Manlio Rules

the stuff that i usually like to talk about (drinking, carousing) isn’t really happening in full force right now, though i will soon have a post about the new theatre thing that i’m doing which goes up in a few weeks. should be fun. i’m writing music for it now, and it’s going great in a sort of black crowes “write the album in a week” workflow… some of the ideas are terrible, some are totally fetch.

first, the quick hits:

1. I looked again and found that shawshank was actually only given 3 stars by comcast. so it’s, in their eyes, as good as star wars 3. i just don’t know what to say about this, but the next time someone wants to know why i can be an elitist, this is why. other movies that are “just as good” as star wars III include: Anchorman, Ghostbusters, and The Last Samurai

2. Meetup.com needs to stop sending me emails every time someone joins a group that i’m in. it never did that before. now every time someone decided they also want to meet other NYC graphic designers, i get to hear about it. I would like that to stop WITHOUT me having to go visit their site.

3. It looks possible that i will be playing on 3 softball teams for the months of July/August. So if you’re wondering what i’m doing during those months, the answer is most likely softball related.

4. it appears that one of my favorite shows, futurama, is going to get 13 new episodes made, the same way that family guy did. i’m incrediblly excited about this. If you don’t watch futurama, and are interested in this, i highly recommend the dvd’s. sheer genius.

5. Here are a list of things i would like to purchase soon. if you have any recommendations about any of these, let me know.

a. HD large screen TV
b. portable drum kit
c. digital delay guitar pedal
d. new flatscreen monitor? (could possibly be the same as a)
e. Cleats for softball

ok. that’s all i got.

Last night Amy was nice enough to invite me to come with her to the SF MoMA to a reception for the Matthew Barney exhibit, drawing restraint. There was free food and free booze, and you know i love the art, especially when there’s also free food and free booze, which there was, as i mentioned previously in this sentence.

So, we have a few drinks. Somehow, we get the idea in our heads that it’s ok to go upstairs and look at the art with full drinks. Which, of course, it is not. So we end up pounding our third Vodka drink, and going upstairs a little bit tipsy.

Now, despite the fact that i’m somewhat ‘artistic’, when it comes to actual visual art i have pretty much the same tastes as your average person. i love the pretty colors, and i can be swayed by beautiful things like water and people with knives. However, as a designer, i’m a bit of a snob when it comes to frame composition, and one thing i really don’t like is perfectly symmetrical framing of the subject matter. And unfortunately, a lot of Barney’s early photos are black and white, with symmetrical composition. So i was a little bit put off.

Amy, meanwhile, really loved the large foam sculptures on the floor, so much that she felt the need to touch them, and was promptely reprimanded by a small asian woman serving as security.

side note: it appears that in order to work at the SF MoMA, you need to be a 50 something small asian man/woman. At first i thought the first woman was following us from room to room after amy decided to start touching things (and giving the finger to the video pieces), but then i realized that they were all different people. and yes, i know that i’m an ugly white male for being unable to tell the difference between 2-3 older asian women. what can i say? i was a little drunk.

And after the booze ran out, we quickly went to a bar down the street where i had 2 whiskeys (making it a 5 drink wednesday). Go Art!

i have a LOT of issues with comcast. from their poorly designed EPG, to their hardly working internet service, to the fact that i can’t get my remote to key in a channel above 99, the hits keep on coming. but i think my biggest problem is when i was sufing around and came upon Star Wars 3, the revenge of the sith. according to the comcast guide, this movie was given 3 stars. That’s maybe the dumbest thing i have ever heard. L.A. Confidential was only given 4 stars. so what you’re telling me, comcast, is that star wars 3 was only 25% worse than L.A. Confidential, or the Shawshank Redemption? really? so, with a half movie role by kevin spacey, or maybe replacing sam jackson with morgan freeman, star wars 3 is 4 stars? that’s what you mean? is that the world we live in?

ok, i’m done. just for fun, here’s a picture from the site that has the star wars 3 bad chinese translations. great times.

So, this weekend was just the way i like em: full of stuff, with some time to relax, and just a little bit inebriated. Friday i got home from work, took a run, and then basically… watched TV and went to bed. I know, i know, thrilling. but what can i do? sometimes even I need to go to bed on a friday night. and besides, i had no plans anyways, and i’m still a little ways away from having friends out here i can call to be like: “i’m bored. why aren’t we drunk?”. all in good time…

saturday i went over to Jim’s place to discuss some of the video stuff for the multimedia theatre piece i’ve gotten involved in. more on this in the future, but yes, essentially i have somehow found my way into doing tech for a multimedia theatre piece within 2 months of moving to san francisco. which is pretty hot.

