America's Transsexual Sweetheart
Posts tagged review
UPDATED: iPhone 4 First Impressions: VERY Mixed
42 years ago
Sad Face!
(UPDATES BELOW)
Ok, so as super-excited as I was (am) to get my new iPhone 4 a full day early, there are some big let downs across the board. First, I will say this: It is physically gorgeous, feels great in hand and software runs very, very quickly. And I am such an Apple fangirl that I still want and prefer this phone over any of the others out there. The good stuff about the phone is all great, and I’ll talk about it next time if it hasn’t already been done to death, but here’s the bad stuff:
Video
As an exciting nightlife figure (LOL), my main iPhone 4 fantasy involved taking gorgeous, colorful and smooth HD video at all my many live shows, underground parties and colorful experiences — then uploading them right to YouTube and maybe even blogging them using the WordPress App. What were the results of my tests right out of the box?
Update 6/24: I took some new video from both cameras to show how much better it is when not compressed in-camera and uploaded via 3G, but the phone won’t allow me to import images or video in iPhoto again, so I guess we’ll have to wait for that.
Shiteous Front-Facing Camera Video
The first video I took with the initially exciting front-facing VGA camera looks absolutely shiteous after being uploaded to YouTube over 3G from the camera. It looks little better than the video I used to take with my very first clamshell camera phone from years ago, and it has horrible stop-and-start audio problems. Admittedly, the conditions were not ideal, but they were “typical” for my life and not terrible. It was 1pm in Hollywood, bright sunlight, inside my car mounted on my dash charger (which was not made for iPhone 4, but why build in obsolescence for something as basic as charging?). It is my hope that the poor video and audio quality was very atypical, and was caused by jostling in the charger cradle or something. Take a look, if only to see the video quality, but don’t bother watching it all the way through:
Back Camera HD Video is “Meh” When Sent to YouTube via 3G
Maybe it’s all pixelly because I uploaded it from the iPhone to YouTube using 3G, and it had to compress the video on board the phone before sending? Pretty disappointing, unless YouTube just isn’t done rendering it and it will look better shortly. How long can it take YouTube to render 22 seconds of video, though?
Won’t connect with iPhoto
Maybe the above video would have looked better taken from the phone via iPhoto and uploaded to YouTube without being compressed by the phone, but iPhoto won’t let me get anything off the phone (yes, all my software is updated and I’m running a Mac pro tower). I took several snapshots and video clips, and excitedly plugged into iPhoto so that I could get them for this review, only to receive the message below. I had to email them to myself from the phone.
Sad-trombone sound!
(Update 6/23: After trashing iPhoto preference files, reinstalling iPhoto and restarting both my Mac and the phone a few times, it now syncs pix and videos. But what a pain! It was syncing fine with my old iPhone 3G)
(Update 6/24: The problem is back. It connects to iTunes fine, and shows up in iPhoto under Devices, but there are no images or videos available for importing. The import window is just empty.)
(Update 6/24 – Here’s an imperfect fix)
Uploading Video to YouTube: The Text Part
God help you if you type a long title, description and set of tags during the process of uploading a video to YouTube and someone texts or calls you before you hit “save” and send it on its way. It bops out of the Photos/YouTube app and you have to go back, re-choose “Upload to YouTube”, let it re-compress the video, re-enter all that text and then hope you can send it before someone else texts you.
Photos
Right-Click & open in new tab/window for full rez
They look much better than my iPhone 3G, but honestly there seems to be a kind of “white mist” of particles in some images (I’m not a photographer so I don’t know terminology). Maybe I’m expecting too much from a cellphone camera, but the hype has been astronomical. Better than my old phone cam for still pix, in any case.
A Text message came in 20 minutes after it was sent
A friend standing right next to me sent me a text so I could get his number. It didn’t show up until 20 minutes later. Maybe the network is overwhelmed?
