Neighbor Voyeurism

Not my neighbor...someone else's. Some girl code-named Codebleu who lives in San Diego has made a website (complete with good photos when available) primarily devoted to keeping a watch on her rather eccentric neighbor, Kay.

This is the description:
Welcome to my daily blog and gallery about my crazy neighbor, Kay. I recommend that you start at the INTRO and read the posts up to the present for maximum enjoyment. I know it's a pain, but the story really is better this way.

This is a funny post, but you have to see the photos to believe it:

At lunch, Francesco told me that earlier this morning he'd heard some scuffling noises outside our window and observed Kay retrieving the bag of trash we'd thrown into the dumpster. She emptied out the bag, and took it home with her. We decided to leave her a little present. We finished our quarter pounder and salad and left a few tidbits in the box for her. Then, we left the box and a nearly empty coke on top of the dumpster. Sure enough, half an hour later, Francesco caught her drinking my coke and taking the box home with her (note yet another wardrobe change):...This gave us another idea, and we quickly went to work preparing a victoria's secret bag full of leftover slop. I tied a pretty balloon to it and strategically placed it in the dumpster. Not fifteen minutes passed before she came to claim her prize:

People dig through the trash bin at my apartments, but luckily it's not my neighbors, just mostly homeless people strolling the alley. I think this website is a great idea, something I always envisioned would come forth with the Internet. Fortunately, none of my neighbors seem this odd. At least nothing I can really pin down or take photos of. One of my neighbors is an old Hispanic lady who lives by herself and her house is always dark and quiet. But she's always really nice to me when I see her. My other neighbors are these two old men who I would venture a guess are gay. Two old men could not live in an apartment of this size for as long as they have without being either gay or extremely tolerant of one another. The guy directly across from me never opens his shutters and I have only seen him twice in the 10 months I've lived here. And the neighbor behind me always has a lot of friends over and they cause some drunk racket once in a while, but nothing that I probably haven't done myself. So I have no neighbors to watch and I'm glad. I will be keeping up with this website, just for something to laugh at.

[On edit: In reference to the word 'voyeurism' I was conveying the second meaning of the word, not sexual gratification from 'watching.' Here is the definition from Merriam-Webster the second meaning: a prying observer who is usually seeking the sordid or the scandalous.I would say that describes this girl's site pretty well.]

Photo Post - Downtown San Diego at Night

[Note: these photos might take a second to load, especially if you are on dial-up.]

I've been up tonight taking photos of downtown, editing the photos, drinking coffee, eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and listening to electronica on the iTunes radio stations. This is good stuff.

Earlier, I went downtown to take some photos, but I won't bore you with more shots of the bay, although I did take a few. If you want to see the bay, take a look north ∆.

After the shots of the bay, I decided to be adventurous and walk the west side of downtown and take some photos. Here are nine [of the 20 I took] high-quality photos of downtown San Diego taken just a couple hours ago. Click on the photos to see the 700x525 photo. Because I didn't compromise the quality other than resizing, these might take a while to load. Most of them are about 400-500kb each. Also, I take back anything bad I've ever said about my Sony P-92 camera, because these are by far the best photos I have taken with this camera. My camera just doesn't do very well in low-light conditions, but these were all well-lit photos.

One of the photos has a short story about my encounter with some bums after I took a photo of the parking lot a bunch of them were sleeping in.










Above: This is easily the best photo I took all night, in my opinion.




Above: The only photo that really has a story is this one, when I took a picture of a parking lot full of sleeping bums. After I quietly took this shot, I continued to walk and hang a right up the street.

As I was hunched down with my tripod taking a photo of another building, I hear from behind, "Hey man, why are you taking photos of this parking lot?" I turn around and see two bums a few feet behind me, seemingly looking for some Friday night action. Apparently they weren't all sleeping as I had thought.

"Personal use." He looks confused.

"Personal use, huh? Well why are you taking photos of bums in a parking lot?" He's the only one talking at this point.

"Because I think it's a sad state of affairs to see people sleeping on the streets and I want to document it and remember it."

"Did you ever think maybe you should ask who you're taking a picture of before you do it?"

"Look, I took a picture of a parking lot. I'm not bothering anyone and these photos aren't going to be in the paper tomorrow, so don't worry." In my head I'm thinking, Not the paper, but in a couple hours they will be on the Internet. [Who is this harming? Obviously, they were just looking to mess around with me.]

I grab my tripod and stand up. Then the talkative one shuts up real quick, noticing how tall I am.

I say, "Do you want me to erase them? I'll erase them off the camera if you want."

"Oh no, that's ok. We're just wondering what you're doing is all. We just don't think it's right, but it's cool."

Then the one doing most of the talking leaves abruptly, going back to huddling in the corner of the parking lot. I continued to talk to the other guy, Mike, for a couple minutes. He was drunk of course, and he kept trying to shake my hand and be all buddy-buddy with me. I think he was kind of embarrassed that the other one came on so strong and then left so quickly. He asked me if I go to college and what I do. I told him I go to college and I'm in the military and then at least he showed some human decency. Then he told me that his father was a retired captain in the Navy. I told him I was just trying to get by, just like everyone else. Then he said something about fighting, that on the streets you 'gotta do what you gotta do', pointing back at the other guy, conveying that maybe if the other guy had been a bit more rowdy I should have fought with him.

