Manlio Rules

There was an issue of Hellblazer (yes, i’m a huge geek, thanks!) where people were cursed to eat and consume forever, even as they slowly faded away into starvation. That’s somewhat how i feel lately. I’m not sure it’s entirely a negative thing , because being “hungry” is in theory a good thing for the long term, and despite my hunger i managed to get through the weekend without ordering and eating an entire pizza, but still.

Friday night it was Karen’s bday party in the Marina, which was pretty cool i guess. I keep going to these parties where i don’t know anyone, and i’m just not wired for that sort of interaction. Luckily, Karen’s friend Deirdre took care of me and introduced me to some of her friends who were very cool and we spent the night joking about how funny it would be to put a Home Depot in the Haight and drive out all the local head shops. I think it would be very funny. And dinner was delicious.

After dinner I rolled over to meet Sean, Aubrey et. al. at a party in the lower haight, which was fun i suppose. But speaking of things i’ve never been wired for: house parties. I’m never sure who to talk to, and i always find myself in conversation when the other person just sort of wanders away. it also seemed like the average age at the party was 22, which is very very depressing great. and i ran into someone from work, who was wearing a huge cowboy hat. that was strange. in any event i left feeling somewhat drunk unfulfilled, but content that i at least left the house.

Saturday I went to see Jim and Rheri’s improv show. it was very very funny and made me miss performing, even though i know it’s so much more of a time commitment than i can afford presently, and that will probably always be true until i stop having 3 hours of commute time every day, which is sad. If you live in SF and want to laugh uncontrollably for 1.5 hours this weekend, here’s the postcard:

Sunday, as i said, i stayed home and worked for 8 hours on a prototype for work today, which promptly got torn apart by my boss for stupid little details that i would argue are not my responsibility, but that would make me a whiner, and my new professional goal is to not whine. or at least not more than once a month.

man i need a hobby. anyone want to start a band? we don’t have to be good, we can just play!

so, we all know that my birthday was 2 weeks ago (oct 27). And because i was intimidated by halloween parties (can you blame me? they kept calling and whispering into the phone… pervs…) i decided that i would avoid the whole issue and just have my official party the next weekend. which was last weekend, or November 3rd for those of you who like the roman calendar (sell-outs).

I chose the Hemlock Tavern for this escapade, mostly because it’s big enough to hold a lot of people, tends to be pretty hopping most nights, but never gets crowded in an annoying New York “i’m in a bar and can’t move! douche-tastic!” way. Plus it was the first bar i went to in SF that made me perhaps think that i was going to be ok out here, and not doomed to live a life of solitary isolation, with my computer and my TV as my only real friends. so it had that going for it.

(more…)

not to be confused with Manlio’s birthday (observed), which will be later this week.

Friday was my 29th birthday. I celebrated by working from home. The really great thing about working from home is i can take as many personal phone calls as I want, and there were plenty to take. It was great to hear from everyone, it’s touching that you all remembered and it was great to catch everyone up on my recent SF adventures.

Friday night Sean came over and we watched Wednesday’s Lost. i have to say, the new season of television has become a very dangerous temptation for me. I don’t know what the actual numbers are, but i would wager that i now spend about 30-40 hours a week with the television on. Some of that time i’m actually at the computer working or doing something else, but for a lot of it I’m not. I need to find another hobby. can you imagine if i spent 40 hours a week drumming? i’d already be awesome. maybe i need to find a drumming television channel.

in any event, after Lost we (micah, sean, and myself) went downtown to meet up with Ali, Willo, Aubrey, and Chris to check out a band called CSS. i figured any band named after a method of editing web pages had to be pretty cool, and they totally were. If you’ve never heard of CSS, go check them out, I texted a bunch of you about them on friday, and you know how seldomly i get excited about new bands.

Post show we had a few more drinks (micah left early due to epic drunkenness), and then grabbed some late nite pizza, and then i think we stood in the pizza place talking loudly for a half hour about something totally random that i can’t remember.

