Not long ago I had the pleasure of reviewing the film Searching for Angels. Apart from being an all-around excellent production (and, of course, starring the always too-awesome-to-be-mortal Veronika London), this film introduced me to some impressive new talent.
Among that new talent was Alberto Tihan, a Toronto-based actor who was totally new to me, but whose performance as the almost-lovable dirtbag pimp Kemo featured well as one of the strongest elements of the production. While it’s nice to get in touch with veterans for their take on success and experience, we at TMS thought it would be great to tap into what drives and motivates a younger talent on his way up the ladder. And, ju
dging from his performance and his responses, that ascent for Alberto will be very quick.
Name: Alberto Tihan
Age: 23
Occupation: Actor
Relationship status: Single
Gadgets: Too many. I hold most of the Apple iProducts. I find them very practical and efficient.
Stats: 5’9’’ weighing 163 lbs, looking to reach 170 in lean muscles by mid summer.
Sports: I enjoy anything that has to do with speed and heights. I need the adrenaline to get me going. I love snowboarding to death, I hope to be professional snowboarder one day. I also like skydiving, rock-climbing, mountain-bike, swimming, tennis.
How did you get started on your current career/lifestyle path?
When I was around 16, I had a terrible audition for Sin City. It was really embarrassing actually. Obviously
I lost the role to Josh Hartnett, but that bad audition motivated me to learn more, so I took some acting classes at ASM Studios in Montreal, and I got the acting bug shortly after.
Did you have any mentors who helped steer you on this path?
The most supportive person at that young age was my mom, who was across the ocean, in Germany. My father didn’t believe in this acting thing. But in time, friends and family became very supportive, when they noticed how serious I was about it.
As I mentioned on the Facebook page, it's not as content-heavy as previous issues. This was due to a wave of exciting illnesses through various households slowing down the process of editing and uploading material. However, the key features did make it up, and we'll be posting more stories over the course of the rest of the week.
Depending on how readers respond, we might even switch to this format, posting top stories every second week and adding more stories for a few days after.
These are the headlines:
In "Women We Love," we feature actress, writer, and television sci-fi icon Sarah Deakins.
And sex and dating expert Sam Adrian uses a hilarious comic from xkcd to demonstrate what exactly is wrong with "negging" -- the classic PUA move involving playing on a woman's self-esteem.
We'll keep you posted on more updates as they come out, or follow the magazine on Twitter for timely updates.
One other little change to the site: we've basically killed comments. I've been spending WAY too much time deleting ridiculous spam comments (as attested by THIS post). Comments are still available for readers, but you have to be registered in order to comment. Hopefully this stops the robots from posting such gems of engaging commentary as:
Yesterday Their,rich own mark available knee computer male experience kind safe feeling via while technical improve customer limited hell talk complete good persuade shoe explore scheme issue red prepare bring song tone which surround hour strategy assessment upon burn possible wind love manage step total reflect live satisfy admit stop football adult traditional call procedure king county bed cos thus then spread depend support currently progress hand without please father think wild sentence small youth average extra effective limited silence station effective complex may funny chemical post flow contribution.
I know, right? How could I possibly restrict this level of insightful commentary?
Yeah...no more of that. So readers, come on over and comment all you like. But please register to get in on the conversation. And in the meantime, head on over and check out our headline stories.
I've been running the magazine site for a couple of issues now, and it's doing fairly well. You can tell, because in the last 48 hours it's received over 100 spam comments.
The thing about spam comments is, I work in internet marketing. I know why they write comments on blogs. The idea is to engage in the discussion and hopefully draw some traffic and interest back to your site, while also putting your link in an high-PR location that will give search engines a good idea of how popular your site is and how engaged you are. That's the theory.
In reality, the same freak shows that send out the classic "Dear beloved in Christ" emails -- hoping you'll help some poor widow of an ex-African official smuggle millions of dollars out of her country for a commission, if you'll just provide them with all of your personal identification and a bank account number -- are trying this strategy. Oddly enough, it only seems to plague my Wordpress sites, like The Man Sphere, and not this Blogger site. Both are indexed (in fact, this one is ranked higher, since it's a year older), and both get plenty of traffic.
And both have a high level of comment moderation, which is why you don't see those hundreds of spam comments.
But just for giggles, I thought I'd share a few of the real prizes from The Man Sphere, without links of course. Here's a tip: this is how NOT to promote your website on someone else's blog. See what you think:
"Does your blog have a contact page? I’m having problems locating it but, I’d like to shoot you an email. I’ve got some recommendations for your blog you might be interested in hearing. Either way, great website and I look forward to seeing it develop over time."
Yes it does. Click the "Contact Us" link, dipshit.
"I beloved as much as you will receive carried out right here. The comic strip is attractive, your authored subject matter stylish. nonetheless, you command get got an impatience over that you wish be delivering the following. ill undoubtedly come more before again as exactly the similar just about very regularly inside of case you defend this hike."
Uhhhh... o_O
"Well I truly enjoyed studying it. This tip provided by you is very useful for proper planning."
Considering this one was posted on Sabina Kay's interview, I'm not entirely sure what tip he's talking about...or what he's planning.
"Perfectly written subject matter, regards for entropy."
Google Translate is not your friend, spamdouche.