Sat night lily was in town:

Lily and friends took me to Zeitgeist, which i had heard a ton about, but had never been. it’s pretty cool. NY’ers, think Astoria Beer garden, but with less greek men making their own anonymous meats, and more people with tattoos smoking cigarettes and spilling beers on my bag.

Lily et al crashed around 11PM, at which point i had to decide if i was going to Willo‘s party–

the pros: meet new people, wish willo a happy bday, try to be social.
the cons: i wasn’t going to know anyone there (i met willo sort of randomly, last tuesday, and only once. she was very nice to invite me, btw.), and i’m terrified of those sort of situations, they often end up with me awkwardly standing in a corner, texting and looking nervous. anyone who has ever seen me at a random No Data has witnessed this behavior.
the rationale: I’m in a new city. i’m going to have to go to parties where i don’t know a lot of people. and i would like to be the kind of person who can go to such parties, have a good time, and walk away feeling a little less alone in this very strange city.
also:I was three margaritas deep, and sort of fiending for more booze.

Ok, so I grabbed a six pack of heiniken (cause they were out of rolling rock… seriously, i was hoping to roll with the 33. stoopid west coast.), and headed to Willo’s place. I’m not sure what i expected, i think i sort of was picturing a huge, dark, apartment, with music pumping and standoffish people just all over the place. Which i realize is a totally irrational expectation, but that’s me. i always figure i’m going to be the only dork in the room who would make out with his powerbook if it was a woman… ok, let’s pretend i didn’t just say that, k? great. anyways… instead of the vast social hell of my overactive imagination, I instead found a smallish apt with a huuuge great deck, rockin music, and very friendly people.

I was there pretty late (sorry willo, next time i will leave before 4:15AM), but i had a great time, and met some cool people, and i suppose sort of actually achieved my best case scenario goal… so am i now the guy who goes to random parties and has fun? maybe…

sunday i was hungover and both my computers died at once. i spent most of the day on the bed, hoping that my headache would go away. which it did, around 7PM

so, i went through a ton of my old emails from Jan 99 to May 00 tonight. weird stuff. very weird.

not bad tho, just weird.

ok, that’s all.

Music thing was talking about this stuff today. i think that i need to get both of these, and run them through a ton of effects.

for anyone who was worried that i may not be drinking enough out here (and i know that there are some of you), you’ll be happy to hear that last night i stayed out a little too late and drank a little too much.

Mike was in town from NY, going to one of his conferences. Conference life seems like really the way to do it. From what i can tell, Mike made a 5 minute presentation and spent the rest of his time out here drinking. Of course, he had to pay for the plane ticket, but i think at a lot of these, he gets to go for free. I hope to join the conferati at some point, probably not anytime soon, but i do think i’m going to Austin this fall for a big flash conference, which should be cool. Of course, it’s the week after alex and karen’s wedding, so i’m going to try and take a day off on friday, fly to NY, fly back to SF on sunday night, then possibly fly to Austin on Monday. i’m looking forward to that, let me tell you.

anyways, the other thing that happened last night is i was the only one with a camera, which was borrowed by mike’s friend Willo, and photos were taken, of people i either don’t know or just briefly met. so here are those, in case maybe you know these people.

Update: For a totally different perspective on this evening, we have:

Willo Toons
Hemlock Diaries
Guest Bloggizzzzn
Rules are Awesome
One more

It’s a good thing i didn’t pull a dennis and take my shirt off, it would have been everywhere

so, i’m starting to think that perhaps what i should do this year is become a mainstay at giants stadium. I don’t really like the giants very much, but i’ve got a lot of time to kill, and the stadium is absolutely beautiful. like, real super nice.

Friday night i met my new softball team. I think i may be the best player on the team. anyone who has seen me play softball knows why this is a scary concept. anyone who hasn’t seen me play softball but has watched my conduct my affairs should also have some inking.

