Manlio Rules » stuff

summer in SF

manlio — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:37:45 +0000

I was talking to a potential SF citizen last night on the phone, and he asked me to sum up the pros and cons of living out here vs the east coast. I said the following:

Pros (for me): Weather, Outdoors, Tech Careers
Cons: Public Transportation, Cost, Distance

I think this is a bit of a tired topic, but that’s basically the trade-off for me. Recently i’ve accepted that i’ll probably be here for awhile, or at the very least I have no plans to move. Of course, the last time I said something like that, it was about my car and the transmission died 2 weeks later.

Also, electronic drum kit! tap-tap-tap-boom!

drudgery

manlio — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 20:31:26 +0000

I have absolutely nothing to say. I work. I sleep (too much). I try to make it to the gym. I play drums loudly and with fierce passion. This is my life. It’s easily in the top 1% of lives worldwide, of this I am absolutely positive. And sometimes I get bored and think about what it would be like to do something totally different, and then after awhile I go back to working, sleeping, and drumming.

finally

manlio — Fri, 28 May 2010 16:38:51 +0000

from http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Location+bar+autocomplete#Removing_autocomplete_results

i’ve been looking for this for a long time. my work computer always ends up with a myriad of sports and geek BS on it. it’s terrible when my boss or a co-worker is looking over my shoulder, tells me to launch a browser, and as i type in the address, the wikipedia entry for “Tomax and Xamot” comes up as a suggestion. Now i can geek out in glorious secrecy.

the joy of drumming

manlio — Sat, 15 May 2010 00:27:31 +0000

I’ve been a musician for over 2/3 of my life. I’ve switched around instruments, and at one time or another have had a basic to moderate proficiency in the cello, guitar, piano, bass, and i can even sing a little bit.

About 10 years ago, when i was living in Philadelphia, i decided i wanted to start playing the drums. I got my brother’s old kit from high school and moved it to my basement in center city. I even got pretty good. But i was only in Philly for 4-5 months, and when i moved to NY there was no place for it, so i handed it over to my mom, went back to bass guitar, and sort of forgot about it.

When I moved to San Francisco 4 years ago, somewhat devoid of social contacts, i took up the drums again. I bought an electronic kit, put it in my room, and started practicing. Even took maybe 5-6 lessons from a guy out in the sunset. over 2-3 months, i regained my previous skills and got a bit better, but as i had more of a social life, drums once again fell back.

And, about two months ago, after doing a few gigs with my rudimentary drum skills, i decided to get serious about it. I began taking lessons two days a week, bought a kit for the rehearsal space, and i play drums maybe 3-4 days a week, either for band practice or by myself.

the odd thing is that while i always liked playing drums, this time I’m really enjoying myself. I feel myself connected to the music in a way that i haven’t felt on the guitar since i left new york. I leave my lessons and i keep tapping out beats. I work on my rudiments when i’m sitting on the bus. It’s quite awesome.

I”m not sure what the lesson learned here is, other than I’ve found that focusing on drums and only drums has been a key part of the learning process. Though I enjoy being a generalist, i think that there’s something to be said for high intensity immersion in a skill, especially when starting out. It’s very rewarding to watch myself get noticeably better in a short period of time, and while i know that a plateau will occur eventually, it’s great to be on the upward curve for now.

so, if there’s something you want to do, find a month or two, clear your schedule and do it.

poll test

manlio — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 19:59:39 +0000

The bottle song

manlio — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 18:35:05 +0000

I have been thinking for awhile about doing a music project where i see what kinds of sounds i can get out of different objects, try to create songs using nothing but just the sounds from an item. it’s not a particularly new idea, but it still appeals to me. I’ll be posting them as I make them and hopefully by the end i’ll have a full album which people can download. these are generally intended to be quick sketches, i think this one took me maybe an hour of recording and writing time. enjoy!

bottlesong

Some advice for job seekers out there

manlio — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:14:50 +0000

I am currently trying to fill a role for a illustrator for my company. I posted an ad on craigslist and received a ton of resumes and portfolios. well, not a ton, maybe like 15 in the first day. His my advice to job seekers based on these resumes.

1. don’t just send me your resume with a link to the job description. at least say hello and introduce yourself.
2. I don’t care what format your resume is in, but Rich Text Fomat? Really?
3. If you send me a .pdf of your work samples, something under 50mb would be nice.
4. Your portfolio should have a title. it goes in the “title” tag in the header. Acceptable titles include: your name, “portfolio”, “your name’s portfolio”, some other random site name you made up like “3superwebvision”, or some combination of the above. Unacceptable titles include: “index”, “index2″, “mysite.html”, or “this site created by microsoft FrontPage”.
5. If i’m looking for a Flash designer, and Flash Designer is in both the title of the position and mentioned as the number one software requirement, please don’t send me a portfolio with NO FLASH SAMPLES.

Less obnoxious but still

1. If you send me a link to your flash portfolio, try and make sure that there aren’t a ton of scripting errors on it, causing my debugger to pop up repeatedly. I should admit that i may have some of these on my site, and i sure see them a lot on professional websites, so i’m sympathetic to this one, but still.
2. Try to mention the company name at least once in your email or show me some sign that you read the job description and maybe even went to the web page. i know it’s tough when you’re applying to a ton of jobs but still.
3. If you do mention the company name, double check to make sure you spelled it right.

embed calendar test

manlio — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 01:50:03 +0000

Theres an ‘up in the air’ pun here but i cant quite find it

manlio — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:47:34 +0000

Seriously I like nothing about the life of the business traveler. I don’t like to fly, I don’t like talking to random people at hotel bars, I get easily confused in rental cars and all things being equal I would take my own bed and a 10am wakeup time over a freshly made hotel bed and an alarm for 6. And this seems pretty obvious to me. The one thing I love about business travel is the corporate card. Colleagues drive free, expenses get paid, and I can feel like a big shot expensing hotel Internet so I can set up the demo before bed and check into my flight.

The hell that is winter driving

manlio — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 01:36:30 +0000

Over the past four winters, I have driven over 10000 miles back and forth to lake tahoe. Here are some things I’ve learned:

1. Everyone just wants to get there safely, except for the people in huge pickup trucks, who just want to get there as fast as possible and give you the finger if you drop below 50mph, even in a blizzard.

2. When in doubt, chain up.

3. Make sure the first time you put the chains on isn’t also the first time you need them. In other words, practice.

4. white smoke out the exhaust is bad. Stop immediately and find a shop.

5. Traffic on the way? Bad. Traffic on the way back? Unbearable.

6. Tahoe is tough on cars. If you love your car and can’t bear a scratch on it, rent one you care less about.

7. If your car gets stuck in the snow, put it in a low gear, get outside, and gently rock it back and forth, only pushing the gas when the car is going forward. This is easier with more people.

8. Which reminds me, don’t drive alone in bad weather on mountains.

9. If you get a chance in a snow filled empty parking lot, practice quick turns and stops. Useful AND fun.