"In this great scheme of things you’ll receive an A for effort and hard work. Exactly where you confused us ended up being in the details. As as the maxim goes, details make or break the argument.. And that couldn't be more true in this article. Having said that, let me tell you just what did work. The writing can be quite persuasive and that is probably why I am taking an effort to opine. I do not make it a regular habit of doing that. Secondly, while I can see a jumps in logic you make, I am definitely not confident of how you seem to unite your details which produce the actual final result. For the moment I will yield to your position however hope in the foreseeable future you actually link the facts better."
OK, let me see if I can guess what's happening here. This cockspammer copied and pasted some almost intelligent commentary. As a professor, I can see what he's getting at in terms of grading someone's argument. And he's right, the details do need to be unified to create a cohesive argument. However, where this commenter fails is that there's no argument in the article. There's no "position." It's an interview with Veronika London.
Idiot.
"Good day! This is my 1st comment here so I just wanted to give a quick shout out and tell you I really enjoy reading your blog posts. Can you suggest any other blogs/websites/forums that deal with the same topics? Thank you so much!"
No. Fuck off.
"Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though you relied on the video to make your point. You obviously know what youre talking about, why throw away your intelligence on just posting videos to your weblog when you could be giving us something enlightening to read?"
This was posted on Mackenzie Kristjon's interview. I might have bought the argument about using video, but the only video is for his song "This Mad Desire." Totally random comment destined for the spam bin (his URL was promoting a book on secrets of Farmville...not much left for him to say about throwing intelligence away!).
You know what? Here's the video again:
I love throwing away my intelligence on good music.
"I was wondering if you ever thought of changing the page layout of your site? Its very well written; I love what youve got to say. But maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could connect with it better. Youve got an awful lot of text for only having 1 or two images. Maybe you could space it out better?"
Hmm...let me see if I follow this. You're suggesting more content, but there's too much text. Riiight.
"It’s a shame you don’t have a donate button! I’d without a doubt donate to this outstanding blog! I suppose for now i’ll settle for book-marking and adding your RSS feed to my Google account. I look forward to brand new updates and will share this blog with my Facebook group. Talk soon!"
"You will be able use all sorts of advised attractions with various car treatments. A quantity of sell traditional tools numerous demand families for almost any event for any investment district, or even for a holiday in new york. ???? ??? ?????? ????? 599711"
Awesome! I've never been able to use advised attractions before! This'll be great!
"Definitely believe that that you said. Your favorite justification appeared to be on the internet the simplest thing to understand of. I say to you, I definitely get annoyed even as other people consider issues that they just do not recognize about. You controlled to hit the nail upon the highest and outlined out the entire thing without having side effect , folks could take a signal. Will likely be again to get more. Thank you!"
Google Translate strikes again. Right in the nuts. (or "upon the highest" lol)
"I was reading some of your content on this site and I think this website is rattling informative! Keep posting."
...or
"I believe this internet site contains some rattling great info for everyone . “When you get a thing the way you want it, leave it alone.” by Sir Winston Leonard Spenser Churchill."
Is "rattling" a translation of some foreign word I don't know about? Because in English it means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
"Unquestionably imagine that which you stated. Your favourite reason appeared to be at the internet the easiest thing to have in mind of. I say to you, I certainly get annoyed even as other people think about worries that they just do not know about. You managed to hit the nail upon the top as well as outlined out the entire thing without having side effect , other folks can take a signal. Will probably be again to get more. Thank you"
Really? Wow...what a kind and thoughtful sentiment. It's rare to see monkeys so skilled with linking haikus together into COMPLETE GIBBERISH. Absolutely I'll approve this comment so people can visit your site about van refinancing in Great Britain.
"Its like you learn my thoughts! You seem to understand so much approximately this, like you wrote the ebook in it or something. I feel that you simply could do with a few p.c. to pressure the message house a bit, however instead of that, that is fantastic blog. An excellent read. I’ll definitely be back."
No idea what this means.
Anyway, you get the point. Spammers are pretty much morons. Are there any bloggers out there who let this crap through? I have no idea, but if there are, they really ought to be slapped, because letting even a few of these bullshit comments through keeps spammers operating under the belief that this is an effective marketing strategy. And so far, apart from wasting my time with moderating (read: "deleting") their stupidity from my back office, all they've accomplished is giving me fodder for this post.
So listen, if you want to engage in discussion about the article, go for it. If you want to promote your crappy website, I'm OK with that too, provided you're still relevant. But please, don't insult my intelligence by calling me "beloved" or praising the rattlingness of my thoughts on the subject. You'll just end up in another embarrassing situation like this one.
It's taken a lot of gruelling horrible work, but we finally launched The Man Sphere in its online magazine format!
Not to worry...stalwart readers of this blog will still get regular blog updates right here. This reformatting and rebranding effort is just a way to separate my personal quips from real content media, which has allowed me to do things like create categories specifically for advince on home maintenance, music and entertainment reviews, and interviews -- all the good stuff that dudes (and not-so-dudes) want to read but don't want to spend extra time poking around a blogger blog for.
If you haven't done so already, swing by The Man Sphere(www.themansphere.com) and check it out. This week (we'll run biweekly and see how that goes) we're featuring interviews with the amazing singer/songwriter Basia Lyjak and the somewhat less amazing but no less admirable Rugged Dude.
And pretty soon you'll be able to follow along right here with my own progress when we launch our Shape Up for Summer Contest 2012. Gonna be fun!
Don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter too, for lots more fun and lots more stuff guys want to know.
Name: Alberto Tihan
