In today’s world, owning a digital camera is just like owning a handphone. That’s because the price of digital cameras are so affordable that any Tom, Dick and Harry can be a photojournalist wannabe.

I appreciate great works of art and I’m into photography lately. I’m indeed overjoyed that there’s plenty of other out there that shares the same passion as I am. People says that picture speaks a thousand words and I agree with it. Photography is a form of art. I personally take photography to appreciate forms and lights. I’m sure many others out there are like me as well.

As much as I enjoy photography, there’s a dark side to it and recently many people are caught up in it. Yes… CAM WHORING! If you’re shooting a model, that’s fine. If you’re shooting yourself as the model… please keep it to yourself. Don’t you guys/girls get it? We don’t want to see 50 self-portraits of you in a single photo gallery.

HOW TO KNOW IF YOU’RE A CAMWHORE?

1. Whenever you’re free, you’ll shoot photo of yourself with your camera phone.
2. You’ll grab anyone just to have an excuse to take photos with, but you focus the cam more to yourself.
3. Whenever you’re infront of your computer, you’ll capture your own photo with the webcam.
4. You’ll take 20-30 tries with the webcam before you can be satisfied with one nice photo of yourself. You’ll still keep the rest of the not-so-nice photos.
5. You own a DSLR and yet you still manage to capture yourself with your DSLR. WOW!
6. You find a need to get a tripod for your DSLR. So that you can set up your own self-portrait photo shoot.
7. You’ll get your whole group of friends to be involved in your own photo shoot.
8. Check your computer/CDs/phone now, if 80% photos in there are of yourself…

YOU’RE A BLARDY CAMWHORE!

Looks like blogging is a trend now and it spreading fast like a bush fire. Everyone seems to own a blog of their private own domain or either with blogger.com. Either one, blogging is inevitable.

I do somehow remember that back in the 90’s when chatting was the IN thing on the Internet. Every teenagers and working adults were hooked with the Internet Relay Chat (IRC). IRC was the next best thing after the invention of mobile phones. IRC, a free, multi-user chat service, has been connecting people around the globe since 1988. Chatting behind a nickname or a pseudonym was so much easier for people to express their feelings. I guess hiding behind the computer brings out ones true self or it could be the other way round. Thanks to Khaled Mardeam-Bey, the author of mIRC, IRC has become the phenomenal chatting tool used by people of all walks of life till date.

I was once a chatter, hiding behind the nickname dawgbyte. I was one of the pioneer OPs (Channel OPerators) in #mamak channel in UnderNet back in the early 90’s. I soon left UnderNet when the network got heavily hit with DOS attacks. I went over to DALnet in 1996. DALnet was still an infant then but eventually it grew up to be one of the biggest and most popular IRC network around. I too was an OP in #mamak and #malaysia channel. Two of the most famous channels in DALnet and the founder is no other than Terence Goh, or better known as soulblade. I got to know alot of people and made quite alot of friends from DALnet. Some of the famous bloggers now like KY (doubtless), shaolintiger (Low Fu) and Suanie (Suan) are actually chatters and OPerators in #mamak and #malaysia DALnet too. Lately, they are less active in chatting and have move on into blogging.

I’ve learnt alot from IRC. How to nuke, hack channels and run eggdrop bots (yep…I spent some time in IRCnet too). Coming from creative background, IT wasn’t really in my blood so I spent alot of time learning IT gurus. But it was fun back then. Of course, after a while, I grew bored of it and move on into something else.

Nowadays, I hardly see anyone chatting on IRC from CyberCafes. Most of the time you’ll see gamers battling it out against each other in cafes. I guess time have changed. Those days we talked about ShowDown Pro and Peace & Protection IRC scripts. Now we only talk about WordPress and Blogger.com.

6 discs done and I’m over with season 3. OMG, that’s quick for a person who gets to watch on average 2 episodes a night. Anyways, I’m now watching disc 2 of season 4 and it’s getting more interesting. My Smallville-a-thon is catching some supersonic speed.

