Manlio Rules

it’s been a long week here in my world. i’m moving tomorrow, first thing. like 8AM first thing. i would say that i’m probably 40% packed. Today i dropped off a few things at the computer recycle center, including my first large monitor (KDS 19″ baby!) that i bought in Dallas 8 years ago for $300 and moved about 10 times. no more. now it will hopefully go to a charity that can use a huge monitor and doesn’t have to carry it places.

i still need to pack a few things and take care of some last minute details, though i did remember do the forwarding address thing and change the address for all my bills, all through the internet (except my car insurance, curse you Allstate). i didn’t end up selling my electronic drumkit but i suppose i’m going ot move that down to the studio on saturday or sunday, before i do a full cleaning of the apt. but i think i’m in pretty good shape, it shoudl be a relatively painless move… but i always say that…

anyways, if you’re wondering what i’m doing this weekend, the answer is probably: “looking for my toothbrush in a box somewhere”.

rock!

Just in case any of you ever wanted to know where the space needle is, it’s in seattle. more specifically, it’s at the seattle center, which can be seen from most neighborhoods in seattle. I know this because when i was up in seattle last weekend, trish made a point of poking me and pointing it out whenever she saw it, which was something like 395 times a day for 2 days. so to confirm: space needle = seattle = tall. mark it down kids.

We went up to seattle for a few reasons, the first being that Marya was in a very big deal show at the Seattle Rep called “my name is Rachel corrie”, which is exerpts from journals about Rachel Corrie, and activist who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer back in 2003. The show was very good, Marya did an excellent job as always. Hopefully this will lead to more great roles for her, she is CLEARLY capable of captivating an audience by herself (it was a one woman show) for 90 minutes.

Trish had never been to Seattle, so saturday we did a little tour courtesy of Michelle, who was a taskmaster in her diligence and led us around to the Pike place market, sculpture garden, the new library, and Volunteer Park. I was exhausted but I’m glad we got a chance to see everything.

Sunday we hung out with David in fremont, ran into a few random people we know from Austin and SF (bizarre), and almost gave up our seats on the return flight for free tickets anywhere that Alaska/Horizon flies (we were thinking Mexico). but they didn’t need us, so no big deal.

also on the return flight home, a very large irritable man got offended when an older couple asked him to please not hit them as he walked by because he almost knocked the woman over. he got upset and started quietly talking out loud about how he played football at Cornell for 3 years and weighed 275lbs, and if he had wanted to knock someone over, he would have. he then told the older man (who was maybe 60), that he “better shut his mouth”. this was actually really funny because this guy was clearly a big geek with his thick glasses and white-man’s afro, was rocking a big pot belly, and was threatening a 60 year old man because he used to be a cornell football player and everyone should know not to fuck with cornell football players. by the way, last time i checked Cornell had a terrible football team, even for the Ivy league. Also, who the hell starts a fight in an airport these days? the guy then got on the plane, ended up in the exit row middle seat, and rung the call bell 3-4 times over the course of a 2 hour flight. a scholar and a gentleman, apparently.

the rest of the photos are here

from eatliver via micah

gotta cover last weekend real quick before i get on a plane for seattle in 3 hours. going to see marya’s big show! good times.

anyways, last weekend frank and kate were in town as well as the chiachiere parents, celebrating ryan’s takedown of Don Imus. if i haven’t emailed this to you, the long and the short of it is that Ryan Chiachiere (frank’s brother) was the initial researcher who wrote the article that led to Imus being fired for his jackass remark about the Rutgers Women’s basketball team. i still wish Ryan was an alt-country bluegrass superstar, but i suppose this is also good.

anyways, here are the photos from the weekend. there aren’t a ton of them. i’m trying to get better with the picture thing. thinking about buying a nice digital SLR and starting to copy alex and karen’s “take one a day” stylings, because it’s a good way to keep documenting. either that or i have to hook up the webcam and start video blogging more, but frankly i’m not sure i have the stamina for that.

oh, also, if anyone knows enough about the wordpress setup to help me figure out how to widen the main posting column, i’d be greatful. i can’t seem to get it larger than 450, and for flickr purposes i’d love to up that to 500.

so, as some of you may or may not remember, there was an attempt last year at throwing me a surprise going away party when i left New York. from what i heard, most of my friends from various walks of life got together, argued a bunch about what the best way to throw me a party was, and then eventually settled on going to dinner on thursday and drinks.

and then i went out to SF to look for apartments and my once and future roommate micah ruined it by asking me how it was a good week before it happened. this was of course not his fault, because he wasn’t going to the party so he only looked at the email once.

but, because i rule (see title), i decided that i would throw HIM a surprise going away party because he’s going back to NY, and i wouldnt’ even give alex and karen the chance to ruin it by telling them about it. though i will admit that the idea occurred to me and i giggled about it for a few hours at work one day.

so with Ali and Tricia’s (and everyone else’s) help, we did this last thursday. All these photos are Aubreys, but i’m stealing them anyways:

you can see the rest of the photos on Aubs flickr set

Manlio’s Cafe!

