Manlio Rules

but this is an article i found on valleywag this morning that i thought was relevant to me

yahoo dumps green guzzler shuttles

Over almost 2 years, i rode the shuttles a fair amount, and let me assure you that being on a bus for 1.5+ hours at the end of a workday is pretty much the last thing anyone wants to do. Even after i got a working internet solution (n95 baby!), the last half hour stuck on 101 in traffic was the worst thing ever. except maybe for driving to San Jose at 4PM on a tuesday to make a 6PM class.

here’s the thing: people would complain about the shuttles even when they were working fine. “the shuttles don’t stop near my house”, “people are talking on the phone and i don’t like it”, “why can’t people put their seats forward so i can stretch my legs?”. and so on. after a year, i finally got fed up with taking Muni 30 minutes to get to a shuttle which then took me 1.5 hours, so i moved to get closer to the caltrain, leading to a year in that terrible apt in soma. questionable decision but maybe a net gain? i don’t know.

at the end of the day, there’s nothing that’s going to make a long commute in traffic “fun” (except being driven in a limo with a hot tub and champagne to drop one’s cell phone in). the best that can be done is to make it as painless as possible. sounds like the switch over to the other limo company went the wrong way. but hey, one could always just go live in Mountain View or San Jose. Being a cultured SF hipster requires sacrifice.

but maybe if the stock goes up as a result of cost cuts, everyone can buy 1.5 million dollar condos in SOMA and ride the caltrain.

As for me, i’ll continue to enjoy my job in downtown SF. where i make GAMES for CHILDREN. yes, i win.

some people absolutely are enthralled with the idea of physically moving from one destination to the other. Personally, i’d be happy just to get there.

a few travel observations:

Dear Super Shuttle: when i pay you $40 to get me to the airport, and you pick me up 3 hours before my flight, i usually prefer not to arrive at the airport one hour before my flight takes off, barely making check-in. i understand you need to maximize your van capacity, but driving around mountain view for 2 hours is crazy. next time i’m going to take VTA to Caltrain to BART, save myself $30, and probably get there a little earlier. just so you know.

Dear Ladies who talked loudly all through my redeye: i understand that you maybe are bored and think it’s a good idea to drink a lot and stay awake chatting the whole flight, but guess who might not want to be kept awake with the inane details of your personal lives? that’s right, the rest of us.

Dear American Airlines: Would it kill you to have the foldable head rests on all your flights? Also, after you’ve announced 5 times for volunteers to give up their seats to no avail, maybe you should try raising the comp price instead of suggesting that we take your lousy $300 travel voucher and then give it as a gift for father’s day. and telling me that “if there are three of you, that’s $900″ is a ridiculous statement. does that mean that if there are 3 of us, i get more money? No. it just means that you have found employees who can multiply.

Dear Burrito place in Chicago Terminal: you are my new hero (sorry Joe Perry). a low carb scramble at an airport at 6AM? this truly is the future.

Dear Man who gave me a dirty look after i sat in “his” seat: in a crowded seating area, leaving your empty cup of coffee on the floor and walking away does not constitute “fives”. society must have rules.

love you lots

-manlio

so, last weekend i moved into my new apartment. after a year at page st it was time to search for something a little more commute friendly. micah moved out on friday, and so I spent the weekend (ably assisted by tricia) moving, cleaning, and stressing out about finding parking for my car (which isn’t going to ever happen, fuck you parking lots, i’d rather get 3-5 tickets a month than pay $300 for parking). so here’s a quick fact sheet about my new apartment, in QA form:

Q. Is it more space?
A. Nope. it’s 2 10×10 rooms, with 1 closet. it feels like a little more space, but that’s because i haven’t unpacked most of my stuff yet.

Q. well… is it nicer?
A. Hells no. for those of you from NY, it’s somewhat akin to the Astoria basement i lived in. for those of you who never saw that place, think my allen st apartment and then take away the nice floors, and don’t clean it for about 5-6 years. the kitchen and bathroom both smell very musty.

Q. ok… so… is the commute shorter?
A. yes! by about 15 minutes (each way).

Q. good! well… is there more stuff around there? centrally located?
A. um… not really. it is closer to tricia, which is a large bonus. the immediate area is pretty desolate.

Q. uh, sweet. What about parking?
A. there’s street parking with a permit, which i can’t get till i get a CA drivers license and a bill sent to my new address. until then i’m parked 4 long blocks away and i need to get up tomorrow at 6AM to switch sides of the street. i’m considering keeping my car at work a few days a week. all the parking lots in the area are full up for monthly, and cost about $250-$300 a month anyways.

Q. yikes. so how’s your new roommate?
A. he seems great actually. very nice, helpful, keeps to himself for the most part.

