Angst, RandomOctober 30, 2006 1:52 am

 

If there’s one thing I hate its false representation, an example of which is people passing off pictures others have taken as their own. I do post others pictures on my blog to illustrate the occasional point but never would post someone else picture on Flickr or any other photo sharing webpage and try and say I took it. The reason I’m ranting about this is because about a month ago I came across a picture of a leopard in Sri Lanka. I immediately recognized the picture from a Pbase gallery by David Behrens, specifically this picture posted back in 2002 and which I had come across while still in college years ago. 

In fact looking at most of the pictures hosted on that Flickr account it looks like they have been culled from a wide range of sources. But here’s the crux of the matter, someone commented on the picture and the poster’s reply indicated ownership of the picture. Now that really bloody annoyed me, the decent thing to do in response to the person’s comment would be to admit the poster him/herself did not take the picture but culled it off a website. I in response posted a comment mentioning the original photographer should be credited but it was pretty quickly taken down. That in my opinion was stupid and shows a complete lack of respect for the effort that some of us put into our photography. I know the Flickr poster is not making any money off the picture but trying to take credit for taking the picture is pretty low.

P.S. I’m not entirely sure what that picture has to do with my post, but just thought it looked funny, I did not however draw it.

RandomOctober 22, 2006 6:18 pm

Ehh…I can’t be fucked to blog, feeling very lazy and homesick. But I did finally get around to going through some of my photographs, here are some from San Francisco Lovefest and the Blue Angels flying display. Note the pictures with the boobs got me the highest views for any single picture of mine in one day relative to all of the rest of my pictures. I guess sex does sell!

Of course I still have another 1000 pictures or so to go through, maybe someday in the future, in the meantime enjoy! And big up to R for the pro account!! 

RandomOctober 10, 2006 8:40 pm

 

“Drunk” and “Primary School” are generally not words you want to see in the same sentence. Unfortunately it looks like some places have, well, pretty lax (to say the least) drinking rules. And I thought I had a drinking problem! Those kids leave me in the dust…and in retrospect I don’t think I have a drinking problem because I never drink by myself or to escape anything (except life in general)

I’m all for underage drinking but the situation described in the article is just stupid. I love the fact that I grew up in Sri Lanka where we could hit clubs, drink and get used to it while we were pretty young (why do I know I’m going to get some abuse for that statement). Look at most people in the US where the drinking age is 21 and the attitude towards booze is retarded, at least in my opinion, too much binge drinking to insensibility. Then again I am from a country which currently holds the world record for alcoholism so my opinion is probably a bit skewed on this subject matter.

Needless to say, my favourite part of the article was the heading of the picture “Alcohol impaired the performance of the school,” no really?

Girls, RandomOctober 9, 2006 3:28 am

 

Now before people get on my ass about the political incorrectness of bitching about PMS lets just say I have some experience in the matter. I once in a fit of foolishness lived with a girlfriend for a year, I was young and foolish at the time and to add to the foolishness we shared our flat with four other girls. Once a month I had to pretty much hide under the covers to avoid getting hit by the flying cutlery that accompanied the various tantrums.

Anyways PMS is the only reason I can think for a very odd experience last night, in fact one of the oddest nightclub experiences in my life. The Brit and A headed into town to hang out with ol’ R and I. The four of us hit our regular watering hole, Voda and proceeded to drink up a storm. R as usual sat at the bar, while I wandered around chatting to random people entreating them variously to help save the planet or come to Voda more often. The Brit and A apparently had had a quite intriguing discussion about virginity that for the benefit of all should not be repeated here. At one point my head started spinning, the result of not having eaten anything since lunch and probably a lack of oxygen from talking too much. There was unfortunately nowhere to sit near the bar but I did spy an open space on a couch where we had already left our coats. The plus point of my proposed resting place was that there were around four girls sitting there, who I could waste further oxygen on.

I wandered over to the spot sprightly, if a bit meanderingly and readied my but for a little rest, but before I could slide my posterior up onto the sofa one of the girls wandered over and mentioned that one of her ‘girlfriends’ was sitting there, it being a club and me being a bit drunk she has to say it a couple of times before I got it. I simply shrugged my shoulders, gave a goofy grin and turned to go find another seat. The girl then proceeded to grab me by the shoulders, say something along the lines of ‘get moving buddy’ and pushed me. To say I was surprised was the understatement of the year but it’s a girl and I was moving along anyways, so, another shrug, glance backward for askance and I left.

This is where the story gets much juicier and also very confusing. I was under the impression we were leaving for another venue and told R to go get his coat and marshal the troops. R contends that we were not in fact leaving but the Brit simply got tired of wearing his and went to put his down where ours already were. The Crazy Chick proceeded to tell the Brit to go shag himself and that he was not putting his coat down, him being a very chilled out individual shrugged, demurred gracefully, accepted the inevitable and pointed out that she really shouldn’t go around with an attitude like that. Crazy Chick then proceeded to go apeshit on R, demanding he take his coat and put it where the sun don’t shine, despite the fact our coats were there first, she actually went so far as to push R, drop A’s coat on the floor and went out to call the bouncer. I was watching this go down from the bar with mild interest before I got distracted by a Latin looking beauty with big eyes.

