Manlio Rules

maybe it’s time for this guy to stop being a minister

so… yeah. Las Vegas is a cultural wasteland great time. after a harrowing trip to newark airport, i got in around 9PM, checked in, and proceeded to drink myself silly for the next few days.Friday night we started Tangerine, the bar at the Treasure Island hotel where we were staying.

here are the 233 boys, ready to rock and roll

and the whole group, as we go for a stroll on the town. and by whole group, i mean 9 of 13. i have no idea where the other 4 wandered off to. stoopid drunks.

we went to Casino Royale for their lovely $5 craps tables. i won some money, we all won some money, we had lots more drinks, and then ended up here:

this photo really sort of says it all to me about friday night. dark, blue, and a little blurry.

Saturday i spent what felt like 4 hours wandering around looking for food. it was probably closer to 1 hour. After a thrilling vegas lunch (denny’s), and a few hours by the pool, watching the multitude of assholes hit on each other, it was time to recommence drinking. yay drinking!

Dinner Saturday was at Tao. Literally 5 minutes after we sat down, a bachelorette party sat down at the next table, and decided we were there for their amusement. They decided to “rate” all of us, and came over to Eric, asking him where he went to school and what he did for a living. Eric asked them when his penis size would be taken into account, and we were off to the races.

the bachelorette had several ‘tasks’, including: “find a condom”, “get 5 business cards”, and “serenade someone”.

this is our revised task, putting the condom on someone.

We came very close to getting her to do our 4th task: “make out with your friend”. but the negotiations broke down when they wanted a round of drinks for the table, and a shot for the bachelorette, in exchange for 5 seconds of kissing and a boob grab. Yes, i’m a horrible person. You should have heard these negotiations. i started out at: “i’ll buy 2 of you a drink”. anyways…

(other tasks we came up with included: “start a conversation with a guy and mention how many men you’ve had sex with within the first 30 seconds. then continue the coversation for another 10 minutes”. and there was a fourth that i can’t remember)

for some reason the bachelorette wanted us all to see this digicam pic of her giving what would be a very painful blow job to anyone not made of glass. note her fairly extensive use of teeth.

this prompted eric to give them a lecture on proper oral etiquette and technique. Which led the bachelorette to try and give us the same lecture, except her advice seemed to be mostly centered around not behaving as if a woman’s pleasure center is a car winshield. i feel like perhaps she is unfulfilled in her sex life.

After dinner we got to experience the party bus

which dropped us off at the hard rock for our “club trip”

the hard rock is pretty crazy, especially when you prefer your parties in yellow and green

but we amused ourselves by ironically pointing out all the ‘crazy’ stuff they had for us. Lemons? this place is nutso!

some of us (David) decided to be a little creepy and hit on women. notice how tight he’s holding her. he also just finished giving her a 15 minute back massage, which ended with her lying face down on our bench.

i decided to take photos with strangers:

this was our bill. it was very large. very large indeed.

so after that we… went… somewhere… else… that i… don’t want to talk about. it was about as much fun as shooting yourself in both kneecaps.
Sunday i had all day to kill so we went to the buffet at Aladdin (which was great except for the 1.5 hour wait in line). And then mike and i walked the strip suggesting that people do more enriching things with their money than come to a city of sin we built in a desert. For example: instead of staring at the venetian hotel like a slack jawed yokel, maybe you should spend your money on actually going to venice. just a suggestion.

sunday night i went to the airport to discover that i had no seat on my plane. i almost started to cry in the airport. but eventually i got a seat (an exit row aisle seat!), and all was good.

and monday morning i managed to get home just in time to sleep all day. phew

overall gambling +/- : +$67

amount charged on my cc: $452

ATM trips: $200

number of good meals: 1 (denny’s)

hands that will never be clean again: mine

so, this weekend is eric’s bachelor party. and we’re going to vegas. and staying at… well, on the off chance eric reads this before tomorrow, i’m not going to say till later. so i’ll be out of touch till monday/tuesday most likely. but ideally when i get back i’ll have a ton of very very embarassing pictures and a few stories that can actually leave vegas.

it’s not that we’re a bad bocce team. we’re really not. but there are a few things that are killing us:

1. we have lost A LOT of points by going for extras at the end
2. the other teams are getting better. we haven’t played a “gimme” all season
3. i’m toast by the time my third jamesons goes down
4. honestly, we’re not getting the lucky breaks we were getting last season
5. we’re dispirited

and at 1-5, who wouldn’t be?

funniest text message i’ve seen lately

amy to ly: “San Juan hostel is in ARGENTINA!!…”

this is funnier when you consider that ly was in Puerto Rico and hoping to stay at the San Juan Hostel, but had no phone number for it, and asked amy to track it down for her.

1. artist commune type places looking for free spirits
2. people looking for quiet hermits who are never home and don’t talk when they are
3. super active people looking for other super active people who are never home

if anyone knows anyone who might know anything about good ways to find an apt, i’m all earsweekend was fine, less alcohol than usual, more extravagent dinners.

i faxed in the offer to xCorp. i’m glad this is all settled. i’m moving to SF by the first of May. things i’m now stressed about:

• in any event, i can’t do anything about this till April 1
• is it odd to go live with a huge artists commune?

• relocation is provided
• so do i take everything?
• or use this chance to get rid of things i haven’t looked at in years
• like most of my outdated computer books

• actually, this isn’t stressing me out too much.
• cause there are more people in SF than i remember
• but still…

i am excited to go see Oakland A’s games. by which i mean, boston red sox games being played at the Oakland stadium

btw, if you’re keeping count, and some of you are (which is a little odd), tonight will be drinking day 4 out of 5 possible weekday drinking nights. whatever! i’m moving! they have free livers for everyone in SF!

they made me the offer today. it wasn’t totally what i was hoping for, but it’s pretty close. so yeah. looks like i’m moving across the country in the next 6 weeks. and of course i’ll write about every little annoying thing that happens with that process. because here at manlio rules, we like to complain.

the new rich text editor in wordpress, i have to admit, is pretty sweet

now my lists can be bulleted!

reasons i like this:

1. i make a lot of lists
2. usually i don’t enjoy spacing them out
3. sometimes i like to make them numbered, sometimes not
4. i can still edit the html by hand if i want to
5. but i never will

if you haven’t upgraded yet, do it. marco, if you want me to run the upgrade for you, just let me know.

so, after thursday’s ridiculous drinking binge in honor of scott’s birthday, what did i decide to do friday?

i met up with Katie B and her teachers crew right after work, then went to lunasa for the next 4 hours, with a revolving crew including some of the LW kids, plus the Penn crew. The Penn crew and I then proceeded to attend birthday parties till about 2:30, at which point ly and i met up with her law school crowd. i was told that Lateralus (by tool) would change my life, and i needed to get it immediately. we finished up the night at ace bar, where i kicked Christa’s ass at Buck Hunter Pro.

total hours drinking: 10

saturday, i ran around all day running errands. i bought lateralus, but haven’t listened to it yet, so i’m not sure if it will really change my life as i was promised. i also realized that 3CD’s will cost you $50. which is crazy talk.

sat night neil and i went to the movies, and saw ultraviolet. i think that we need to make a new classification for bad movies. “bad”, just doesn’t seem to cut it for this one. but it was visual candy, and i do like that.

sunday was guitar day and freelance day.

tonight is bocce

tomorrow i have plans and have forgotten what they are. if they’re with any of you, let me know.