There is a good friend of mine… I have to pause here. I don’t know how good a friend he is when I call him and he doesn’t return my calls. I asked him about it and he gave me this explanation that compels me to feel sorry for him: he is so busy, work is cutting his pay and increasing his workload,  it takes all of his emotional reserves to deal with people at work, and when he is home, he wants to tune everything out. As if this type of thing is unique to him. Another good friend of mine works with special ed students, especially autistic and other special needs students. As an educator who works with kids who constantly need his attention, he is drained. All my dealings with students at any level has also placed emotional demands on me. This so-called good friend of mine… he is not special. He is lucky enough to have a full-time job, even if things are fucked-up right now.

Now that I’ve talked smack about why he doesn’t call me back, here’s some more smack: he calls me up asking me “for a favor” because he’s going on vacation. When I listen to the voicemail, I wonder what it is. I call back this time and he actually answers the phone. We chat and the favor turns out to if I could record some shows. Unfortunately, I tell him, I do not have a DVR and that’s the truth. I catch up with most of my TV viewing through the on-demand channels or Hulu.

I suspect the TV show in question is Project Runway. As much as I enjoy the show, I just don’t consider it a life-or-death situation. Some time ago, when I was blogging recaps, I did. But my summer viewing has been about Dr. Who, True Blood, Being Human, and Mad Men, in that order.

Ignore me, call me when you’re drunk, and call me when you want to watch TV. And if I piss you off, what are you going to do? Not talk to me? Geez!

Somehow, we will wind up having a lunch where my friend will get mushy and say we should hang out more often. As long as there isn’t excess alcohol involved, it’s ok.

One of the many revolving  Art Trees in San Diego, taken at late noon.

Disclaimer: The numbers displayed in the image above do not belong to any of my friends. 1/14/08, 11:00am.

Drunk phone calls are always fun to get. Actually, they’re not. One of the most dangerous things about mobile phones, especially in the hands of the inebriated, is the ease of getting a hold of people and having no qualms about harassing them. Even better yet is when they leave those messages on the voicemail system that they’ll have no memory of, yet are all too painful for the recipients.

A certain friend of mine is prone to doing all kinds of things when he’s had too much to drink. Sometimes, it’s something amusing such as spending several hundred dollars on sustainable fashion. Other times, his drunkenness takes a more dramatic turn as he’ll show a more temperamental side. Of course, there’s no better way to express this than on the phone.

A couple of nights ago at a local bar, what started out a fun get-together turned into a personal issues-laden conversation on the verge of becoming an argument. I simply refused to entertain the argument, called it a night, and went home. When I arrived home, I checked my phone and found I had a four-minute voicemail message from him. He rambled about how offended he was about me blowing him off, that I was wrong, and that he was taking a hard-line stance in not having anything to do with me until I apologized.

I found the message both offensive and laughable at the same time. I plugged my iPhone to my desktop stereo, put the speakers close to my iBook’s microphone, played the message and recorded it, and formatted it into an MP3 file.* I then decided to apply the expression “If they could only hear themselves talk” to this situation. I would send him the MP3 as an e-mail attachment.

I wanted to send out an e-mail rant to him about his message explaining to him my position and how he was wrong. I also considered forwarding the MP3 to mutual friends. However, I settled on simply sending the file with the message: Do you even remember saying any of this?

This friend of mine called me the next morning to apologize and I let him know that the message was disturbing. While I’m not sure if he actually listened to the file, I did remind him that I sent it and that I would record another MP3 if he ever gave a repeat performance.

While I accepted his apology, there are still serious some issues. He uttered words that can’t be taken back. If I didn’t accept his apology, years of friendship would have been all for nothing. The things he said were definite deal breakers. Well, he broke the deal and then he realized what he did when he was sober the next morning. Also, there are records of what he said. The message is in my phone’s memory unless I choose to delete it. Also, I still have the Quicktime recording and the MP3 formatted file. If these messages begin to be enough for an EP or an album worth of tracks, then I have to seriously consider if it’s worth it to remain friends.

It would be easy to say that people like my friend should think about the things they say. If incidents like my friend’s message are a habit versus an isolated incident, the perpetrator should consider that they might have a serious problem with alcohol and that they need some PROFESSIONAL help.