Saturday I tried to stay in but Sean convinced me to dress up and come out for this huge mansion party in the mission. I reprised Super Mario from last year (Scott/Luigi, wither thou?), and headed out, only to have to wait in line for a half hour. the house was pretty cool, old school mansion decked out pretty well as a haunted house. and there were a ton of people there. we stayed for a few hours, met up with Ali, Aubrey, and Ryan, and then left and spent like a half hour looking for a cab while Ali walked around in her stockings and kept talking about food, and i tried to convince them we should find the internet and rent a zipcar, cause clearly i was sober enough to drive on halloween.

Sunday I watched football, coded flash, talked to people on the phone (if anyone has any good ideas about career counseling (not for me), i would be interested in hearing them), and generally was lazy. I also did a little but not much better with my weekend diet struggle. Today I’m going to start working out again now that the swelling has gone down in my left foot. so tomorrow i will be sore.

oooook… so, here’s what we did this weekend

Friday i worked from home, which i hope to start doing regularly on fridays, because it’s awesome. Nick, my old friend from Australia was in town that weekend because the band he manages (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah) was playing on friday night. So i met him and some of his various friends for dinner, and then went to the show. Nick dissappeared backstage, so i hung out till Micah got there, and we proceeded to get somewhat drunk… and by “somewhat” i mean, we drank for 3 hours straight. Clap Your Hands was very good.

From there, we proceeded to Ali’s Rocktoberfest party. The idea was that we were supposed to dress up like rockstars, but i don’t fit into my goth rock clothes anymore and i didn’t have time during the week to find another outfit. thankfully no one really seemed to care. Ali’s party was of course fun, because Ali’s a rockstar. We left said party slightly less sober than when we arrived. Looong day. btw, best costume has to go to the woman dressed up in a leotard as Karen O, though Hez came in a close second. in fact, let’s call it a tie.

Saturday I awoke, briefly considered calling in sick to guitar lessons (how lame is that?), but decided to carry on. Guitar lessons are going ok, but my teacher tends to just talk at me for 45 minutes about his theories on fretboard geometry and patterns. Granted, he’s got some really cool ideas, but i feel like i never get a chance to play. I suppose in theory that’s what “practicing” is for. hmm…

From there I ran some errands and went over to Jay’s place to check out SF Oktoberfest. Jay is a buddy from college, we lived in NY for 5 years and never once got together except when our mutual friend frank was in town. So it was good to see him, and i’m shocked we managed to cope with actually making plans and hanging out. I figure everything after this is cake.

Oktoberfest in SF, i have one piece of advice for you: “don’t try to create your own economy”. you see, in order to get beer at oktoberfest, you need tokens. so you stand in line for a half hour at one of the 3 token stands in this huge hall, get tokens, get a few beers, run out of tokens, and repeat. at one point i was in line for maybe 40 minutes, and this happens:

token lady: “we’ve run out of tokens. i only have a few left”.
Everyone: “argh!”
token lady (to the customer next to me) :”do you want the last 8 tokens?”
drunken customer: “no! I want 10!”
token lady: “well, i only have 8. do you want them?”
drunken customer: “no, fuck that!”
me: “um… I’ll take them”
token lady: “here you go”

I have no idea what that guy was thinking. he then waited for at least 10 more minutes for tokens while i ran away 8 tokens richer. It was just enough for one more beer and sausages for both of us. sweet.

From there i raced home and showered and changed for my crab dinner with Ron and friends. I’ve eaten a lot of lobster in my day (A LOT), but i’ve never had whole crabs. it’s a little like lobster, except the meat is in smaller places and generally harder to get to. and you have to avoid the crab poo, bone, and other fun stuff. I liked it, working for your food has a certain appeal. but man, now i’m hungry for lobster. i wonder how mom feels about lobster for thanksgiving…

sunday i did very little, just as it should be. whew!

i know, i’ve been bad about posting. what can i say? since i stopped going out every night of the week, life is slightly more boring.

anyways, here’s what’s going on:

1. theatre piece. i’ll post more about this later. this weekend and next, shoudl be pretty decent. if you’re in SF come on by.

