I didn’t quite expect to come out of my hiatus tapping into the darker depths of my soul. Bosses are strange creatures. Like I feel about most co-workers, I often don’t care what bosses are up to when I’m on my own time. Unfortunately, most people spend more time with the people they work with more than their families. Is it any wonder bosses, annoying co-workers, and students have gotten under my skin at one time or another? There’s more material here. Whether I want to go there or not is another thing altogether, but it always makes for something interesting.

I’ve got some lighter topics I want to write as well and there’s Comic-Con and Pride coming later in July. It should be quite a season on ShindoTV.

Every once in a while, change is good. Even when blog templates seem reliable, it’s good to change it up. I was getting tired of my Prismacolor style template I’ve been using ever since my migration to my own hosted blog using WordPress. I haven’t made much significant changes to the side bars, which is good. My widgets are good the way they are and I have no desire to clutter it up with things such as links to Last.FM, a blogroll longer than the block where I live, flashy lights, etc. I tried some of the other minimalist templates a couple of weeks ago and none seem to fit at all. I’ve looked around a bit, and I find Vigilance serves my needs very well.

Though a minimalist template, Vigilance doesn’t use Helvetica or make heavy use of sans-serif fonts. However, it makes use of the Georgia font, which I love. It’s very readable and attractive at the same time. Also, I used this typeface in creating my MFA thesis, so it has even added (sentimental) value.

One thing definitely different from the previous template is that the header images rotate. I’ve cut some art images down to size (and some others) uploaded them and some photos to the header images folder, so it helps to keep things interesting.

I’ve also added commentluv, which I’ve noticed on few of the blogs I regularly visit. So, if you leave a comment, it will link back to your blog’s latest post. As for the readers who are strictly Facebook users, it will not link back to your latest status or photo or whatever.

I have included an image of how the blog looked until I changed things. I still have the template in storage, so I could easily change it back if I want to. But, it’s much more fun to change it up.

A year and some time ago, Scott-O-Rama took a sabbatical from blogging and planned a comeback. He even set up a spiffy blog template a few months ago to return in style. Ironically, his most significant post after makeover was one to say goodbye. He even took it a step further and got rid of much of his social networking accounts such as Twitter and Flickr.

Both blogs had large readerships and were heavily blogrolled. Both felt blogging became more of a chore than something they wanted to do after a while, so they called it quits at some point. They were big trees in their niche of the blogosphere forest and we heard them fall.

But what about the smaller trees? Does anyone notice when they’re gone?

I’ve wondered about Danny’s blog. I became friends with him on the blogosphere in late 2007, and he posted regularly. However, he stopped posting around Oct. 3rd of last year. However, he’s gone for the shiny things of Facebook, as I’ve seen him actively comment and play those silly games ever since.

My contrary friend Murphy’s had a couple of blog lives. “Murphy Speaks” went on for a few years before he shut it down early last year. He recently hit me up with Priority 1 Transport, which chronicled a new phase of his life with a different job. Like Danny’s, Murphy’s blog cut off on early October.

Then there the millions of blogs that start up and stop. Some last a while until burnout while others start up briefly, but real life, a lack of commitment, or both get in the way. Blog death, unfortunately, is quite normal. It might be even more so in the age of Facebook.

As for the people who are still blogging, especially my blogging community, here’s to persevering.

Much to Nadia’s amusement, Sharon and I took pictures of the food, starting with the chorizo and goat cheese flat bread. This was our starter.

Nadia ordered the picnic plate with the potato salad and cole slaw. This time, there was no confusion.

I ordered the same thing as I did last time. I freely shared the sauerkraut with my friends. Sauerkraut’s going to have it’s day and Trader Joe’s will stock it. Only, they don’t carry it now. Trader Joe’s, how do you expect me to replicate this $$ experience on the cheap?

Sharon ordered the butternut squash with Israeli couscous. Wonderful vegetarian option, but Sharon has a link.

After dinner, before dessert, Sharon gave us some Dove’s chocolates. The insides of the wrappers were like fortune cookies.

Mine said “Be Fearless” and “Smile Before You Go To Bed. You’ll Sleep Better.”

Sharon’s read, “There’s a time for compromise. It’s called later.”

Nadia’s read, “Send a love letter this week.”

Dessert was lovely. Sharon, Nadia, and I all shared the carrot cake with lemon cream cheese icing.

While the food was great, the best part of the evening was being able to catch up with Sharon and Nadia. Happy Holidays, friends.