Touching the metal sides dampens reception
Update 6/24: This is major, major, major and I could imagine this being devastating for the iPhone’s reputation if they don’t spin it really well. Touching the metal rim around the sides of the phone, which serves as antenna for cell reception and other stuff, causes reception bars to disappear one by one. I read about it this morning, and tried it myself. Sure enough, holding the phone by the glass (which can only be done by pinching it in an unusable position) gives whatever reception seems to be available at the moment. Holding it normally (which involves touching the metal sides/edges) causes two or more reception bars to disappear from that in a few seconds. The $30 rubber bumper supposedly fixes this, but the bumpers are (1) hideous and (2) thirty dollars. Bad bad bad.
Wrap Up Thoughts
As a multimedia blogger on the go, I have high hopes for my new, expensive iPhone 4. I need it to work well, and go above and beyond the average phone/camera/computing device. After a sometimes tricky and unstable jailbreaking, my old iPhone 3G did pretty well for me, but the video quality was poor and lack of a flash was a serious drawback when documenting my nighttime lifestyle.
With all the BS we put up with from Apple, in terms of a closed system for apps, longtime iTunes madness that does stupid things like deleting all phone content if you do some basic things like switching from auto syncing to manual media management, DRM and everything else, I’m still willing to put up with it (until I jailbreak the phone) for the gorgeous engineering, user interface, processor and Apple cool factor. But I need stuff to work well and easily!
It’s maybe possible I “did everything wrong” in terms of shooting video and connecting to iPhoto, but unlikely. I’m a remarkably savvy computer and gadget user. This phone should be made for average folks and work easily and well under average conditions, not require babying and hoop-jumping to get a clear video, and then get it off of my computer and onto the web.
It’s still a gorgeous, awesome phone and I know I’m going to eventually love it, but it has underwhelmed out of the box. I need to get some clear, colorful video with clean audio in the next day or so, or else I am going to feel totally sad face.
Update 6/24: I am losing my enthusiasm. If I’d had one of these to play with for a few days before making the purchase, I would have seriously considered an Android phone. I’m not giving up yet, though. If the iPhone4->iPhoto issue can be fixed, I’ll be on the road to being Ok with everything. We shall see.
El Chavo in Los Angeles – Changes for the Worse
24 years ago
El Chavo Bar
I rarely write bad reviews of people, places or things. The only ones I can think of off the top of my head are my reviews of the horrendous customer service of the Rathbone Hotel in London and Christian Siriano. And I’ve been blogging for well over six years now. So obviously, I must have some strong feelings about El Chavo, a Mexican restaurant and bar in the Los Feliz/Silverlake area. Sigh.
When I first moved to LA in 2002, I began looking for cool places to go, eat, drink and socialize. Among the first places I found was El Chavo, which I immediately loved for the following reasons:
- Funky decor (flourescent sombreros and Aztec art)
- Quirky foul-mouthed live harp player and José Gonzales-esque live guitarist
- Delicious and POTENT $5 margaritas poured out of mysterious white jugs
- Spicy free salsa and chips
- $10 appetizer platter for two allowed two people to get a margarita buzz and nosh for $10 each, total.
- A GIANT FRAMED AND AUTOGRAPHED POSTER OF DOLLY PARTON!
It had everything, and was also right around the corner from the wonderful Vista theatre. A great evening consisting of a movie, appetizers and drink could be had for less than $20 per person. I went there for years, enjoying myself most every time.
At some point in the last few years, I heard that it was purchased/taken over by Melanie Tusquellas, the owner of the lovely-for-a-champagne-brunch Edendale Grill in Silverlake. Edendale Grill is a little on the edge of my self-imposed class limitations — meaning that everyone there is a little more gorgeous, rich, Ivy-League-fraternity/sorority-ish than the people I normally hang out with. But it’s friendly and tasty, in its own polished way. El Chavo, on the other hand, was shabby and weird, which is much more my speed and a very odd place to impose the Edendale template.
