gambitch - now available in blue

Saturday, July 02, 2005

It has been brought to my attention that my blog text size has gone up to about five times its original size. Finally, no strain on the eyes, some might say, but it makes my blog look even longer than it used to. Plus I didn't do anything to instigate this.

This could mean I've to revisit my efforts to create that new template.

gambitch [ 7:59 AM]

Friday, July 01, 2005

There was a time when television dramas didn't start by saying which ridiculously rich company decided to present or sponsor the show. This still is the case in most parts of the world, except where I'm based. I don't want to know which mega-long (read: way too long) drama series is presented by electronics megastore Harvey Norman or some beer, or whatever. But I guess there's little alternative when the television company in question doesn't have on hand too many ways to make money.

That said, I couldn't help letting a wry smile show up on my face when I saw this teaser trailer ad on TV for an upcoming local drama series. (Fortunately, this series won't be exported, so it'll save lots of other people plenty of unsolicited agony. And I won't be watching the show myself either.) This show has not one, but three credited sponsors - not counting all the others that will show up in the end credits. This isn't all that unusual either, because sponsors aren't giving big amounts either thanks to the continued economic underperformance.

What was funny was the fact that, within all of 2 seconds, I realized that all three sponsors had one thing in common. All three have the same upcoming (and probably overhyped) actress as the brand ambassador starlet. And the actress in question is also, in all probability, the lead actress for the series. Makes you wonder whether the television station approached these sponsors precisely because of that link. It usually doesn't work the other way round...

In other unimportant entertainment news, a not-all-that-famous Hong Kong actress was incensed by photos of her being printed. The photos in question showed her naked and attended to by a masseuse (i.e. another woman), although from what the news articles state, none of the photos are porn site material, which is just as well.

There's nothing really newsworthy about the incident itself, apart from the simple and straightforward note that actresses getting stress-relief body massages would be absolutely normal. After all, everyone else can do the same thing. And I'll suppose it's pretty normal to be wearing close to nothing when you're actually being massaged. Since all these things are normal, what I want to know is, whoever the photographer was who took the photos, what was the person thinking when he or she was taking them? A television actress - who's not even an A-lister - getting a massage by a female friend (i.e. not the first time she's been there) can't have any news value in it. So why take the photos, and why publicize them?

Plain, and very outright, stupidity at its most boring. No wonder the actress was unhappy.

And how safe would you feel anyway if you knew you could be photographed while doing absolutely normal things? This isn't a case of some random guy standing around at a random mall taking random pictures of various different random people shopping. I might do that sometimes, if I think the photos could tell a convenient point going along with some article. But that's a different kind of photography. This case is something else. And it's utterly boring to the point you're compelled to ask - why did the idiot do it anyway?

gambitch [ 11:25 PM]