Comment Spam

Well, I too have been hit with comment spam. Comments such as "Hey great blog you have there. You might be interested in (insert worthless product here). Check it out!"

All bubbly and upbeat and blatant advertisements. I changed my blog so that only Blogger members could leave comments, but that didn't stop it; many had phony or not so phony accounts set up and who knows, maybe the spammers are using someone's legitimate account, much the same way they use valid email accounts to spread their garbage.

So I sent an email to Blogger complaining and copied the account info of some of the offending Blogger accounts. This morning I noticed that Blogger has a "Show word verification for comments" radio button now. I swear it wasn't there yesterday. I hate these things but I hate being the vehicle for these damn spammers even more. So now you'll get a gif with a warped set of letters to copy into a box before you can leave a comment. Sorry, I really am sorry; I didn't want to do this but "the spammers made me do it!" I realize this will probably cut down on the number of comments I get, but so be it. I am not going to spread the spammers word for them and also increase thier Google rank. Think of it, every page they get their damn link on will increase their rankings.

Fishing with Norm: American Halibut

Click here to see the video

This is the full 35 minute version of Fishing with Norm: American Halibut. Shot in Washington State, it's a fishing video about halibut fishing with some very funny sequences.

How do you catch a halibut? Smelly Jelly, a boatload of electronic equipment and "visualization" are all used here.

Video iPod friendly file.

Mordisquitos!

Click here to see the video

Here's the finished version of the movie I was the the DP of in NYC. This is the finished version (I posted an animation clip from it earlier)

This is a promotional film for the publishing services company that I work for. It will be shown to potential customers to show them what we can do. We shot this over a ten day period in June, with another very short piece shot in Mexico this month. It's seven and a half minutes long; kind of long for a videoblog, but I'm very happy with it so I wanted to share it.

It was written by Steve Zimmerman and Gerard Damiano, directed and edited by Gerard Damiano. Animation is by Ruth Schwartz. Photography Jack Nelson, Art Direction Mark Goodkin,lighting Chris Dixon, sound Steve Kashuck, sound engineering by Ken Takeuchi.

Starring:
PDQ boardroom: Joel Farrel, Michael Cyril Creighton, Liz Forst, Susan Horowitz, Damion Dacosta, Leslie Cloninger

Everyworker: Steve Cuttler

As Herself: Belen Cookinham

The jefes: June Schwartz, Liz Villela, Steve Zimmerman

Booklinks staff: Angie Castro, Janeth Patarroyo, Steven Vasquez, Tassiana Larouchelle, Alejandra Gritsipis, Marty Fluger, Sean Riley, Elena Lee, Mark Shoffner, Humberto Schettino, Zeke Zimmerman

Quality Control: Jennifer Novak, Noah Zimmerman

Booklinks Mexico Office: Jack Nelson, Mariachi Azteca

"Mordisquitos!": Lyrics by Belen Cookinham, music by Matt Kaplowitz

"By Now": written and performed by Steve Cuttler

This is a video iPod friendly file.