Blog comments spam

Apparently no place is sacred from spam.

I've seen three "comments" recently on here that turned out to be 100 percent spam, and I don't mean that meaty sandwich stuff you get from a can. It's a little bit frustrating, and I'm not entirely sure what to do about it.

Apparently I'm not alone, though. One man suggests following these links but not buying anything there.

It's somewhat interesting to read about. I enjoyed reading this link, Spamalot as a Blogosphere Epidemic. It estimates as much as 50 percent of comments may be spam.

I have the option of turning comments off or making it so I have to approve them before they hit the Web site. I've activated the "word verification," one of those annoying things where you have to type what combination of letters you see in order to keep the bad guys out.

I'm certainly in favor of freedom of speech, but I have my doubts whether these unprovoked spam attacks really qualify as that in this little corner of the universe.

Perfect

The single kiss set off the most amazing chain of reactions.

Typically the mind only thinks of two or three things, and they're generally pretty ordinary. But with that one kiss, the imagination begins wandering so rapidly.

In a matter of a tenth of a second, the past, the future and the present all mingle. You start to think about everything that could happen.

Most of all, you feel that rare combination of happiness and optimism. It's a feeling I hope to experience more in the not-so-distant future.

Maturing or mellowing

A real man often finds his best moments in his worst moments. A terribly frustrating set of events has me wondering if I'm maturing or mellowing, not that either would be terribly bad.

On Tuesday, a company from Dallas closed its deal on the large, empty factory in Ottawa. I had the head's up this was happening and worked through the appropriate channels to get a one-one-one, face-to-face interview with the manager of the LLC doing the deal about 10 minutes after he signed everything. Knowing this was a big deal for the community and a likely A1 story, I lined up a photographer, giving them all the relevant information about the company, the guy, etc. Unfortunately, I did not give the relevant information that we were the only ones who knew about this.

By some strange coincidence, one of the local TV stations happened to be in Ottawa this same Tuesday afternoon, standing in front of an office on Main Street not too far from where the photographer and I would meet the Dallas big-shot. When our photography intern arrived and saw them standing there, they asked why she was in town. She assumed ishe assumed they were there for the same purpose and mentioned the story, essentially handing a big, breaking story to our competition.

One of my sources called to tell me about this before I arrived and put our photographer on the phone. She was devastated. She felt horrible for what she'd accidentally done.

Back in a day not so long ago, I would've torn her apart. I've made people cry when they've worked with me before. I can take things very seriously and not always be that considerate.

Now, though, I think that might just be a different version of me. As much to my surprise as anyone else's, I tried to comfort her. I told her not to worry about it; that we'd do a better job on it than TV would. I told her the best way to rebound from this was to get some incredible photographs to illustrate the story.

Yesterday one of my sources who saw this commended me for how I handled it. He said he wasn't sure he would've been so understanding. And, truth be told, I wouldn't have been just a few years ago.

Tuesday could have been one of my worst moments. I could have launched into an understandable tirade and really made a fool of myself. Instead, I showed a side of myself I hope to see even more often in the future.