As the new management began taking over, some unpleasant changes began showing themselves. The cadre of affable Mexican bartenders was infiltrated by a dour blonde woman with an accent somewhere between France and Eastern Europe. After spending several minutes bent over with her back to us fiddling with a radio, her response to the ice-breaker question “how’s the new business going?” was a flat “I haff no idea.” Then she unforgivably replaced the delicious and potent mystery jug margaritas with “fresh made” ones that seem to consist of 27 parts scaldingly acidic Rose’s Lime Juice, 15 parts lemon-juice-from-a-bottle, a splash of tequila and a pound of kosher salt. A request for one of their delicious corn tamales was met with “Not at this bar, dining room only.”
The once interestingly decorated walls were stripped bare throughout the restaurant and painted over in huge featureless expanses with what looks like institutional latex in colors that dishearten me in a way that I can’t distinguish between missing the old style or their own intrinsic dullness. The dining area now resembles a boxy airport cafeteria rather than one of LA’s typical personality-infused Mexican eateries. The Dolly poster, sombreros and much of the art behind the “good” bar was left the same, but I can’t help wondering if those things will be next. The “good” bar is the original one, where you can still (for a limited time?) get the mystery jug margaritas and have only a one-in-three chance of getting “Ilsa the ice princess” as your bartender.
The “bad” bar is located in the newly opened other side of El Chavo’s first floor. It has the same cold, featureless feel as the dining room, although there are a few scattered decorations on the wall. The several times I’ve had to go in due to the “good” side being full of dinner-hour guests, it always feels as if I’ve walked onto a set for a Mexican Restaurant scene in an underfunded WB sitcom. The only margaritas to be had on this side are the scalding pH1 “fresh” ones. Why, oh why is this so? Can the magic mystery jugs not be carried around the corner? Is this an experiment to force patrons to become used to the non-jug ones? With all the bad changes going on at El Chavo, the singular reason to still come there for me is the tasty, inexpensive margarita, and this is being ruined, too.
Monday night was the death knell of my love affair with El Chavo. In celebration of a good day, I invited a friend to have a margarita with me and as we walked down the stairs into the restaurant we heard horrendous music booming from the “bad side”. It sounded exactly like a car alarm with an irregular beat behind it. We smiled knowingly at each other, sadly amused at how El Chavo was going bad and relieved that at least we could go into the “good side” for relative quiet and enjoyment. Then, to our horror, we saw that the “good side” was blocked off. Since we were already there, and I had my mouth all set for a margarita, we sighed and went on in.
A DJ had set up some turntables, and was blaring the loudest, most discordant music imaginable. It sounded sort of like Mr. Bungle raping the Shirelles. The room was populated by hipsters… an aesthetic manufactured by appropriating the culture of poor or so-called trashy people via ironic-but-expensive fabrics and designs purchased on Melrose. The only good thing was the young, cute bartenders (does this mean the longtime Mexican ones are out?), but they must’ve been well schooled by “Ilsa” because no mystery jugs were in evidence… only the acrid sting of concentrated Rose’s Lime Juice, bottled lemon juice and a hint of tequila. As my friend and I shouted our conversation to each other, shivering in the cigarette smoke wafting in the nearby propped-open door, I felt my teeth softening in the acidic margarita seemingly without benefit of numbing alcohol. Where one of the jug margaritas usually had me pleasantly buzzed, I barely felt anything after two caustic glasses of the new ones.
The food here is perfectly fine, the corn tamales are excellent (some of the best I’ve had in LA) and the jug margaritas are great if you can get em. The usual patrons have always felt “neighborhood-y”, pleasant and non-douchey, excepting Monday’s hipster overload. It’s sad to see my favorite aspects of a place I’ve been coming for 6-7 years going away, though.
I can’t say that I won’t dip back in on some occasion or other, after consulting my astrolabe, horoscope and the entrails of a two-headed snake to determine if I might chance to enter the ever more elusive El Dorado-like “good side” on a night when jugs are flowing and “Ilsa” isn’t working. But I am now actively searching for a new Mexican place with strong, tasty and cheap margaritas, fewer hipsters and no grim Eurpean blondes serving me Mexican food.
Watch Cal-Pal Willam Belli’s Movie “Tranny McGuyver” and VOTE for it!
