually happened (duh). Sorry for getting ahead of myself with the story. Nostalgia can be a nagging bitch when let on her own.

Anyhootz, I did say I got a message in my Shoutbox (see image insert above).

Saw my reply? “Love your site man. Kaya ko ni-link.” The HELL was I thinking?! That, my dear friends, only goes to show how much of a suck-up I’d let myself be to Mikey primarily because I adored the guy. His style reminds me to this very day of one other blog I happened to follow during that era: Jason Mulgrew‘s. They both love writing so much about their penchant for self-sex and their drunken mischief back in the day. Gotta love that! To cut the long story-of-the-sidebar-comment short, and with four other editors, the Man Blog happened (a little bit of trivia there, boys and girls).

At this point, I would to make a shout out disguised as a vehement “fuck you” to Lauren, Ade, Pau, and Baddie for making their kickassedly rendered “I Vote for Mikey” entries SO kickass, you wouldn’t let yourself be caught dead making something sub par. I mean come on guise, must it be THIS hard for all of us?! (s_annoyed)

Moving on.

Despite the guy’s seemingly horrid/tasteless/”classy, NOT!” stories that lowers his self-esteem down to the level lower than blondes, this Mikey fella is actually an OK guy. How else can you rise in the marketing corporate ladder like he does if you can’t sell yourself despite everything you’ve written (his style) on the internet in plain view of all the CEOs in his organization/companies he may want to work for? What kind of people can partition stupidity and careful/calculated judgment and get away with both of them in two separate “worlds,” online and IRL? A genius, I tell you. Goes to show he wouldn’t call himself Michael “Fucking” Villar for nothing.

I can’t believe I still suck-up to this guy at this day and age!

Whew, I’m nearly done. Let me leave you with a photo of Mikey which I Fritzparazzied during the second Taste Asia bloggers’ party at the SM Mall of Asia.

Got the irony? Priceless!

That said, I urge you to vote for Mikey, too, and now! Mike Villar, FTMFW!

PS: Please win, buddy. Bim sacrificed his stake for you with this vote. (Please refer here for the guidelines on how to vote for YOUR OWN Bloggers’ Choice. The site also shows the complete set of nominees.)

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The Philippine Blog Awards wouldn’t happen without the help of the following gracious sponsors:

Level Up! Games
Nokia
Blog Bank
Smart Communications
Josiah’s Catering
Rsun Technology Store
Yahoo
XFM 92.3
Buddy Gancencia Reality TV
Ultravision Photo and Video
Click Booth
Aloha Board Sports
Sheero Media Solutions
YourPinoyBroker.com
Belo Medical Group
Inquirer.Net
Toshiba
ROAM Magazine
PLDT
Red Box
Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf

• Gang Badoy’s Keynote at the PBAs 2009

[ Please click on each of the 15 thumbnail photos in
chronological order to reveal its larger version
and the blog entry ]

• Countdown to Midnight (Video) from the iPhone 3G Philippines Launch
• Four New Fragrances from Benetton’s Colori 2010 Collection
• Super Junior Super Show 2 “Chu~” Performance Vid (HD)
• Super Junior Super Show 2 “Sorry, Sorry” Performance Vid (HD)
• Photos from the Super Junior Super Show 2 Manila Concert
• In Photos: Two Eclipses and a January
• World Press Photo 2009 Winners on Exhibit at SM MOA from August 17-23
• PGMA Declares 2010 Holidays with Proclamation 1841
• Elation Buffet Launch Photos
• The Clear Halloween Dance Party, Fritzparazzied