Then right as he was about to go, he turns around and asks me for a couple bucks. I shell out two crinkly dollar bills. Gracefully, Mike says, "I'm going to go get a drink, man."

I say, "Don't spend it all in one place. [Yeah, right.] Have a good one." I figured what the hell, I'll give it to this guy just so the other guy realizes that he shouldn't have been such a dick to me.


Above: This is the photo I was taking when the bums came up behind me.

Rejected iPod Engravings

This information is from this webpage: Rejected iPod Engravings. These are pretty funny.

"As you may know, you can order an iPod from the Apple Store with a custom, laser-engraved message. Apple has been rejecting some messages for editorial reasons. Think all these messages would make it past Apple's screening process?

Scratch your balls, not my metal.
Now you have two little white pocket rockets.
10,000 Stolen Tunes Inside*
Rip, Mix, Burn Down RIAA Headquarters*
Powder and razor blade not included.*
I Don't Do Windows
Something Small and White that Enrique Eglasias Isn't In.* ~wiredgargoyle
"One time at band camp.."
WARNING: Contains Yanni Box Set
10,000 reasons to ignore my wife
If only women's buttons were this easy to push.
This iPod makes up for my small hard disk.
Once you go small and white...
"With my iPod, I'm guilty of the crime of having too much iFun!!!
98% Liberace-free
Size Does Matter
Musically Disturbed
Lick My Shiny Metal Ass*
Weapons of Mass Distraction Inside ~wiredgargoyle
Contents Under Pressure from the RIAA ~wiredgargoyle
My other handheld is a PocketPC ~vostinar
I play with myself.* ~leonardom
CDs are for amish people! ~mustachioman
Quarter free jukebox ~mustachioman
WARNING: Do not put any form of muppet sing along's inside! ~stefan1234
Warning: May cause people to listen to music for hours ~stefan1234
FCUK WINDOWS ~lancew
Steal this? Will self destruct when used.* ~Anonymous
F uck Communism.* ~Anonymous (Actually on my Ipod)
Why drink and drive, When you can smoke and fly. ~tipx
I last 8 hrs. You last 2 minutes. Who's the man?
My iPod can beat up your honor roll student
Your mamma uses a walkman.
"Say hello to my little friend" ~iiikora

*Actually rejected by Apple.com during their free engraving promotion"

This website looks like shit...

...if you're using Micro$oft Internet Explorer, particularly if you are using Windows.

Here's what it looks like on my computer using Safari, the standard web browser for Macintosh. This is an actual screenshot from my computer screen 1024x1280...click to enlarge:

I think part of the problem is that Microsoft Internet Explorer has a different way of showing CSS styled pages. I'm not too worried about it, I was just mentioning that unfortunately, the website doesn't look as good as I have actually made it. It doesn't look bad, just not as good. And that's not good.

Photo Post - My 'Hood

There are many fine places to live in the world. The area of San Diego where I live is not one of them. Today I decided to take a walk around the neighborhood and take some photos. This is what I came up with.

This is an artistic mural on the side of 'The Other Side', a coffeehouse a couple blocks away. While I think it's a nice mural, I don't know why they painted a picture of the trolley because the trolley doesn't even run in North Park. They should have painted a picture of a big bus getting in the way of drivers and billowing out a big puff of carbon monoxide. They should have added a few bums, too. That would make it more realistic.

The worlds finest drinking establishment for the world's finest people, The Slip Inn. A virtual rats nest of humans, thriving at all hours of the day and most of the night. I've seen people standing outside as early as 7am. The area in front of the bar is always abuzz with hardened alcoholics standing outside smoking. I think the requirement for entry is that you have to be missing at least two or more teeth. There was a wrinkled old biddy standing outside smoking, but I managed to take the photo without her in it.

The central hub of activity in my neighborhood: where 30th Street meets University.

No shit, this is two old women holding hands. One of them looks about as old as my grandma.

This is the gayest restaurant I've ever been in: the Lumberjack Grille. I went in there about a month ago, thinking it had some sort of western theme. Well, to be honest, I was sort of tricked. Usually my gaydar is pretty keen, but this one slipped through. I was hungry, so I went inside. Once you walk into a mostly empty restaurant, everyone notices you, so I couldn't leave. The first thing I noticed was the very country setting: saws hanging on the wall and pictures of things very lumberjack-like. Within a couple of minutes I figured out what it was. It was a restaurant for older folks, mostly old gay men. Once I heard the waiter talk, I was suspicious. Then the table next to me confirmed my suspicions. Two old men and an even older woman sat down. The woman was one man's mother, and the men were talking very effeminately and smiling at each other. They ordered a bottle of wine and chatted while waiting for their food. Isn't that special. Of course, everyone in the joint knows each other, so my waiter spent most of his time talking to the daily customers. Ugh. Well, the food was good, but I won't be going back there. This is how gay it is: gay, gay, and goddamn this is the gayest. Now that is gay. How could I not have known?

For those of us that can't find our way, there is always help.

Our neighborhood sign.

A photo of the rear of the defunct North Park Theater.

A photo from the front of the North Park Theater.

Claire de Lunes, a coffeehouse that is by far one of the cleanest places in North Park.

Some new artsy fartsy restaurant, Spread.

One of the many corner liquor markets.

The crowning achievement of my adventure. Since I didn't get a picture of a bum (although I seen a few), I got a photo of either a very tired Hispanic lady or a recently homeless Hispanic lady taking a nap.

The alley behind my house.