There is never a dull moment whenever I hang out with Melodie. For her birthday, something completely unexpected happened – her chocolate fondue caught on fire!

Melodie was after an interactive kind of dining experience – one where the everyone was active participants in cooking the dinner, so something like the Turf Club or the Strip Club sounded good or even Benihana. Fondue fit the concept nicely, so Fondue Fusion & Bistro, formerly known as Forever Fondue, seemed like a perfect choice.

Saturday night was her birthday, and a lot of Melodie’s friends showed up, including some mutual friends of ours Gema and Rob, also known as Downtown Rob. We know each other through Twitterville, but several of Melodie’s other friends know her through other contexts, such as work and yoga classes. I got to talk to some of them as I was seated at the other table.

The owner obviously loves Picasso, as there were reproductions of his work on every wall. However, Gema found the display of a Guernica print very disquieting. Perhaps the owner didn’t think through the effects the painting may have had on the diners. However, the lack of thoughtfulness didn’t seem to end there.

The menu itself was bewildering, especially the fondue combinations. It took the waiter several times to explain to all of us how the combos (or All Inclusives, as they were called) worked, and even then we were all confused.

I found the booths to be very cramped, but I’m a very big guy. Thankfully, there were a few chairs at my table.

To a minor digression from my mini-rant: Drink Porn. These martinis were very lovely.

Rob wanted to get a signature shot of him holding a martini, so here it is. In the short time I’ve known him, I can tell lots of stories. He’s that colorful a person. He’s also very fun to party with, which is a source of all those stories.

In spite of my earlier complaints, the food was actually very good. My newfound friend and I got to enjoy Queso Fiesta, which consisted of beer, Wisconsin Cheddar, and some jalepeños. There was plenty of sourdough bread, apples, and vegetables for dipping. Then there were the salads, which were satisfying, but were too much. Then, the main course, which consisted of meats and vegetables to be cooked in broth were delicious and easy to cook.

Some more cheese fondue. Yum!

Here is the birthday girl enjoying some of her fondue.

While waiting for the broths to boil, it was was fun to watch the vegetable broth. With the vegetables swirling about, it looked as if there were tiny fish swimming around.

The dessert fondues were also wonderful. My neighbor and I ordered the same items for our inclusives, so we got a chocolate and Irish creme sauce. Melodie’s was simply a chocolate fondue. How it caught on fire I don’t know, but our friend Rich poured something on it to get it to burn brighter. It took a few clicks to get it right, but I finally wound up with the intense photo at the top of the entry.

Overall, a very good time was had by all despite whatever confusion occured. I even got a pleasant surprise in the end. In the tab shared by me and my neighbor, we expected to pay $37 each for our All Inclusive. We were only charged for one, so it was cheaper for both of us. After that, a few of us went out for drinks and karaoke.

My friend Tamika‘s post on confrontation addresses how some bigger problems could have been averted if they were confronted sooner instead of later. I am on the other side of this issue since I’m not fond of confrontation (unpleasant business) and if I did confront someone right away, I wouldn’t be very nice. In this situation, I wanted to tell my friend to shut the fuck up or to go fuck himself when he was making those jokes. However, easier said than done.

We were doing one of those large turnout annual walk-runs that go to a good cause when this friend decided to make incessant jokes about my wieght. Several times on the route, he pointed to a group of bears and said I should join up with them. If that wasn’t enough, he went up to a mutual friend’s five year old son of a  and tried to get him to say that I was “curvaceous.” His mother was shocked and asked my friend what he was trying to do with her son. Fortunately for him, she didn’t bitch him out (which some parents would).

I know I would not have accomplished anything by going off on him, especially in front of someone and her children. I did say a few times that I wanted to kill him, but this came off more as a frustrated attempt to make a joke of dealing with it. Easier said than done, I could have told him to stop his jokes and that they weren’t funny. Instead, I waited to calm down so that I could peacefully confont him.

I chose to address the issue a week later when he called me on the phone. Despite calmly bringing up the issue, he was offended that I waited this long and then he lost his temper. He then tried to bring up an issue with me and went on about it until the conversation was over. By the time I hung up, I decided I didn’t want to talk to him at all.

I didn’t want to go through the hypocrisy of pretending all is OK, so I just avoided a whole group of people just so I I wouldn’t have to say hello and act chummy with him. I could have met them in the social context without acknowledging him but it took too much energy to do so. I wound up losing out because I avoided people who had nothing to do with my issues with him.

