I Suck At Photography…

I wanted to have my own camera when I was 11. And got one when I was 12. Nothing fancy. A plain black Kodak camera. And a manual one, of course. But I couldn’t care less because all I wanted is to have a camera and nothing more.

And with it I continued to capture moments made of intricate designs our stories, our lessons and our lives spun up into.

By the time I was 16 two cameras were in my possession. Then the enthusiasm and the passion were lost, just like that, as if it has vanished into the thin air.

Now I’m a little less than 21. To add to that I live in Belihul Oya, an outskirt in Sri Lanka. A place made for and of adventure. And a paradise of GREEN scorpions.

Bewildered?

I was not any different either!

I mean, I have seen a scorpion before once in my life inside a drain at Pilimithalawa in 2006 and it was black and looked normal while this one looked so alien with its green coloured skin or whatever and TOTALLY ABNORMAL!

And to make it worse, the moment I saw it, I took it for a spy of a flesh-eating zombie. You know I’m not an organized one. I don’t know Karate or Wushu. I carry no weapons, all which make that I’m certainly the opposite of resourceful, a registered fact. Hence as an individual I’m an easy target, giving me every right to be concerned about  my own protection.

So what could you expect me to do when I see this frightful creature waiting right in front of me on the road except for running?

I ran and ran and ran never even bothering to look back.

And the scorpion never followed me, making it the next major problem as spies are expected to follow their to-be-targets. That’s what they get paid for. So this was absolutely unacceptable behaviour!

Unless of course if it was NOT a spy, in the first place.

Meaning, it could have been just a harmless creature.

So does the gravity of this hit you just as it did to me?

I don’t think anyone has ever seen a green scorpion before. May be that could have been one of the greatest discoveries in the era, an opportunity I simply lost because I didn’t carry my camera with me that time. Had I been able to establish its existence with some form of evidence, may be the interested parties would even have named it after me – Nirmala Scorpion! And that does sound chic, right?

So can I afford or am I going to afford this to happen again and miss, may be like once in a lifetime chance? NOT AT ALL!

That’s why I’m going to take my camera with me here after, where ever I go. That’s why I’m going to polish my knowledge on photography. And that’s why I’m going to take the photos of my pet fish as the first practicing trial of this new digital camera I got.

No, it’s not like this is  the first time they are going to pose for my photos. But back then when I was small I think they were rather excited about it, given the fact that they were also small .

Now they have grown up, just like me.

Also a bit wiser, hopefully.

And seeing this time they didn’t give a damn to what I was up to…

I think now they know,

I suck at photography!

Strictly For Cheaper PR!

I find it totally inexplicable that the word ‘abbreviation’ itself is a long word consisting of 12 letters, despite the fact it talks of being concise.

And I constantly find myself wondering what thrives people to abbreviate words while engaging in casual conversation, when they are sending text messages or chatting on the internet. If there’s anything which drives me crazy much often, it’s when people try to mess my mind with their short form mind twisters!

Yet I would be a hypocrite if I don’t admit that I was also once a big fan of this squish-the-word-to-save-brevity business. Nevertheless, I made this bitter realization that my endeavours only lead me towards forgetting spellings soon afterward! To be frank with you, there was a time I even stopped writing for a second, struggling to recall if ‘e’ or ‘i’ comes first when we spell ‘their’! Yes, it was that bad! Bad enough to compel me to abandon this business of abbreviating!

Anyway my best friend’s opinion is these short cuts help us to refrain from the formality in friendly conversations. And why pay 33 cents more when you can jolly well chop down some letters and bring an extensive text message to one from two? So may be she has a point. But I still hate perky initials!

The first time someone used ‘MSN’ on me, I thought the person was talking about the email service provider only to find out he was in fact talking of ‘mission’! When we do a little bit of math we could see almost 57.14% of the total letters are omitted! Next, ‘BRB’. It took me two minutes to decode that it stands for ‘be right back’! Again an omission of 76.92%, now including spaces too! And then the toughest of all the ones I have come across so far, ‘TTL’! Can you imagine it stands for ‘talk to you later’, lazily dropping the ‘Y’ and marking a skyrocket omission of 82.35%?

Hmm… Having said all these now let’s check if you are smart enough to translate this!

You couldn’t? Never mind! All I could is also ‘ASAP’!

See… That’s why it sucks big time! And there, I said it!

So the following note is to all my friends who are Zen masters at briefing words.

Dr frnds,

OMG! Y dd u all do ths 2 me? Y dd u all drp ltrs in sch awy? U no, t stupfied me, terfied me, horified me! N no, i’m nt LOL. Nor i’m ROFL or LMAO. I’m nt evn ROFLMAOYSST! I’m dead srios. U hurt me. U md me luk lyk a tube l8. N md me ^set so I almst hd a ❤ attck. I needd ECG! I needd CPR! T z all bcz f UR fault. Bt I no u care tho. U dnt wnt me 2 die lyk dat N liv in fear nt nowin f I wud haunt u, r8? So plz, nxt tym omit ur briefin technqs instd f ltrs cos I sure worth ur tym!

Gldly thankin u n advnc,

me

 

Life Could Not Be Better For Us Visakhians!

This is based on an actual incident.

