Nat Geo and Discovery - Bloodsport pimps?

Just got off watching a program on Discovery: Beauty of snakes - Life in cold blood. It showed some amazing shots of snakes catching their prey. That got me thinking... There's no chance that all these wildlife channels capture natural shots of a predator catching and eating their prey. I mean whats the chance that a snake will just happen to visit the same bird's nest inside which you have placed your camera? One in a million? I had the same uneasy feeling as the day I realized, as a kid, that WWF wrestling is fake and its all staged.

Common sense suggest that all the footage has got to be staged. In all possibility, the snake was placed close to the nest (and hopefully not forced into the nest), after the camera was placed in it. The scene where the python ate the antelope was probably staged too. It has to be.

That brings an interesting question - Why dont animal rights activists do anything about it? Are they getting a cut from these channels to keep their mouths shut? I mean whats more cruel than maiming, or drugging an antelope and placing a python close to it, with the hope that it gets eaten? And the grossest thing is that its all done for fun. Discovery fakes it because we all enjoy watching it.

I was under the impression that blood sports died with monarchy. But I guess the game has just changed with the times. Wildlife channels are the new blood sport organisers who pit the hunter against the hunted. And all of us are voyeurs who relish watching the hunt.

I received the mail below from google today. By unacceptable site content, I hope Google was referring to my 'Enough is enough' post and not for my entire blog. :)

I'll have to think of another get-rich-quick scheme. Who needs AdSense revenue anyways. :P

Hello Vishal,

Thank you for your interest in Google AdSense. Unfortunately, after
reviewing your application, we're unable to accept you into Google AdSense
at this time.

We did not approve your application for the reasons listed below.

Issues:

- Unacceptable site content

...

Regards,

The Google AdSense Team

Instructions in our office travel guide

I came across this a long time ago. In our travel guide to India for our foreign visitors, there is a section which I found very funny. I thought of blogging it just now. This seems to be an excerpt from the 'Visiting India for Dummies' book.

Well you landed in Mumbai, now what

1. First walk out of the terminal, you’ll see a number of people waiting to receive someone or the other
2. Start looking for a person holding a board with your name on it
a) if you are booked at a hotel in Mumbai, this person will be there from the hotel to pick you up. You should then have someone pick you up for your Pune travel the next day (mentioned in step 1.d.iv above)
b) if you are to directly go to Pune, this person will be your driver (arranged by XYZ) to take you to Pune (mentioned in step 1.d.iv above)
3. Your first day at Pune office – you should plan to come to office not before 10 am.
...


Traffic patterns in Pune – don’t get shocked to surprised to see this, it’s a way of life (or rather driving) – chaotic but still working

(C)lear (R)estroom (A)ssessment (P)rocedure

This was an operations procedure posted outside the ladies restroom in our office. I clicked it about a month back. When I checked again today, someone has removed the notice. But the doorbell still remains.

Since the image is not very clear, I am also reproducing the text below:

Attention!!!

Objective:-

The utilization of the door bell is to be done to inform the housekeeping boy that the rest room is occupied and that they should not enter till the lady employee vacates the restroom.

The ladies rest rooms have been installed with door bells. The buttons for the door bells have been installed (i) near the door outside the rest room (ii) near the wash basin inside the rest room (iii) and one each inside the toilets.

Guidelines:-

When a housekeeping boy visits the ladies rest room, he will paste the door bell button which is placed outside the rest room. He will press this button to indicate that he has come for cleaning. If a lady is currently occupying the rest room, she should press the door bell back which is placed inside the rest room to indicate that the rest room is occupied and that the housekeeping boy should not enter the rest room until it is vacated.

If the Housekeeping boy hears the door bell from inside the restroom, he will not enter until the lady employee has vacated the rest room. Once the lady employee vacates the rest room, only then the housekeeping boy will enter the rest room. If the housekeeping boy does not hear the doorbell from inside the restroom for 2-3 minutes, he will enter the rest room assuming that nobody is inside.

Enough is enough

NDTV has been harping on this phrase for a while now. Finally I too join the fray... Enough is enough!!! 'm coming clean. I'm sick of reading, hearing or thinking about the terror attacks in Mumbai!

I feel that our Indian media is some how trying to glorify (for lack of a better word) and sensationalize these attacks, just so that more people will watch tv or read news. I'm sick of reading about the terror attacks. I feel like a voyeur who wants some sensational news every few hours. So much so that I've started reading news from the Paki media.

I also feel that a lot of these marches are a bloody farce.. the media who organises them for airing them and the people who participate in them, so that they can come on TV or click snaps to show and tell their friends that they were present - both make me sick. Nowadays I feel that I have to... no that I must.. react vehemently and indignantly to avoid being considered less patriotic. If I do not curse the politicians or the system or Pakistan or whomever else, then I feel left out.

There... I've let it out. It feels that I have said something blasphemous... But at least I've got it out of my system.