Originally uploaded by frankchi.

Frank and Michelle went to Ixhat… UxStap… Mexico last week, and they found a cafe that apparently I own and operate. according to the hand drawn signs, it’s the best cafe ever. and i believe that, because we all know i don’t do anything half assed.

so, today at the company cafeteria, there was something labeled:

“Satan’s Fantasy Chili”

I should note that we ALWAYS have chili in the cafeteria. it’s usually bean or tofu or veggie or chicken chili. it changes once a week. nevertheless, there are 2 things i find very very funny about this:

1. i sort of love the idea that Satan sits around trying to fantasize about what kind of chili he would enjoy, but doesn’t necessarily make it himself, just more theorizes on how it would taste.

2. I really love the idea that someone else has made this chili, and is now serving it to us. i wonder if they took dictation straight from the man himself, or if this is more of a posession sort of thing?

so, it’s been quiet here on ManlioRules lately. some of you may think that i’m not doing nearly enough ruling, and i understand the sentiment. the truth is that not only have i been busy, but i’ve been stressed by a few different things lately (job, moving, doctors visits) so as a result there hasn’t been nearly enough time for the whimsical posts of my life. but in the spirit of posting more (happy birthday Lyandra), here are some random thoughts and pictures:

I finished the tahoe season with a few days up at Heavenly, visiting Jody Steinglass of NYU fame. Jody seems to be doing very well, his new girlfriend is very nice, and i had a great time. Jody and his cousin Connor convinced me that i needed to take a jump on my snowboard the second day. I was somewhat hesitant, because “catching big air” is not usually something that i enjoy. But Jody wore me down and convinced me that i would be fine, told me how to hit the jump, and found one that he was pretty sure i could clear. so I did it. the good part was that i cleared the jump. the bad part was that my board came up and i landed on my tailbone. I am not hurt, it was fine, and actually a little exciting. i am going to try again next year. I also need to adjust my bindings and possibly get a longer board, but i knew that coming into this year. 156 is too short for me.

the tahoe season was great overall, but i spent my money a little foolishly. next year i will not get a homewood season pass, or possibly any pass at all. this year i went to Squaw, Kirkwood, Heavenly, and Homewood for a total of 11 days on the mountain, which doesn’t seem like a whole lot, but is about right. I stayed a total of 18 nights up in Tahoe, so the condo made sense from a financial perspective. i just needed to do individual passes and not season passes. next year i will do a better job. My heavenly pass actually worked out ok, but the homewood pass was not a good idea. Sean and i think we want to try truckee next year, as it’s 45 minutes closer to SF.

here are the pics from that.

In other news, i’m looking for a new place to live. it’s been very difficult because i dont’ want to spend a ton of money, nor do i want to live in a bad area, nor do i want to be too far away from public transportation or anything. hmm… yeah, something is going to have to give. i was much more panicked about the whole thing before i saw a place last night that would pretty much work on all counts. so that was exciting.

In job news, i can’t talk a lot about what’s going on, but the guy who hired me out of ITP has moved on to another dept here. it makes me sad because he was a great boss and a great mentor, and now i’m not really sure who’s going to be taking his place (though i’m pretty sure it won’t be me). but it was good to work with him even if it was only a year.

oh, and in funny drunken friend news, here’s a snippet of a conversation i had with Aubrey last night. i will admit that i couldn’t hear her well, so some of this may be incorrect:

A - do you want to get indian food tonight?
M - oh, i can’t tonight, i have dinner plans
A - ok. i guess i’ll just go make pancakes. there isn’t cheese in pancakes, is there?
M - um… no, i dont’ think so.
A - I’m really drunk.
M - yeah, i can tell.
A - but i hope i’m amusing. am i amusing?
M - well, you just asked me if there was cheese in pancakes, so yes, i’d say you’ve entered the amusement zone.

so as you can see, things are pretty much the same as usual