I got a friendship request on Facebook from a particular person couple of days back. All our mutual friends were Visakhians. So I accepted his request without much hesitation.

(Let’s call this person ‘Logo Man’ for the sake of the story. Since his only photo carries one of the famous logos in our country and obviously because I couldn’t come up with anything  better!)

And today while I was going through the Facebook home page I came across this status…

Logo Man: Hi! Friends, I’m Logo Man. 23. Looking for a good girl to make an everlasting relationship, to be my girlfriend, my future wife. If I tell who I am you will definitely think about me. But I want a girl who genuinely loves me, not my position. The one who is willing should have good qualities and be beautiful, pretty, innocent, younger than me and from a decent family and a Visakhian. If you are my dream girl, I love you.

He sounds so damn desperate unless this is some sort of sham and apparently it appears that he has been putting the same status for weeks but no one has bothered to respond!

And over here I’m simply amused at how Facebook has transformed from once-your-social-networking-tool to now-your-match-fixer!

But hey, wait a minute! Am I hallucinating? How could I ever forget this is year 2010 and people of this decade are prone to use Facebook for vivid reasons?

Hmmm… I think that’s more than enough to make his status completely justifiable!

Anyway moving into more pleasant thoughts…

Perhaps somewhere round in 2020…

After dinner…

See! According to my present thoughts that’s the major plus of being a Visakhian! We’ll get to enjoy supreme benefits when it comes to attracting potential future partners solely because we are Visakhians!

Now just think about it! Tell me how fascinating is that!

Oh, we owe big time to the school,  don’t we?

So 3 cheers for our school!

HIP HIP HURRAY!

“Catfish” a.k.a. “The Other Facebook Movie”

It’s 12.27 AM as I’m writing this and I must tell you that I’m almost stupefied and mesmerized. It’s hard to pen down type a set of emotions in this little slice of internet heaven and pick the right words when you are like that, also on the top of it if your ears are on to some soothing music from an art gallery website.

Yet I’m well inspired to write this tonight even though I don’t necessarily believe the best in me will come out along with this sense of urge.

Only hope I’ll do justice!

It’s no secret comedy movies or animation movies hardly slip away from my fingers. I’m that frantic when it comes to  movies. Nevertheless today, I mean technically yesterday(!) I watched a movie which belongs to a different genre altogether. It’s the recently released (on 17.09.2010, if I choose to be more precise) “Catfish” drama.

I have pet fish at home. So it was the title which made me watch the movie, under the illusion perhaps the movie has something to do with fish.

But shortly after the movie started to unravel itself it was obvious looks can be deceptive! It’s a documentary movie based on social networking and ‘catfish’ is essentially a metaphorical term used.

Moreover it’s a perfect testament which reminds us on contrary to what the name ‘Facebook’ suggests the site doesn’t provide us face to face interaction and in fact it could be a line of way which has the potential of eventually drawing us apart from the relationships in life, leaving us with a lot of food for thought, making it one of the best movies I’ve watched so far in 2010.

That’s the movie trailer of the story of Yaniv Schulman and Angela Pierce who are by profession a photographer and an artist, respectively.

I won’t go deep into the movie and ruin it for you trying to spill the beans about the other aspect it touches since this is a must watch in my opinion.  So grab a Pepsi and some potato chips within reach and start watching this piece of poignant caveat about the nature of mindless drivel swirling around cyberspace.

Will end this post making one solemn promise; you will never regret the watch!

The Early Bird Catches The Worm!

There goes one of the famous idioms, the origin of which has been recorded in John Ray’s A collection of English proverbs 1670, 1678:

“The early bird catcheth the worm.”

Ouch!

And now being almost 21 years old I think there’s something wrong in this idiom.

According to this idiom if a bird wants a worm, then it’s a MUST to have an alarm clock! Okay… But  then, what about the birds who can’t afford an alarm clock? The ones who suffer from poverty so much that having an alarm clock is way beyond their means? The ones who fly up the mountain and chirp real loud “I will work for an alarm clock”? Are they destined to live the rest their lives on bird feed stamps while the privileged ones are to climb the ladder of success further ahead with more food?

An acute problem, you see!

However I think this idiom is to imply that the champions who aspire to boom should wake up early. Da, da, damn! Then the final automatic disclaimer is I’m already screwed and doomed! I never wake up early now! 6 AM is my earliest and anything followed by an ‘AM’ is simply a killer! I just don’t see a point in dragging myself out of the bed when I could have a good day easily with more sleep! So I get up to pull myself right on time on the week days and a bit late during the week ends! Each time I miss anything due to the mere fact of working according to my schedule is all your fault, you silly bird! It’s all because you and all the goodie goodies who wake up early!

And I don’t even want a worm! I will only eat worms if they are gummy enough and come in with sugar on them in colourful  packets! I mean who wants a normal worm except for that creepy little birds? Personally I opt for sleeping in than chomping down on some icky bug. And I’m 100% sure the worm would also rather vote for sleeping in than becoming someone’s prey early morning.

 

See… I’m right as ALWAYS! 

So you silly dizzy bird, I have many reasons not to like you! And in fact I despise you! How dare you try to make us humans look like fools with your stupid attributes? You are the real fool cos at least we humans know to enjoy life other than going after worms!

Oh you moronic early bird, I only hope you go…