A few minutes later the situation seemed to have calmed down, the dynamic trio returned to the bar shaking their heads at the craziness of some people. I then wandered off to fetch my coat and as I picked it up, Crazy grabbed it out of my hand. Now as I said before I am a very chilled out individual and instead of asking her what in the name of fuck she thought she was doing, I simply looked at her, took back my jacket and started wandering off. B the bouncer then came in, observed me taking the jacket from the Crazy Chick and inquired from me what in tarnation was going on. My explanation was simple; we went to get jackets, Crazy Bird who had obviously in the meantime pissed around the couch to mark her territory got, well, territorial. B and I shrugged, had a good laugh and the owner, another mate of ours came over, apologized, put our coats behind the bar and gave us a round of shots. Crazy Chick and her posse were not happy that we weren’t kicked out and she came up to the other side of the bar and proceeded to give me gal looks. I being me, took great pleasure in giving her my goofy smile back, which I think annoyed her to the point where they all left.

Now I’ve met a lot of insane people in my life but Crazy Chick from last night took the cake, never have I met someone who was obviously so far on the Richter scale of looniness and I’ll be darned if I have an explanation. R thinks it’s because the club was full and the crowd was having a good time, but no-one was chatting to the posse in the corner, not unsurprisingly considering their, as the Brit pointed out ‘winning personalities’. I’m personally torn between two explanations, one is that they were all underage, probably the first time clubbing and were just on an attitude trip. My personal favourite theory is that Crazy Chick was suffering from the mother of all PMS’s which had caused her already tenuous grip on sanity to suffer even more. As the Brit so eloquently said, that girls gonna make someone a very ‘lucky’ man someday. Poor bugger.

California, RandomOctober 6, 2006 10:42 pm

I’m sitting at my computer, dazed and confused as usual mostly because it’s just past 9 a.m., poring over a spreadsheet, look outside and note the slight drizzle coming down. Tab down in Excel and at the same time what sounds like a claymore exploding in the outer atmosphere thunders around me. ‘Fight-or-Flight’ kicks in, though the only thing to really beat up on is my stapler (not really an exciting prospect at the best of times) and there’s really nowhere to run either.

What’s really disturbing to me is that no one else seems to have reacted to what in no uncertain terms sounded like what would be the result of Kim Jong-il finally losing his noodle. I actually considered the fact that my frail mind, hanging on a thread of sanity, had finally snapped and I would be consigned to Angoda for the rest of my life babbling nonsensically and drooling endlessly.

I finally came out from under my keyboard and on querulously making inquiries from my workmates discovered that the source of the cacophony was in fact the Blue Angels flying over the city in celebration of fleet week, which is basically the Navy’s birthday. The culmination of this is going to be the rather exciting prospect of the penultimate race of the Red Bull Air Race World Series. So the plan is drink lightly tonight, wake up early doors (and by that I mean around 10 a.m.), break out the long lens and head down to the Marina Greens to check out the race and hopefully get some exciting action shots. I’ve also made a mental note to down enough coffee in the morning just in case one of the planes veers off course and into the crowd, need to be on my toes, just in case. One never knows…

 

I feel the inevitability of a Flickr Pro account coming up if the shoot is successful. A weekend of alcohol, fast planes and hopefully skimpily clad ladies on a sun drenched green (if the rain lets up that is) is certainly one to look forward to (Touch wood on NOT getting hit by a bus on the way home today, which is a current obsession of mine)…

P.S. Another excellent band popped up on my iPOD, The Beloved , excellent Brit electro-pop stuff to get your shit on with, favourite songs: Sweet Harmony and You’ve got me thinking. The latter is the kind of song that transports you to a beach in Unawatune everytime you hear it.

Musings, Angst, Random 12:24 am

 

 

Anyone who has any iota of awareness on happenstance in America would have realized that being a high school student in the US of A is a pretty hazardous existence. In addition to the chance of your high school sweets wandering off behind the gym for a bit of ‘ball practice’ with the Ol’ gym teacher there is also the off chance that that kid you didn’t say ‘hi’ to in the morning might have got pissed. Pissed enough that is to come back to school the next day and blow you to kingdom come (and a bit further if you are a popular kid). Hell there’s even the chance someone who someone didn’t say ‘hi’ to when you were barely an atom on the world stage might come put a bullet in you like in the Amish case. All in all, perhaps basic training should start a bit early these days and “run away from the pimply kid with the gun” should be added to that old lexicon of “don’t talk to strangers.”

The solution some genius has come up to deal with the mini insurgency? Arming teachers. Yes, take a long pause there, ruminate a bit over what you just read and trust me you didn’t read wrong. The solution is not less guns for the crazies to utilize in popping innocents, but more guns…sigh..sometimes there’s so much stupidity in this world, I’m just left speechless and longing for a stiff Rum and Coke and some pork curry. So I’m off to get both of those….

Meanwhile to those of you who come up with these ideas, I believe the Darwin Awards are looking for nominees.

GeneralOctober 5, 2006 5:12 am

Whoot (I am unashamedly stealing this phrase from either drac or sage, I’m not sure)! Managed to catch the Lost premiere despite the many, many obstacles thrown my way, which included a planned giving class until 7.30, pissing rain, a smelly old Chinese lady on the bus, lackadaisical friends and even more rain. After braving all those dangers I managed on the dot to make it in front of my TV at 9 for a season premiere for what is probably my all time favourite show…and it was bloody well damn worth it. Now all I have to do is tear my hair out in frustration until next week when the next episode rolls around…sob….sob.

On another point ‘Freckles’ did look absolutely scrumptious, if a bit nervous (which given the fact she’s a captive of the Others, that’s to be expected). Man do I adore spunky girls…

 

P.S. Thank you for all those who shared with me their shameful secrets (well not that shameful) of liking Grey’s Anatomy, the candidness was well appreciated. I feel a lot, well somewhat better! Cheers!