Or have you become immune to this?

When I came in this morning, there were 37 spam comments awaiting moderation. Yesterday, the number was pretty much the same. In a matter of 1 hour (when I was out for a meeting), spammers attacked 10 times on 10 different blog posts of mine.

Of course, you don’t get to see any of it because all those spam comments get moderated and nuked by me

I tried to add a list of banned words. The list is growing. First, all spams were about Casinos. I banned that word, and then it spam relating to insurance started appearing. This morning it was the most popular of all spam words – Viagra. Looks like the spammers have a thing for Viagra. Many of you Yahoo mail users would know.

Since these words have been banned, there is a new kind of spam word appearing (even as I write this I deleted two comments). The new word is Lindt… I now have a fine collection of banned words:

There was a time when my inbox was so full of sex related spam, that if my girl friend ever saw it, she would have surely asked me to get tested for all possible STDs. Not to mention that she may have suspected me to have artificially enhanced my you-know-what.

Must read!

Today I came close to fulfilling one of my dreams. I photographed lightning bolts. And god, was it difficult or what! The timing had to be right – with an error factor of milliseconds. And for that, I had be as quick and precise as a leopard stalking prey. The stellar fireworks were at its peak when it was pouring cats and dogs (with heavy winds), so I really couldn’t shoot too many frames then. The lightning died with the rain, but luckily turned towards a window at home which opens to a wide empty horizon. So I stood there, eyes concentrating on the darkness, and fingers on the shutter button. And this was the only good frame that came out of it:

I am not giving up easily. Just waiting for the skies to turn overcast again! But trust me, I SAW better bolts than I shot. That’s life.

Have you heard of Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield? Probably not. But I am sure all of you must have heard of Flickr. So is it surprising, that these two, founders of Flickr, have made it to Time’s ‘The People Who Shape Our World‘ list?

I’m always excited when simple ideas make it big.

Last week’s rains were very much welcomed by Bangaloreans. I thoroughly enjoyed getting wet. It was fun riding back home from work in the rain. Riding in the rain is a little dangerous, but well, it’s summer and the rains are meant for us to cool down. Unfortunately all this cost me something. My cell phone went dead.

Now I am sure that it did not fall into water or something like that, but the service center guy told me with some element of shock that my phone was ‘waterlogged’. He even had the gall to ask me if I dropped it in water. If I remember right, it was in a pouch, which did get a little damp, but he made it sound like I dived into a pool with my phone. Aaarrgggh…dealing with these service center guys is always a pain. Be it a bike, a phone or a T.V. The handset costed me only 2k and change, and this guy tells me that the service may cost me around 1k. It’s been hardly 6 month since I purchased this handset, and I am not ready to spend 1k on it.

So as of now I am un-mobile. I am pissed. Not because I am un-mobile, but because getting wet has costed me my phone. Why can’t they make phones that are water resistant. Hell, why can’t the service center guys replace whatever component they need to replace, and bill it to the big rich company that manufactured it (the phone’s anyway under warranty)? Why is there no corruption in the service center industry? Damn them all

Of the different generes of photography, the one that captures the essence of street life is what I like most. However, I have not done much of that until now, mainly for reasons I will come to later, but I sense direction in that field. Nature photography, sceneries, wildlife etc. all come next in the order of my interest.

One of the most important pre-requisites for street photography is a keen eye for the unusual in the usual. Each week, as I travel to and from work, I come across at least 2 scenes which I know can make wonderful shots. I don’t carry my camera to office regularly, so most of these shots are only captured in my mind (and they fade with memory and the boredom of corporate nonensense). However, when I travel to another city, I come across dozens of wonderul scenes and that is simply because I am conciously looking out for the unusual in the usual.

The second prerequisite is a good lens. A lens that offers more on the tele side, to be specific. This is simply because it is better to shoot people without their knowing, in order to preserve that element of naturality and geniuneness. Most people, even kids in a place like Bhutan, are well aware of digital cameras and become very concious the moment you point your camera at them. They are waiting to see the ouput!

Today, I came across this short video on Michael Reichmann’s excellent site. Watching it made me want to step out of my office immediately and shoot some snaps! You too can take a look and see if this excites you Ok, now back to work…

Update: I just did something impulsive. I bought issue 4 of Michael’s video journal for $20, shipping included. Can’t wait to watch it!

The gallery is up. Click here to see it. (wise people may have noticed that clicking on the image works too….for all such blog-posts :p)

I watched Ice Age 2 – The Meltdown yesterday at PVR. The movie was good, funny and all, but I was surprised by the amount of ‘adult’ content in the movie. Not that I disapprove of it, but hey, I thought this movie was for kids! The movie has a PG rating, so that means when kids ask you why the mammoth Manny gets attracted to Ellie the female mammoth’s behind, you gotta be prepared with a good answer. So folks, remember, Ice Age 2 carries:

I wonder what the ‘mild peril’ stands for. Does it apply to the destruction shown in the movie? Or questions like "hey mommy, how can Ellie and Manny keep the mammoth race going? Aren’t baby mammoths too big for storks?"

Funnier than Ice Age was the standup comedian Russell Peters. My cousin had some clips of his show at home, and we stayed till late watching it. His racist, self-mocking jokes are just too funny!

Had a great time. Working on the snaps and writing about the trip. More coming up!