Saturday I did nothing. Except… well… ok, so i had an appointment to get a consultation about hair transplant surgery. I’ve been doing worse and worse coming to peace with my hair situation in the last few weeks, so i made an appointment. But getting there involved driving through North Beach, which i have never done before, and hopefully will not have to do again, because it’s very difficult. After an hour of driving, when i had missed my appointment by 20 minutes, i gave up, decided that my incompetence at geographic navigation was some sort of sign, and went home. later, on the internet, i found out that the general cost of hair transplant surgery is between $4000 and $9000, which is crazy talk. If i’m going to use $4000 strictly to make myself more attractive, i’m going to get some sort of crazy ass pectoral implants (ideally ones that shoot fireworks) and a ton of drugs, plus maybe a real bitchin guitar. I should start a hair club that preaches those philosophies. better pecs, better drugs, and a bitchin guitar. fuck your hair.

and sunday i went to see the pirates play the giants. i didn’t take any photos, so here are some shots of barry bonds when he played for the pirates and the giants.

note: bonds didn’t actually play in the game.

This past weekend, I had a virtual flurry of guests. I’ll do the breakdown by day and activity

Thursday – David Lavin. We grabbed a few too many drinks while bar hopping around the Mission. Good times, but perchance 4 whiskeys is a few too many for a Thursday night these days. Friday morning was not pleasant.

Friday – David Lavin/Diana. David’s mom was kind enough to take a bunch of us out to a delicious Burmese dinner. It was fantastic. After that, David and one of his High School friends and I went out for drinks. Again, I was exhausted and probably had too much to drink.

Saturday – Kate/Laura/Adam: I had a ton of shit to do Saturday, so I didn’t end up meeting the penn girls (and their bfs) till later on in the day. We went to amy’s house and then to dinner. I drank entirely too much (anyone seeing a theme here?) and was as drunk as I’ve been in a long time. Luckily I did not turn into “obnoxious drunk Manlio”, but stayed very squarely in the realm of “charming drunk Manlio”. And for those of you who have never seen ODM, let’s just say he’s a pain in the ass. Most of you have never seen him, he may have gone away a few years ago, but sometimes he comes back for a reunion tour, and this would have been appropriate conditions.

Sunday – Kate/Laura/Adam. So Sunday I woke up and walked around the haight for a bit, then went to meet everyone for the Oakland/Minnesota game. After that we went to Anna’s house and played the Movie game, had dinner, etc… this is what I have to say about Sunday

1. it’s really hard to stay engaged at a baseball game when you don’t’ care about either team
2. dear guy sitting next to me: lose some weight and get funnier
3. getting sunburned at a ballgame sucks
4. playing the movie game with hints is not playing the movie game
5. playing the movie game and taking 20 minutes to discuss every movie is not playing the movie game. You know what it is? It’s fucking talking about movies, and choosing which ones you’re going to talk about by just connecting actors/movies.
6. I don’t really believe it’s common knowledge that Jennifer gray is the woman from Dirty Dancing
7. an interesting version of the movie game would be to do it for baseball teams and years. So I would start with: the 1993 Toronto Blue Jays, then you would say: John Olerud, then the next person would say: 2005 Boston Red Sox, then next could be Schilling or whatever. You’d need people who know baseball pretty well, but I bet it would be great. PT thinks it would turn into “who knows the most about the Pirates Farm system from 10 years ago?”, but I think that’s pretty cool as well.
8. The statement was made that on the “weird scale” it goes (most weird to least): Noonan, Laura, Me, Amy, Kate. I think that we need to have a LONG discussion about what the fuck we define as weird.

and then Monday I went to the airport before work. And I wasn’t even the first one to work at 6am, the gym already had some people in it. Nuts

so, i had some friends in town this weekend, and a full review with photos will follow, but for now you get this:

my friend kate used to make endless fun of me for wearing jeans and clothes that were generally too big for me. over the last year and a half, i haven’t seen much of her, and have likewise been wearing clothes that fit better. So she was in town this weekend, and gave me as much of a compliment as i’ll ever get on my new fitting jeans. Also i wore a shirt out to dinner sat night that got widespread approval, and people seem to still like my rocking puma sneakers. so it was a fashion positive weekend (i was also called a “sharp” dresser on friday night)

but the really really funny part (and i’m totally sleep deprived right now), is that on my way out the door to work this morning, i had my work clothes in my bag for after the gym, and i forgot a belt. so after all that fashion approval, today i’m wearing an RCA cable for a belt. so far no one has noticed.