in retrospect…

is it only the magic of Christmas, or people really are in a gift-giving mood theses days? for the past few days, either i’ve read or heard in the news that the govenrment announced a ceasfire with the NDF, or that the LTO launched Oplan Isnabero to help commuters, and that oil firms lowered gas pump prices by P2.00… how very generous of them!! :s

but the question really is, why can’t the government do all these things [and more] all year round? why only during Christmas? why can’t Arroyo finally announce a unilateral ceasefire and once-and-for-all talk sincerely with the rebels? why can’t the LTO [and the MMDA] crack down on abusive taxi drivers who haggle for more fare from their passengers and simply leave if they can’t? why can’t oil firms lower their pump prices for the whole year?

if that is the best they can do, i hope it is Christmas each and every day of the year…

the only problem with this is that people will have to contend with the never-ending carolling of small children ["kapag sumapit ang pasko, namimili ang nanay ko" accompanied by the clanging of spoons and forks]… and the commercialization!! have you been to Policarpio Steet?? even before you get to the actual place, street hawkers litter the street selling all kinds of stuff, from toys, fake watches and DVDs [where's the OMB when you need 'em??], all kinds of food and drink, and fake t-shirts… a veritable mall sans the building, aircon, and the comfort a mall offers…

and when you get to Policarpio Street itself, what was once a street free of stalls are now filled with them… this one place [in front of the Santa House] i used to admire because of thousands of lights adorning the house which makes it very beautiful… but now, thousands of lights still adorn it, but a small tiangge can already be found in front of the house… maybe the owners are already hard-pressed to find the money to pay for all those lights and the electricity they will use??

but in any case, i’d still wish for Christmas for the whole year, but without the accompanying commercialization of the season… for the year, my wife and i simply decided to get our kids some new shirts, and that’s it! no gift giving to other people this year, not even to each other… we already have love and that’s all the gift we’ll ever need… right sweetie??

yes, we have no money to buy gifts, but that is beside the point…

Ciao, sweetie…

people delude themselves… they want love so badly that they search for it until they pretend they’ve found it. women will meet some worthless fool, convince themselves that they’ve discovered a treasure, a ‘remarkable gem’ of a human being that the rest of the world has somehow managed to overlook… what rot!!

Ivarian Borensen
Knight Equitable
The Runelords
Wizardborn

Ciao, sweetie…

Brian White of Background Exposure.com commented on my last post and sent me this link of retouching images… it shows how, with the proper tools, one can make a veritable goose into a very beautiful swan…

i have been an avid reader of FHM Philippines and Maxim Philippines… both have high enough appeal to me, or to any hot-blooded male [and female], that i have been buying it eversince its maiden issue…

but i have now been disillusioned into buying these magazines for the simple fact that i feel like a fool drooling over those semi-naked women when, now, i know for a fact that what is being shown is not really them, but a perception of what they [magazine editors] really want us to see, an image… a fake… aritificial… invented… an illusion… A FORGERY!!

and we have been eating it all up!! yes, you, you, you, and, sadly, me…

i have nothing against the use of tools to retouch images… but only when you see a smudge or dirt which is the photographer’s fault… i’d rather show all the imperfections of my subjects than do an Angelica on them… and by that, i mean the wholesale changes they made simply to make their photos more beautiful… more appealing…

i am a photographer myself, though still an amateur, but all of my pictures are real… nothing was done to them at all… yes, maybe a little retouch on the color scheme [to sepia or black and white], but that was all… oh yes, people have asked me to wipe off the pimples on their faces, or make them a little thinner [or fatter]… but those are what, to me, make them intereseting subjects!! because they’re real… no imagery… real…

and that is what i’ll strive to be… to capture images that show the real person behind the scenes i take… i won’t feel a real photographer when all i do is take the pictures and retouch them to come out with a totally different picture… they do not become my own anymore…

i will now be looking at pictures of models on billboards, posters, and most of all, magazines, in a new light…

Ciao, sweetie…

what started out to be a joke is now fast becoming a sick joke…

i am an amateur photographer, and whenever i have a shot that i’d want to keep but is really not worth posting for some reason or another, all i’d do is just fire up my ‘ol trusty photo editor, and do a little touch up on my photos… but my edits are limited to changing color settings, putting in a little artistic filter [sharpening, redering, pixelating], or simply to wipe away a little smudge on an otherwise perfect skin…

but i’ve never resorted to wholesale body changes on a subject, i mean, those total touch-ups that will render the subject unrecognizable [if you know the subject well], or that will put my amateurish photographic integrity in question…