Sorry about the vagueness of the post. It would be easier to be more specific. Recently, I decided to stop avoiding the social context (which is more than social), and decided to make nice with the friend. He invited me out to coffee and the whole conversation was small talk, skirting the issues that drove us apart in the first place. Towards the end, I told him I thought I’d never talk to him again. When I detected this could have turned into a repeat of the phone conversation a month and half before, I thanked him for extending the olive branch. With that said and done, I’m not sure if I could ever hang out with him like we use to. I don’t want to be in a situation where he thinks he can be comfortable enough to insult me again.

David, a longtime friend of mine and fellow Netflix subscriber, showed me the link for Netflix’s Instant Viewing Beta Program for Mac. It’s frustrated me for a while that I was paying all this money to subscribe to Netflix and I was getting bupkis as far as the Instant Viewing program was concerned. It’s safe to say I wound up watching a lot of movies and TV shows this weekend as it saved me from A) installing Vista on my Mac and B) buying something like the Roku player. Below is a screenshot from the documentary Helvetica, which is available for instant viewing.

Oh, here’s the link if you’re a Mac user and want to get on the beta test for Netflix’s Instant Viewing.

I avoided the whole Black Friday thing. Not really. I didn’t take part in the tent cities that sprouted around places such as Best Buy, Walmart, Target, etc. At the Mission Valley Best Buy, there were some people who set up tents near the entrance on Tuesday. I hope it was worth it for them to get stinky and rained on and shiver a bit in the late November San Diego nights. However, I went with Brian to the Otay Ranch Town Center in the late afternoon. We were simply browsing around a few shops which have already been wiped out by the early morning nonsense that took place at every retail outlet in the country. I did get to see the ultimate spectacle at Macy’s, which was a salesgirl in Ugg boots.

It’s back to reality, of sorts, on Monday morning. It’s also the second day of Advent, which means Christmas isn’t too far behind. Maybe I’ll have a grinchy VLog post once again.

Oh, Happy December to you all. Please keep the Christmas music away from me.

I have the iPhone and the WordPress app, so I’m not completely lost. Still, I am not a fan of the iPhone keyboard and I can’t copy and paste. A real keyboard is much more comfortable to type with.

I get to take my MacBook in to see a Genius tomorrow at the University Towne Center Apple Store in La Jolla. It’s much sooner than if I tried to get an appointmet at the Fashion Valley location, which would have been on Friday.

I am frustrated I couldn’t see a Genius today. I miss the early days of the Apple Store Concierge where one could sign in to see one in a few hours, but now it’s a couple of days. I should be happy I’m seeing one tomorrow. But, these problems never happen on a timetable. That would be too convenient.

Here’s to hacking it out on the iPhone,

Many local Twitterers, or Tweeps, were present, including @DowntownRob, whose business WebWizards Web Hosting was one of the sponsors of last nights event. He’s done a lot for the local online community, as he’s also an organizer of the San Diego Blogger’s Meetup.

One interesting feature was the Twitter Board, a screen where various tweets were projected. Many people present had their iPhones, including yours truly, and we were all standing around and posting. Oh, I shouldn’t forget about the Crackberries and the other kinds of mobile phones. Those were present as well.

I got to see a few people including my new friend Gio (@giographic), and Daniel Phillip (@danielphillip) and his partner Richard Allen (@richarchallen). I also got to meet up with Eileen (@eyemusing), whom I’ve been trading tweets about what I call the “fashionista trainwreck shows” and Alan (@awanisAlan). I had some good conversations with Tom (@big_perm) – thanks for the beer – and a brief chat with Richard (@richandcreamy), who went around taking pics of the party. Good times.

I was hoping to meet Shindy.TV at the tweetup but that never happened. I don’t doubt they were there, but I was talking to various people and just didn’t get around to meeting them. It would be fun for Shindo to meet Shindy. It’s gotta happen sometim in the future.

Thanks, Jennifer, Rob, Newsforce, and Engine Ready for making this Tweetup possible. It was awesome!

I now look forward to the Blogger’s Meetup later in October.

My name in Kanji is written as 真一.　真 = Shin, 一 = ichi. Unfortunately, in a sans-serif font, the one stroke for ichi resembles an em dash, which it is not.

For my website title, I’ve chosen to “spell” ShindoTV as 真堂TV. 真堂, from what I understand, is not a conventional rendering of Shindo, but I liked the combination of characters. 真 is the same as in my name, of course, but it also means True. 堂 (do) means brilliant, extraordinary.

I could spell TV テレビ, but adding TV to 真堂 has more visual punch.

Now, all I need to do is to have some Engrish on this blog, but I don’t think my mind is that Japonic.