Q. well, that’s something. what about cost?
A. it is cheaper than my old place. BUT that is being offset by the added cost of taking the caltrain on a regular basis, which my company doesn’t pay for.

Q. how about other stuff, amenities and the like?
A. well, there’s no laundry anywhere in the area, so i’ve signed up for a home delivery laundry service which is sweet but expensive ($1.25/lb, $15 min). the Internet is old school DSL on wireless, so it’s pretty slow. right now i’m leeching off another open network somewhere in the building. and we don’t currently have TV.

Q. o….k…. so remind us why you did this?
A. yeah, i have no idea.

Q. fair enough. so what are you going to do?
A. Weeeellll… the place is month to month, so i figure maybe it makes sense to stay for a few months (2-3), save some dough, and keep looking for a new place. i’m not going to unpack, just keep everything in boxes except for the essentials, so if i move again it’ll be a quicker, more painless process.

Q. oh, is it possible that you’re just freaking out and everything will be fine in a few weeks?
A. …yes. i suppose that’s possible.

got this from P.T.

look, i’m not one for political discussions. I leave that to Frank and his team of well informed people. But we should all be learning one thing from this: in addition to relying on Stewart, Colbert, and other high intellectual commentators to support and herald the democratic party in the media, we should draft a few bruisers who just go around and refer to republicans as facists and nazis and reactionary pricks. the DNC can deny supporting them publicly, and we’ll still get the soundbytes. i don’t care about sinking to their level. someone should be out there hitting back hard and hitting back dirty.

cause i seem to be on a pretty awesome run of bad luck. starting with sunday morning

1. I ate too much food yesterday
2. my arm hurts from softball on saturday. not like muscle soreness, like “uh oh” soreness.
3. my TV has been glitching in and out. which is great for watching deadwood, cause that show sure isn’t about the subtlety of the language or anything.
4. I got my assessment body results from bootcamp. not only have i lost mass in all areas i wanted to gain mass, and gained in areas i wanted to lose, my body fat percentage has actually gone up. awesome
5. did i mention the red sox lost all 4 of their games this weekend. i predicted this, but it still puts me in a foul mood, just like my dodger fan co-worker who came in this morning to give me shit about it.
6. my other co-worker gave me the: “yeah, i dont’ care about your life” comment after asking after my weekend and me giving a bit too much information apparently.

on the plus side, there’s not a ton more that could go wrong today… hopefully…

so, friday night i headed up to the berkeley greek theater to check out the Death Cab show. I was hoping to meet up with Ali, Jess, Alice, and some of their friends, but it occurred to me when i got there that i didn’t have anyone’s phone number, making it difficult to find them in the sea of people. oh well, seeing a concert alone actually isn’t as weird as i thought it would be. And Death Cab was great, i thought they played a great set. it was the lead singer’s birthday as well, which was a lot of fun, though sad to learn that he’s only 30. i suppose my rock and roll life will never actually happen. which is too bad.

sunday we played softball. our team is so bad. we lost 25-3. I went 1-2, with 2 runs scored and an RBI. so for those of you paying attention, i was somehow involved every time we scored. after the game, someone said: “we didn’t play that badly”, and i almost lost it. i said something like: “well, there was that one play where the ground ball made it past the third baseman, shortstop, and left fielder and ended up being a triple. that could have gone better.” sigh. after playing on El D where i was among the worst players on the team, and always feeling bad and nervous about if i was going to get any actual playing time, this isn’t much better.

boot camp started this morning, i got politely reprimanded for missing all of last week. in the fitness evaluation i definitely did better on the push ups, and the sit and reach, but somehow i did worse on the situps… sigh.

Any of you who have ever seen my powerbook know that there are some screen problems with it. for those of you who never have seen my powerbook, the screen problems are basically this:

It has been like this since i got it 2 years ago. i sort of let it slide for awhile, because that’s pretty much who i am, plus i was using it for freelance work and really needed to have it every day or else i couldn’t have gotten paid. But about 6 months ago i decided that i should take it in, and ideally they should replace it, cause it’s pretty annoying. So i went down to the SoHo Mac Store and spoke to one of their geniuses at the genius bar. We’ll call him New York Mac Dude (NYMD). the conversation basically went like this:

me: So, my screen’s damaged
NYMD: Yeah, that’s not our fault. that’s accidental damage
me: what do you mean?
NYMD: I mean, that happened cause you either dropped it or you’re putting too much pressure on the screen
me: well, i never dropped it. and it’s always been like this.
NYMD: well, why didn’t you bring it in when you got it?
me: i needed it for work
NYMD: Yeah, you should have brought it in then. there’s nothing i can do now
me: but… why on earth do i have applecare if you won’t fix this stuff?
NYMD: i’m telling you, it’s considered accidental damage
me: but it was always like this
NYMD: well, that’s just your story
me: if you ever meet me again, i will stab you and bathe in your blood.

ok, so i didn’t say that last line. i did say something cliched like: “i’ll never buy another apple”, which was a hollow lie, cause of course i will. But i made peace with the little white halo and decided that even with all its faults, it was my computer and had always done its best and i shouldn’t look down on it cause it was a little different.

fast forward to a month ago. my powerbook is having major issues. Kernel panics, failure to boot, lots of issues. So today i brought it into the SF mac store, and spoke to one of thier geniuses. we’ll call her SF Mac Diva.

