Living on the Bay

Australian Aboriginal Stories

Squids Downunder
Just how many Antipodean lensmasters are there? In a mad moment I squid-searched for lenses on Australia and New Zealand hoping to track down southern lensmasters that way. I found a few. From that few I found a handful who were good! In an even madder moment I set up a blog to showcase these sterling lensmasters in another place - I called it Squids Downunder. What do you think? (Before you accuse me of nationalism, I mean). Overall, Squids Downunder will be a blog with a number of contributors, all in Australia or New Zealand. Everyone wi

Blessings in October
Another new month! I’m unsure as to when the Angel period finishes, they are set times after all and I’ve been doing it for a while. A new round will be coming up soon so I’m madly finding good content to bless while I have the chance. I started early, in the late evening of September 30, and already I’ve found a few. I’ve listed them here at October Blessings One of them really caught my eye - and my imagination. At first glance, it’s not a lens that goes in for many images and, like everyone else, I like images. Squidoo loves images. This lens gets by very well witho

Bottom Feeder Case Study part 4
My poor old Scott Cunningham has gone from almost 250,000 to be in the 70,000 group. Still an absolute zero to all intents and purposes. I’m going to throw it into the arena in the Critique Me Forums to see if anyone else can see just what’s wrong with it. OK. I may get an artificial boost from a couple of visits - enough to even lift lensrank by a notch of 50 points, but nothing to keep it there. And

Monkey Brains
There’s a first time for everything and I had no experience with the Monkey Brain. Those quickie builders attract less than talented people and I assumed the monkeys were in the same boat. But, no! There are some interesting and entertaining monkeys out there. I had to quickly revise my opinion. There are some absolutely top class lenses in this format from some of the top lensmasters who consistently turn out excellent work under any circumstances and in any shape or form Once again, I associated the tattieness with the tool not the worker. I’ve made one myself -Vegemite beats Marmite (and I don’

Paranoia and Evil Angels
Paranoid people see themselves as central figures in a scenario which may be either dangerous (persecutory) or self-exalting (grandiose). There are at least two lensmasters who claim they have been dinged by Angels for trivial reasons. One person believes he has been the victim of personal dislike and the other because she has lenses in competition with Angels. Both of them fit both of the definitions of paranoia. How strange some people are. What the hell do they think Angels do? Laze around until a fit of spite makes us ding an unsuspecting lensmaster? Maybe they think we ding for fun? If either of these lensmasters had any idea of the tim