Have you ever felt your life is changing way faster than you can keep up? That everything you knew, all the little tidbits and assumptions that compose “your reality” do not hold true anymore? Have you then started your way to the huge box of antiacid you keep hidden in your closet (admit it) and suddenly realized that you’re not actually hung over?

Welcome to my world.

At one point in the past two weeks I accepted a job at San Francisco based slide.com. I’ll be working alongside Johnnie Manzari in this Max Levchin startup on the design and web development side of things. I’ll be blogging more about the product (which has a lot of potential) in the near future.

Needless to say, I’m very excited to be joining this venture. I have met all the guys involved in the company, and one couldn’t ask more of a development team. They are all very motivated, highly experienced individuals.

I’ll be moving to San Francisco shortly, and I could use some help finding a nice apartment near public transportation. I’m also one hell of a roommate (feel free to construe that as you like), so if you’re looking, do drop me a line.

— sergio at 02:35 AM     TrackBack (0)

La red de 9 rules se abre a la comunidad hispano parlante con una nueva ronda de propuestas de sitios, esta vez para la comunidad en español.

Tengo que decir que pienso que esta es una gran oportunidad, o Scrivs va a asesinar a mi perro y obligarme a verlo bailar durante dos horas la próxima vez que esté en Estados Unidos. Puedo vivir sin Fido, pero el prospecto de arrancarme los ojos con mis propios pulgares no es particularmente atractivo, ergo…

¡¡Esta es una *GRAN* oportunidad!!”

There, now that’s out of the way, I’ll just assume since you’re here, you speak english, so we’ll continue in this fashion. Basically, the idea is to open up the 9rules offer to the spanish speaking blogosphere (don’t you hate these made up words?).

Although it may seem that the benefit of entering into this offer is just higher visibility and a decent boost in traffic, let me assure you that is not the case.

In truth, all 9rules members get together twice a year to get thousand dollar-hookers and colossal amounts of booze and share the enormous wealth that our secret sponsors get for us. Then we worship Paul like the hateful and resentful internet demigod he is.

There is also, of course, the matter of professional community, networking and general laid back environment of cooperation. I have gotten more out of this aspect of 9rules than any other, and I assure you it does not disappoint. There’s far more interesting stuff going on in the private 9rules fori than what you see from outside.

That, and the hookers.

I’m going to be involved heavily in this new venture, being that I possess the occult power of *Spanish*. The 24 hour submission round starts September 2 at 12am EST.

I’d also like to state here, for the public knowledge, that I’m not posting this under the influence of coercion, duress or general harassment out of any person, and particularly not from one Paul Scrivens, 9rules CEO, who happens to be a very nice person who does not eat kittens or pester network members at all.

— sergio at 04:44 PM     TrackBack (0)

Yesterday, as I sat on my chair in laconic rumination of the latest life developments, it struck me that, on occasion —oft times even, I daresay— I have been rather gaudy in my writing.

Oddly enough, this is a praxis rarely impressed upon my writing in Spanish. When I write in Spanish, I’m completely straightforward and avoid using big fat words with lots of letters if at all possible. This is not something I forego for want of verbiage, mind you. In reality, I do this because I hold a deeply entrenched belief that people who write that way ARE ASSHOLES.

Have you ever crossed paths with someone like that? A person who can, single handedly, manage to insert words like “clepsydra”, “rubric” and “panopticon” into conversations about the weather? They’re horrible, horrible people. And they smell.

So, why do I do it when I write in English? I’m not sure. Part of it may be that I don’t actually hear myself speaking english very often. Another part is that it allows me to become more intimate with the language. Also, I’m usually learning new words all the time, or freshening up on the true meaning of words I’m not sure about. There’s also the perennial devotion I profess to a very simple site: dictionary.reference.com and its sister site, thesaurus.reference.com

These two stand prominently among my Firefox Quick Search items. Whenever I’m discussing blueberry stuffed pilot monkeys and I start to wax poetic, you can bet I’ve been hard at work typing stuff like:

thes spiel”

That said, the next time I write something like “A gossamer sheet of vapid torpor had established permanent residence in front of my retinae”, kick me hard, please. In the balls. I deserve it.

— sergio at 10:09 AM     TrackBack (0)

Night fell, and all around us the woods started to come alive. As the temperature dropped below zero, our usual lack of planning took a poignant turn: We still had about a hundred beers, five wine bottles, two pitchers of vodka…

And three sleeping bags.

For ten people.

At first it was funny, in the way that an ulcer of the colon tends to be funny. We shared a few more drinks and laughed about the whole thing.

Then it was cold.

Then our teeth started to chatter, our hands to tremble and we began to have trouble articulating coherent sentences (ok, that was the alcohol). The first few to break formation made a mad dash for the car. It would normally fit 5 people, tops, but seven guys and girls managed to squeeze in. That left Lydia, Ramon and me. We stared at each other for a while, and then Lydia and me tentatively grabbed two sleeping bags and slowly backed away from Ramon’s resentful stare.

Lydia and me were not involved in any way, so we made an honest attempt at sleeping in our respective bags, but we were still freezing our asses off, so it was decided that we would use one of the bags as a blanket and huddle together inside the other one.

What? It was a matter of survival!

We spooned together inside the sleeping bag. You have to understand, there was nothing sexual to this situation. This was more akin to that scene in “Empire” where Luke cuts up his camel thing and sleeps in its entrails. Only, you know… with less entrails. And more boobs. Which brings us to…

- Sergio?
- Yeah?
- You’re grabbing my tit.
- Am I?
- Yeah.
- mmm… no, I’m pretty sure this is your belly.
- No, you’re grabbing my tit. Stop it.
- I’m not grabbing your tit. You’re drunk.
- I think I’m qualified to know where my tits are. And you’re grabbing my tit. — By this point I just wanted to sleep, so I did the only thing I could.
- THIS is your tit!
- Ohmygod!! You grabbed my tit! Hey everyone! He grabbed my tit! Sergio grabbed my tit!!

The rest of the guys, being piss drunk and freezing, were not in the mood for lenghty discussions, so they just shouted from the car.

- Sergio, did you grab her tit?
- Um… yeah… just did.
- Left one or right one?
- Right one.
- Good! Now grab the other one and play bounce or something, if that will shut up the both of you! We’re trying to sleep here, assholes!

We giggled non-stop for the rest of the night.

— sergio at 12:58 AM     TrackBack (0)