this is what happened with the latest photo shoot of Angelica Panganiban with the Ginebra San Miguel poster… when the pictures first came out, everyone [including me] were all wowed with the way she looked on them, those fine wavy lines of her body, those perky full breasts, her poses were made to really make you stand up [both figuratively and literally] and take notice…

but then, pictures of the preparation for the shoot leaked out, and what were in there were very different with the final outcome… at first, i didn’t want to believe in them because i believed Angelica was that beautiful… but then again, better see for yourself:

guess which one’s the touched up…

that is what i meant by wholesale body changes… those baby fats were cleanly taken away and substituted with those fluid body curves… those somewhat immature breasts were perked up and made full and rounded!! i really have nothing against this, but it was as if people who did this made Angelica a goddess, instead of just a beautiful yet still emerging young lady [i love those baby fats of hers...]…

she 1st came out as the cover girl of Maxim’s Philippines maiden issue… we were all literally drooling over her… but now we know that this is all thanks to the magic of retouching… this action now puts into question the veracity of all those pictures of semi-naked women floating around in 30 or 40 different girlie mags… am i looking at an original picture? or am i viewing a retouched image? have they done an “Angelica” on all of those pictures that got me [and my wife] all excited? hmmm… [i wonder what those touch up artists are making nowadays??]

so, for all those whose pictures i’ve taken but weren’t really good, don’t worry…

“i’ll do an Angelica on you!!”

talk about truth in advertising…

Ciao, sweetie…

the officers of Baddicts!, one of my badminton groups, asked me to create a presentation of the pictures i took from the last 2006 Baddicts PusoyDos Badminton Challenge… i have never made a presentation out of pictures, save for all those presentations i made for work… and so, i looked it up in the web and found one great tool for what i intend to do…

ok, the challenge is to create a presentation out of pictures, with transitions and ala-video effects, and possibly, with an audio file which will play in the background while the presentation is playing… and i found Windows Movie Maker…

creating a movie [or a presentation] using this tool is fun and simple… just import the pictures [or movie files] you want to use, embed an audio file, play around with the effects and transitions that came with the application, and just let it play!! it even has the “Make an AutoMovie” option which looks at all your files and your audio, and creates a movie out of that!! how fun is that!!

you want a sample of the final output? here it is:

thanks, Microsoft!! [whew, i never thought i'd be saying that!!]… also, a big thanks goes to the University of California, San Francisco for their Embedded Media HTML Generator… i am able to embed and stream my file because of their very handy html generator… you guys ROCK!! oh, and by the way, the movie file may stop from time to time since it is streaming and it is buffering the movie [it is 4.92MB and 4' 18" long]… and if you have a very slow connection, say a dial-up, i suggest you view this web-optimized movie file which is much smaller [1.3MB] though pixelated…

so, come Saturday, December 9th, this movie/presentation will be shown in the Christmas Party of Baddicts! right after the Body and Mind Mixed Tournament, which Apples and I are also participants… i smell a gold record!!

tools used:

• application: Windows Movie Maker
• HTML generator: Embedded Media HTML Generator
• pictures from the 2006 Baddicts PusoyDos Badminton Challenge
• audio: Perfect by True Faith

Ciao, sweetie…

just today, contractors from Globe Innove came to my house to install a broadband connection for my computer… i am no longer a PLDT/SMART fan, thanks to their very slow connections and slow-as-the-slowest-turtle technical support…

about a month ago, i already was up to here with my SMART BRO and their SMART BROken promises… my connection, which was supposed to be 384kbps was lucky enough to at least get up 64kbps… i later on found out that this was because i was connected to an old base station… and so, i applied to be connected to a newer base station so that i can at least enjoy my connection…

a week of promises [boken, at that] saw me ang Apples finally applying for a DSL connection from PLDT… so, we filled out a form, the wife sent it to PLDT, and about 4 days or so later, we found out that they can’t install a DSL in our house because of the connection our phone was using… PLDT’s technical support told us that the reason why they can’t install a DSL was because our phone line isn’t copper anymore, it is now fiber-optics… they’d be looking into it, daw… [last i heard, PLDT people are having a hard time with the FOs in the areas of Mandaluyong and Ortigas...] we still have to hear from them up tp this day…

and so, i decided last week on Globe’s Globelines Broadband… i filled up their application form, sent it in last Wednesday, they installed the phone line yesterdday, and they configured my Internet connection today… talk about fast!! and for a measly initial fee of P500, i have a new phone line [bye-bye PLDT line], and a broadband Internet connection all in one!!

i just hope i don’t feel let down with the speed of the connection… they told me that the highest throughput i can get in my area was 384kbps [which is alright by all accounts, considering that i only have one computer connected]… will be putting it through its paces tonight, and will tell you more as i go along…

Ciao, sweetie…