2. alex/karen in town this weekend. i think maybe we’re going to napa. whether or not that’s a good idea remains to be seen, given that i’ll be driving and i like to drink. if anyone has napa recs, i’d love to hear them

3. there’s other stuff, i just can’t think of it right now and i have to get off the wifi bus…

UPDATE: next morning

4. ok, so i’m very hungover this morning. last night we had bar trivia, which we won, cause when you bring 8 people to bar trivia, you’re usually pretty covered. honestly i think we could have done it with 5 of us, though i will avoid mentioning which 5.

5. and then it was Alice/Harry/Sean/Debbie’s ‘welcome to sf’ party. i drank a lot and got to finally catch up a bit with alex without all the dball talk. Harry got his laptop stolen, and danah boyd and i discussed why she’s a rockstar (conclusion: because she’s danah boyd and fastcompany photographs her on motorcycles with laptops). there are photos of this (the party), i’m going to steal borrow them from willo as soon as she posts them.

update: ok here,

willo titled this: “me, manlio, and cutie dodgeball alex”. i take this to mean that i am not cute. i will cry now

6. this week i missed my 5:30am bootcamp twice and counting. i think i will make it tomorrow. it is hard to get up at 5:30. when i told harry what i was doing, he gave me the same look i would expect if i had told him that i sometimes strangle kittens while covered in baby oil.

7. work is ok. watching people use the products i design is alternatively wonderful and the most frustrating thing in the world. i think if you can’t figure out how to type your user name into a text field, you shouldn’t be allowed to own a computer.

8. i think that’s everything. oh wait, michelle gave me a wicker clamshell chair for my room, which is now way too crowded and i may need to rearrange. but it’s awesome. it’s a new level of laziness.

So, as promised on friday, i went to see Katie perform that night. She did a smashing job, as always, even though most of the people who sat and watched her were also friends of hers in SF who came specifically to see her.

The crew from the venue mostly talked loudly outside, including one woman who was apparently so excited at being given some sort of book for a present that she repeatedly YELLED: “you’re giving this to me? are you serious?”. She maybe said this 500 times.

And there was the woman who was getting a back rub during one of katie’s songs. i’m not sure what her dress was made out of, but given all the noise that it made when being massaged, i’m guessing sandpaper. if the dude rubbing her back had decided to somehow do it in rhythm to the song, i think it would have been pretty cool. alas, he did not.

But katie’s show was great for those of us who were actually there to listen to her. afterwards we went out to the mission and then to a lesbian bar in bernal heights, where a woman complimented my shirt and asked me where i got it, and i replied honestly: “umm… i think i got this at the Gap”. that was apparently the wrong answer.

other things i did this weekend included playing softball, playing DS Lite, and playing with Carmen

so, saturday night was Sean’s surprise party. i have never taken part in a successful surprise party, either as the subject (ahem, thanks to micah) or a participant. In any event, I met up with some of the CMU AEP mafia for dinner beforehand. for those of you who don’t live out here, most of the people that i’ve met went to college at Carnegie Mellon. i can’t decide if it’s a freak coincidence or if most of CMU just heads out here after graduation, but i’m talking like 75% of people are from CMU, and while most of them know each other, there’s enough that don’t to make it super odd.

anyways, from there we went to hemlock Tavern, which i think has become my official favorite bar in SF, although the Page wins points for being walking distance to my house and having a free foosball table. Regardless, Hemlock is great. It’s a lot like McLinchey’s in philly, except much bigger and with less 60 year old irish men there.

So sean showed up, we surprised him, he was excited, and everyone proceeded to get trashed. after last call we went back to sean’s apt for more drinks. i have very little idea how i got home. i must have wandered out and found a cab, cause i got dropped off pretty close to my apt. I also may have thrown up somewhere between getting out of the cab and getting to my apt. so if you live near me in SF (like, somewhere on page st.), and there was vomit anywhere around your place on sunday morning, i’m very very sorry and i will make amends if you come find me.

i think there is one picture of this night, but someone else has it. if i ever find it, i’ll post it…

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!

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

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