04 years ago
PREVIEW – watch the entire short film online and vote for it
Cal-pal Willam Belli (read his blog) is bringing his outrageous comedy “Tranny McGuyver” to film festivals around the country, so I hope you’ll watch the entire short film online and vote for it.
You may notice a certain Southern actress whose initials are CA in the role of “Cracksy” the crackhead. I’m a big fan of satire when it comes from inside the community, I just don’t like it when “Straighty McNonTrans” takes jabs at the GLBT community.
See the whole film here and vote: http://www.indie-fest.com/slgff/FilmDetail.aspx?filmid=6
Watch Cal-Pal Willam Belli's Movie "Tranny McGuyver" and VOTE for it!
04 years ago
PREVIEW – watch the entire short film online and vote for it
Cal-pal Willam Belli (read his blog) is bringing his outrageous comedy “Tranny McGuyver” to film festivals around the country, so I hope you’ll watch the entire short film online and vote for it.
You may notice a certain Southern actress whose initials are CA in the role of “Cracksy” the crackhead. I’m a big fan of satire when it comes from inside the community, I just don’t like it when “Straighty McNonTrans” takes jabs at the GLBT community.
See the whole film here and vote: http://www.indie-fest.com/slgff/FilmDetail.aspx?filmid=6
Book Review – The Mouse and His Child
34 years ago
by Calpernia Addams
in Diary
So back in the mists of time, when I was a child, I read A LOTTT. I had few friends, and few traditional entertainments because of my restrictive religious upbringing. Luckily, I took well to reading and there were years when I read almost a book a week. I remember in particular reading while walking down the halls in grade school one week, one cowboy boot with a detached sole flopping with every other step, “The Mouse And His Child” in hand.
The book’s epigraph is by W.H. Auden:
The sense of danger must not disappear: The way is certainly both short and steep, However gradual it looks from here; Look if you like, but you will have to leap.
If you know me at all, you’ll guess that there’s some dark component to all this… Well, aside from being a bit of a melancholy child with a sixth-sense for encountering the dark side, I don’t know how I lucked out in finding this book when I was a young kid, but I did. I credit many of my finds to a cache of discarded library books in a storage room that was also used for square dancing and other indoor PE activities. Since I was forbidden to dance, I got to sit on the sidelines, which were lined with box after cardboard box of books removed from the library. Another excellent, mind-shaping find was “Black and Blue Magic“, which I hope to review another time.
So, The Mouse and His Child is ostensibly a book for young teens, I think. It has occasional full page dark monochrome charcoal and ink-wash illustrations, but for the most part it’s 244 pages of 1.5 spaced 12 point Stemple Garamond type. But this book is harsh and heavy from the get-go, in ways that most children’s books of the time were not.
When the book opens, we meet a windup toy consisting of a mouse father who swings his little boy around and around in a circle by the hands. They “awaken” to an immediately reserved, quiet self awareness on Christmas Eve in a classic toyshop, when the clock strikes midnight and allows all the toys permission to speak. But this isn’t a sweet Disney kind of toy consciousness. It’s much more “Twilight Zone”, with the imperious wall clock sounding a tenuously granted witching-hour permission to communicate, implying that at all other times the toys could only stand still, self aware, staring at each other in silence and anxiously awaiting leave from above. They toys, it is revealed, are all self aware but unable to move unless they are “clockwork” windups. The windups can only move in their windup way, just as if they were only regular toys… no climbing or running or facial expressions or anything except the mechanical motion of their clockworks until that winds down.
So within the first few pages, we understand that they are fearful conciousnesses trapped in frozen, mechanical bodies with no control over any aspect of their physicality. Terrifying. Now, “The Velveteen Rabbit” was in a similar situation, but somehow that book never seemed to communicate the sense of the rabbit feeling trapped in his own body the way “The Mouse and His Child” does. Moments into his awakening, the mouse child realizes he will never have a mother and becomes overwhelmed with despair, so real tears begin to stream down his frozen face, bringing rebuke down from the wall clock and the other toys. I was HOOKED. This was unlike any other children’s book I’d read and I wanted to know what would happen.
Click READ MORE to read the rest of the review!