Being able to remember the antics of drunk people is a horrible responsibility. Dealing with them is much worse. For me, I had a horrible end to my evening and one that sapped my energy for the next day or so. However, there are people who suffer through a lot worse. In any case, people should be aware of the impact of their behavior upon others, especially when it comes to alcohol. Sorry, but all those drinks do not completely negate accountability.

*I’m sure there’s a more efficient way to record a voicemail from the iPhone to the Macbook, but I haven’t figured it out yet.

I hate to rub it in for people in colder parts of the country, but this December has been the warmest one we’ve had in a while in San Diego. For me, that means the peacoat and other wintery garments collect dust. For these guys, they can wander around in shorts. It’s not July hot, but it’s warm enough.

It’s been a while since I’ve uploaded some food porn to ShindoTV. For a while, I was going out to lunch or dinner every other day and taking pictures. Food is fun and so are the pictures, but there’s only so much dining I can do in this economy. In the second night that I’ve hung out with Jen in a row, I joined her, our mutual friend Melodie, and some of her friends out at the Linkery. Jen was still in birthday mode, so what better place for her birthday than where the food is dramatically presented?

As pictured above, the kitchen is only separated from the dining area and bar by glass windows. While this has the advantage of keeping the kitchen staff from doing nasty things with the food, the true objective is more likely to give the diners a show. This is how the food is prepared and it is definitely sexy! Also, everyone can feel like they are at the chef’s table.

I could have easily included the table drinks in the pics, but your need for alcohol porn, especially beer, will have to be satisfied with the two photos below. The menu contains a bewildering list of wines, beers, and ciders, and they all can be paired with starters and courses. I played it safe and asked the waiter what went well with the link plate (where the diner can have 1-3 sausages). I ordered the Choucrotte, which essentially was three sausges with some sauerkraut. I’ll save the fun details for two photos later.

Alex, one of Jen’s friends, had a plate of flat bread with some links. Looked tasty like a pizza. Also, it was very light on both the wallet and the stomach.

Now here is where it gets fun. There was a mix-up as someone else at our table also ordered a link plate (the picnic plate). At first, I thought the chef put the wrong sides on the plate, forgetting my sauerkraut. I figured I’d ask the waiter for some sauerkraut when he came back to our table . In the meantime, I got the money shot of this plate, and Melodie and I sampled the potato salad. We only had a few bites between us.

Needless to say, the other person at our table had my plate. Once we realized that there was a mix-up, there were some casualties. As mentioned before, Melodie and I took a couple of bites out of the potato salad. On the choucrotte, one of Jen’s friends amputated one of the weenies.

She didn’t eat the piece, but I wouldn’t have been offended. I did eat some of her potato salad after all. I was left with a John Wayne Bobbit piece of food porn, though.

Now to the alcohol presentation. Food and beverage storage is usually out of site for the customers, but the Linkery has the bottled beers in plain sight for any customer who wants to walk up to the pantry in the back and see the inventory.

Modern beer kegs are ugly devices; however, the beers created by the Linkery brewery are also in plain sight. Too bad no staff member was around to give me the money shot.

The last time I was at the Linkery was in its old location, a few blocks south of the new one. The food theatre component is part of the new location. Given that there was a lot of stage tease with the food and drink, lovely presentation, and the comedy of errors regarding some link plates, I’ve been out to a night of food burlesque.

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,

To show some of the effects, I used a picture I took of my friend Jaylen. First, here’s the original photo taken with iPhone’s default camera app next to one with the Auto Correction filter applied:

Left: Original. Right: Auto Correct

Left: Posterized. Right: Saturated.

Left: Line Drawing. Right: Line Drawing with Color.

Left: Stencil. Right: Sculpture.

UPDATE: While I enjoy using Photo Lab on my iPhone and tweaking the photos with it, the app has crashed on me a lot today. Please, developers of this fun product, please work things out so that there are less crashes. I will less likely bitch and moan and scream ‘FAIL!’ if you do.

Twiggs in the late afternoon.

Across the street from Twiggs, the liquor store.

The liquor sign, very Americana.