As she’s booting up the machine, trying to bring it back to life (which was very cute, btw, she kept putting her ear to the HD and listening to it, like it was a patient), she says:

Diva: Do you want to fix these white dots on the screen?
me: yeah, but i was told that it was accidental damage and i’d have to pay
Diva: That’s ridiculous. they’re all over the place. this is a known issue
me: yeah, but my book isn’t one of the ones from that production line
Diva: Doesn’t matter, this is really terrible. who told you we wouldn’t fix it? Someone here?
me: no, someone in the NY store
Diva: Well, i’m really sorry about that. we’ll totally fix this for you. And i’ll fix the case too.
me: what’s wrong with my case?
Diva: see these little dots here? (i had never seen these dots)
me: whoa. what are those from?
Diva: Oil on your hand. no worries, we’ll take care of it.

So, in conclusion, if you ever have problems with your powerbook, come out to SF. I know just who to talk to.

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 was my week last week

monday i find out that i potentially have an interview on thursday in san francisco with company Xcorp. it’s a hellacious week between my freelance work and assorted other commitments, but i manage to get the time off from my freelance gig. the plan is to fly out to SF wed night, and fly back thursday on the redeye.

tuesday i get an email from my contact at Xcorp, who tells me: “To the extent that you can provide some evidence as having thought about some of the above(the above being my potential job responsibilities) during your talk, it will make my case stronger. I think you know this already.” I interpret that as: “try to take what you’ve done and show how it will make you a good candidate for this job. ok…

tuesday night i migrate a client over from development to production, and in the process wipe… out… the… database… argh. i spend another 3 hours tuesday night rebuilding the damn thing.

wednesday i pack in the morning, go into work, and head right to the airport from there. I plug into jet blue’s wifi at the airport and download a ton of theoretical stuff about interactive television to brush up on the plane. i’ve prepared a presentation a few weeks back, and i go through and make some changes and some edits. i make it to San Jose without incident, and i’m in the hotel and checked in by 9:30. i hit the in and out burger (not as good as i’ve heard), and watch some tv before turning in.

Thursday morning is the presentation. I present my pieces, and it seems to go ok, but i know that i’m forgetting to do something important, and the look on my contact’s face as the hour progresses gets worse and worse.

I have meet with 4 people after the presentation before my contact. this is the guy who i talked to at ITP who really liked me. he walks in and basically says: “well, you didn’t really give me waht i wanted with that presentation. why didn’t you prepare a demo that was relevant to TV?”. now, i DISTINCTLY remember him saying at my initial interview: “the last woman who i hired who didn’t have experience prepared a tv demo, but you don’t necessarily have to do that”. apparently that was code for: “you should do that”. i responded with: “well, i thought i woudl go through my presentation and explain how each project gave me skillsets relevant to the job”. he replied: “well, ok, but you didn’t do that either.” I almost asked if i could leave right there, or at least go to the Xcorp bar and knock back a few.

but no, i had to sit through 3 more interviews, on with a product manager whose game seemed to be: “i know more than you, so i’m going to ask you a question, listen to your answer, and then tell you why you’re wrong.” good times!

then i flew back that night, on an absolutely full flight, sitting next to a guy who was dipping throughout the whole flight. DIPPING.. who the fuck dips on a plane? it was disgusting. luckily millers crossing was on the fox movie channel on the plane, or i would have throttled someone (dip guy, i’m looking at you)

so i get back on friday at like 6:30, and it takes an hour to get home, (cab, you were a $50 mistake). and i pass out till 4PM, at which point i go and drink a whole bottle of vodka. well, not really. but i had like 9 vodka tonics, so that’s gotta be close. good times.

on saturday, after a 3AM phone call about being, i decide to email the yahoo guy and ask him if there’s anything i can do. his email is a tricky mix of reprimanding and politeness… but i agree that i will try to make a tv interface demo sometime in the next few days. but honestly, if i’m already having problems figuring out what this guy wants before i work for him, i’m not sure how much i really want this job…

today i am working working working and trying not to eat more chicken wings from mr. wonton…

(edit… umm… i ate the chicken wings)