Saturday Outing: Food and More Droid Testing - 2009-11-21 21:12:04
<<< Previous - Things That Currently Confuse Me... | Next - More Dithering About the Droid >>>Hey, that's what we do - the food and the gadget stuff. We're amused by it anyhow. So today Jon told me we were headed far south, almost going to Tijuana, to eat lunch. (That's actually not too far from San Diego, but it sounds more dramatic that way.) Having gotten used to eating at little taco shops that don't look like much on the outside - but have epic food - I was ready for this to be another such meal.
It didn't occur to me to try and get a better photo at the time - but this is the best wide shot I can give you. In the distance, on that hillside with all the antennas - that's Tijuana. We heard on the local radio that there was a wait at the border - meaning a lot of traffic - but we didn't think we were included.
Until we took the last US exit and found ourselves in a bit of a line. Not to worry, it only took a few minutes and we were moving. Apparently the area of San Ysidro we were in is full to the brim with outlet and similar type stores - and a bustling flea market as well.
It turned out the the restaurant we were looking for -
Achiote - was in the parking lot of the
Las Americas Premium Outlets.
A parking lot which was packed full of cars, since we showed up after noon. Apparently parking is always something of a problem here. But we finally found a spot, and then made our way into the restaurant. The place seemed somewhat full, but not really bustling.
So like
last weekend let's do some compare and contrast photos with the droid phone versus the Canon point and shoot that I use.
First the margarita Jon ordered - which was a large creature.
On the left - the droid's camera. On the right - Canon.
Jon's photo from his droid
here. I think he tweaked it a bit in photoshop-like program on his phone - I left mine alone mainly because I was lazy. The Canon shot has definitely been tweaked in photoshop. Mainly because I wasn't looking at a plate of food at that time.
Photo from the Canon
Here Jon has arranged his beverage next to the salsa for color. This also gives you an idea of the hefty size of the margarita. The salsa was really tasty, I should add.
And now the
Queso Fundido (seems odd to me that the simpliest recipe I could find the fastest was in the NY Times)...
On the left - the droid's camera. On the right - Canon.
I was just saying to Jon last weekend that there weren't many dishes in the local food that used a lot of cheese - or at least not nearly as much as in the TexMex I'd had in Texas. Which was why I pounced on this dish as soon as it was set down. Er, and after we'd photographed it. You could order it with chorizo or peppers or both. We of course went for "both." And we had a great time spooning stretchy blobs of cheese onto pieces of tortilla.
On the left - the droid's camera. On the right - Canon.
The main course - and again I find myself completely forgetting what Jon was eating.
Chilaquiles of some sort I think. I however had La Hermita, which the menu described as "crust of cheese in one side, and melted on the other side with your choice of beef, chicken, or mushrooms and fresh cilantro, wrapped in a flour tortilla, served with refried beans." I can happily say that at this point I have had my portion of cheese for the weekend. Those beans had chorizo in them and were quite tasty.
Both from the droid's camera.
After the food we decided to test out the phones a bit more. So we wandered around the outlet mall and took a few more photos, and fiddled with the gps system to see if we could locate each other from the maps.
Taken with the droid.
One thing I continually have a problem with on the droid - figuring out when the thing is going to take a photo. I'll push the on screen button and there will be a pause of a few seconds...THEN a click and then it takes a photo. Then there has to be another pause while the camera readies itself (I have no idea what it's doing during the pause, just that it's not ready to take another photo). The other problem is figuring out where the camera is focusing - I can't quite tell. For instance I thought I focused on the flower and then moved the camera to frame the shot - but nope, apparently I focused on the leaf? Confusing. The light here was a bit harsh anyhow, and I was squinting a lot anyway.
On the left - the droid's camera. On the right - Canon
Both of these were tweaked in photoshop before uploading. The thing that's most difficult on the droid is telling whether you're using too heavy a hand on the contrast and hue.
So I think you can get the idea from these series of photos that the droid isn't doing too badly, and that it's actually just a matter of color in some of the interior shots. But according to Jon the cameras on the droid have some kind of odd glitch in them where they'll take decent photos for X days, then take crappy photos for X days - then the cycle starts again. (I need to hunt up a link for the truth of that, tomorrow.) That thought made my head hurt so I didn't ask him any more about it - but I'll now keep an eye on my photo quality. I'm assuming there'll be a patch for the software to fix that in the future. It's funny how Warcraft has made me so used to the idea of "fix it with a patch."
I'm still using the droid's camera more than the one on my previous cellphone - the simplicity and speed of uploading the photos makes it worth it.
So now a few more shots of the mall - these are all Canon's. I really love the metal star lanterns that are used around Christmas time. I bet this area looks wonderful when these stars are lit up at night.
There were Snuggies for sale at the As Seen On TV store. Which is also known as the World Channel Showcase. No, we did not go inside - seemed the kind of store to best mock from the outside. (You'll also note that I'm not bothering to link the store to its online equivalent.)
And the mall Christmas tree - with children next to it for scale. Because it was somewhat large.
We'll leave the area with a few shots of local advertising...
The billboard in the background is for a bail bondsman whose ads I've seen on local television. You don't easily forget someone who's named King. Meanwhile the sign on the large pole notes that this is a "San Diego Regional Enterprise Zone."
This billboard still has me scratching my head. Two 50 ounce bottles are "enough for your meal" - wait, because one wasn't enough? According to who? Or did you just find out you weren't selling enough in this area, Coca Cola salesfolk, and need people to buy more? The wording on this ad just seems odd.
I have some screenshots of the droid itself and its apps, but I'll save them for a post tomorrow. And hopefully I can root up more info on the camera by then.
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