Of course we got it. It’s got a camera on it.

I’m talking about Gourmet Thursdays. The past few weeks things got in the way either of filming Gourmet Thursdays or simply having the event n the first place. This week was a special even at my volunteer job; NExt week is a trip to I’ll-tell-you-later. But really, I realized that I’m not doing the filming right. I thought it would just be enough to get a little footage of a friend cooking, chop it together with all of us eating, and boom, I’m done. But the footage is never compelling ’cause there isn’t anything for the viewer. I never give away the recipe. And that’s just what I have to do. So I watched about 20 minutes of Food Network to figure out the problems I’ve been having with the concept, and now I wanna do a real cooking show.

So here’s how it goes: next Gourmet Thursday, I am doing the actually cooking. I’m making Lel film me as I go through the recipe step-by-step, and I film everyone eating the food. I edit over the course of the week, and show the completed episode on the next Thursday, effectively making every Thursday a viewing party for the episode that was shot the previous week. Cool, huh?

Anyways, the next available Thursday to cook is May 3, so I’ll be practicing until then. Hopefully you’ll see an episode by May 10. Fingers crossed. What do you think?

So, hopefully, every Sunday night/Monday morning, catch Still Awake with Chris Villareal at http://stillawake.podbean.com. Because it’s always late night somewhere on the Internet.

This is the Indian Beef Marsala Burrito and Thani Lemon Garlic Arugula Salad that Guy made tonight. Guy’s a great cook. While we didn’t have this particular dish, we’re always in envy of the pictures of the meals he makes and posts on Facebook.

Guy and Anna have been coming over every Wednesday to help us cook better food than, say , Taco Bell Dorito Loco tacos. Well, whenever they can. It goes down like a cooking show, so I decided to try to convince Guy to tape and edit one of those wonderful cooking sessions. I don’t know about you, but I wanna see a good cooking show.

PS: Lel’s taking a class on Wednesdays now, so I’m thinking we’ll call it “Gourmet Thursdays.” I’ll keep you posted.

Later the true problem with her old phone is discovered: the charging port is damaged, leaving the phone no way to get juice; all this after (did I mention it?) several people from two stores misdiagnosed the problem as either a software or a battery problem. And after several hours of time that she didn’t have spent waiting at Verizon stores, her replacement HTC is completely lobotomized, all her data and apps lost in the wind.

(Poor guys at the Verizon store. Their salesman are peddling twenty different Android phones at the same time, and they have to fix them all.)

I’d better contrast this with the time I had a similar problem with my iPhone, that is to say, my battery was draining fast. I take it to the Apple Store; they plug it into a diagnostic computer in the back, and come back out and tell me it’s one of the apps that’s draining the power. Their solution was to wipe the phone, but they ask me first whether I have all my data synced to the computer. I did, and they wipe the phone. (if I didn’t, I’d be told to back up and wipe the phone at home.) And hypothetically, if the battery was dying, they’d probably swap my phone out right in the store, not charging me if I was in warranty. It would be very unlikely that I’d be bounced from store to store, either.

As for my friend’s mom, she’s due for an upgrade in ten days, with a replacement HTC in her purse to hold over over until then. But she’s already dead set on and enthusiastic about what she’s chosen for her next phone. And after the ordeal she’s gone through, she deserves to be happy with her new choice.