This is the season where you can see Clark… or rather Kal-El flying for the first time. Besides getting to see him fly, you’ll get to see Lois Lane appearing in this season as Chloe’s cousin. Speaking of Chloe, she doesn’t look quite as hot as the past 3 seasons because she puts on like 10 pounds since after and it when straight to her arms and hips! She has got arms as big as Clark. Damnnnn…

Lois Lane isn’t exactly what I imagine of. Infact, I don’t like her at all. Maybe because Lana already stole my heart and Erica Durance just doesn’t appeal to me. Why? Simply because she reminds me of Xena – the warrior princess! I’m serious. Her character as Lois Lane is a chatty smart-ass I’m-so-great-I-can-kick-your-ass general’s daughter girl is not what I really wanna see. I find her not as pretty as Kristin Kruek (besides having a big set of boobs) and I strongly believe that she must have gone for a major botox spree over her face for this TV series. She’s got a smile so fake she makes Michael Jackson look good for once! And and… she saved Clark’s ass a few times too… yes yes, she fights like Steven Seagal. WTF?!?!? This is Smallville and it’s supposed to be about Clark Kent, about Superman! Not about Lois ‘Xena’ Lane. I think Erica Durance can be a better Xena than Lucy Lawless.

These girls kick ass… me don’t likey

I just finished watching episode 6 of season 4 and it’s getting… well, I don’t know… intriguing. Just like how Lionel Luthor felt when he discovered Clark’s abilities. Bummer!

I can’t wait to catch the rest of the episodes but I need to slow down, I’ve only got up to season 4 and I can’t get season 5 yet. Anyone out there with season 5? I can always start with The Triangle but it’s gonna be a quick since the whole mini series consists of 2 discs.

The DeepaRaya celebration came and past by. To me, it’s a long break but to somebody else it’s a short one. I’m back in office today and traffic is smooth as silk the whole journey.

Some people took leaves to enjoy the opportunity of a whole week stretch holiday. I didn’t apply any leave and I’m glad I didn’t. You see, just right before we left for holiday last week, we got an email from our boss that we are required to work this Saturday. A FULL DAY AT OFFICE! Some of my colleague took Thursday and Friday off thinking they can go for a week holiday but sadly, their plan has been cut short. bummer…

I just got back from Penang last night and the journey wasn’t that bad. There were some congestion of certain part of the highway but it wasn’t that bad. Funny thing about my trip from Penang was during the journey back, the highway feels like a race circuit. Ironically, it kinda feels like being in a F1 circuit and we are the F1 drivers. Oh yah, congrats Alonso and thank you Shumi for the great races. Ok back to me being on the road. Why? Because everyone is trying to get to the front as fast as possible, cutting in and out and exchanging lanes like the mad Juan Pablo Montoya. Occassionally, we’ll have to slow down because the safety car is out. The fact is we’re all caught behind a lorry trying to overtake another lorry of an uphill slope. When the safety car is out of the way, it’s back to full speed again.

Every now and then, the F1 cars will have to go in the pit stop for a quick refueling and change of tyres. It’s . Same goes to us, every now and then we have to make a quick ‘pee-stop’ whenever our ‘tank’ is full. In this race, there’s no winner and there’s no loser. When everyone drives safely, everyone is a winner!

I’m over at Julea’s place for the holiday break and it’s not all rainbows and blueskies. First of all, it rained heavily for the past few nights and yet the haze is still around. Secondly, during this festive season, firecracker is quite a common thing you hear especially at night despite the ban by the government. You see, it’s not the noise of firecrackers that’s cracking me up, it’s our dog Buckie.

For the past few night Buckie has been barking for hours when night falls. Usually when people start playing firecrackers. This goes on until midniteif we’re lucky enough. We knew it was the firecrackers and we tried everything to make him calm down but to avail. He’s still very much shaken by the cracking sound of firecrackers. I’m no pro dog trainer but I’ve been trying hard to find out how to solve this problem. We’ve even try letting him into the house but that didn’t solve any thing at all. He still whines for attention and we can’t be out there to be with him the whole night.

We’re trying to ignore his barking but it’s not really working too. The more we ignore him, the louder he barks! I hope to find an answer to this. Hopefully someone can teach us how to get use to the firecrackers and stop barking through the night.