Thursday, December 27, 2007

Cover Letters and the Human Response

I officially hate cover letters. I don’t care if they’re a necessary evil, I can still hate them. At its core, the average cover letter always says the same thing.

“Dear firm X,


It’s been my lifelong dream to work at firm X, ever since I found out you hire at my school and everyone else wants to work for you. Wisdom of crowds right? I’m not sure exactly what your company does, management banking? investment consulting? whatever, as long as it completely both satisfies me personally and pays me a shitload of money. Oh, and gives me a good work-life balance, so maybe like 40 hours a week? I know that your firm will do this, because you’re totally awesome, probably for reasons you posted on your web site or mentioned in your job posting.


Did I mention that I am the most awesome person ever? In case you were totally oblivious, I go to business school, which is like a really big deal. Yeah, we can’t tell you what our grades are, but trust me, I’ve learned a lot and could probably run your company in like 2 weeks. I know I don’t exactly have direct experience doing what your firm does, but I totally have tons of transferable skills. I beat Minesweeper advanced in less than 2 minutes and can keep like 5 internet explorer windows going at once.


In conclusion, I’m sure that if you hire me, I would be the single greatest business addition since that cheese that goes inside the pizza crust. If you need your paradigms shifted, then look no further. In fact, if you don’t hire me, I guarantee that you will suffer tremendously, and then cease to exist, because I will have joined a competitor, and vanquished you mightily. Keep that in mind.


Sincerely,

the most awesomest candidate ever”

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Break

It’s been a while since my last post, and I figured that since I’m on winter break, I really had no excuse for not writing anything.

Finals ended about a week and a half ago, although I spent the next week in the San Francisco and LA areas visiting companies to explore potential internship opportunities. Now with all that done, I’m visiting back home and looking for ways to keep busy.

It’s weird, given how busy I was during the first three months of the school year. Now I’ve got no readings to do or tests to study for, and I don’t have any recruiting events either, so I’m kind of just sitting around.

The west coast trip was really good by the way. Got a chance to visit a bunch of very interesting companies (some of which may actually hire MBAs this summer). One of the high points had to be hearing from the director of new business development at a major gaming company. A guy with the responsibility of finding and acquiring new video games. Talk about a sweet job.

It was good to see, and a lot of the companies were definitely interesting, but I’m still pretty dead set on consulting as my primary recruiting target.

Given that, I guess I could start prepping for potential interviews.

For those who don’t know, the consulting firms that recruit on campus put their candidates through what is known as a ‘case interview.’

The interview will have its share of normal questions (walk me through your resume, tell me about a time when you were awesome, tell me about a time when you were on a team that wasn’t awesome, etc.), but there’s also this case portion.

Basically, you’re given an open-ended business-related problem and generally allowed to go through it and analyze the situation. Essentially, through the process of laying out your internal thought process and asking the interviewer good questions, a candidate will display whether or not he/she has the capabilities to be a good consultant.

It seems relatively straight-forward. Although I think so many people get worked up about it that they completely forget about the more traditional part of the interview and are left stammering when they ask why you chose to go to business school.

Anyway I have that to work on. Thus far I’ve just read over a couple cases and tried to see what kinds of questions I should be asking and how responses should be structured.

Of course, I can’t do that all day…interviews don’t even start until mid-january, so it’s not like I’ve got a deadline coming up. And this all assumes I get invited to interview with some of these firms, which is certainly not a given.

The way that works, is that each firm has a certain number of interview slots for GSB students when they visit campus. A majority of these slots are ‘invitational’ slots, which means exactly what you think. The firms go through applications and resumes and invite students to interview. A smaller portion of slots are ‘open’ slots, and are available to all non-invited students to bid on. But you only get 1000 points to bid for the entire year, so you need to carefully consider what you’re willing to spend.

I really don’t want to have to bid for interviews, at least with the firms I really want to interview with.

But there are only so many slots, and so many great resumes out there.

We’ll see what happens…

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Healthcare in this country is crazy

I only have a couple minutes before my next thing to do, but I needed to post this story before I forget it.

I've always thought the whole healthcare industry in this country is completely insane. I've always had insurance, luckily, but any kind of interaction with the healthcare system has always left me confused/angry. And the way I figure it, I'm a reasonably intelligent person who only has to worry about himself...how much worse must it be for senior citizens, or people with tons of family obligations that leave them with even less free time than I have?

So what incident got me thinking about this stuff again? I went home for Thanksgiving this past week (which was good btw) and found I had a couple letters from Aetna. I had Aetna coverage as part of both of my pre-B-School jobs, and now here in Chicago.

So I open these letters, and each of them have information regarding healthcare claims made on my policy. These claims were processed a couple weeks ago, but the dates of service were in November and December of 2006, respectively.

The items they listed looked relatively standard, a US exam on one, and a series of normal blood tests on the other. The provider was listed as some fund in California, which seemed odd. Then there was the part where they said I owed them over $1200 for those services, because they were both out-of-network and because my coverage had been terminated before the services were rendered.

Whoa....

I fixated on the $1200 part, not even really thinking about the California element. I was livid, convinced Aetna was actively trying to go out of its way to screw me over. I've never had an insurance company make a mistake that accidently gave me more money than I deserved.

Anyway...since it was Thanksgiving, they weren't open to receive customer calls. They weren't open on Friday, or over the weekend either.

OK, so I got back to Chicago on Sunday night, and called them first thing on Monday.

The first Aetna rep I spoke with didn't quite understand what I was saying. I tried to tell him I hadn't been to a doctor for bloodwork in that time, but he didn't seem convinced. He suggested I call up my doctor's office and see what the deal was. Fine, so I called my most recent doctor and asked what the deal was with this extra $1200 in charges. They had no idea what I was talking about, because as far as they were concerned, everything was taken care of and no one owed anyone anything.

Hmmm.....let's try Aetna again...

New representative this time, maybe she would be more helpful. And this time, I was armed with some advice from the receptionist at my old doctor, who said, 'That sucks for you, make sure you document exactly who you speak to and what they say and get confirmation for everything, because they'll try and screw you.'

Good words from a healthcare industry professional.

So I'm talking to the Aetna rep, and I tell her that I'm confused, because I don't recognize the provider or the services.

She goes to get more information on the claims.

"It's for a Dr. Chien in California." she said.

"I've never even BEEN to California!" I said, which is a bit of an stretch, but realistically, I've never seen a freaking doctor in California.

"Can you get more information on the actual procedures?" I asked

"Sure, please hold" she said

I waited for a while, then she came back on the line.

"The first one was an ultrasound and a uterus exam"

Needless to say...I felt as though someone at Aetna should've been a little more on the ball before billing me for this stuff. Like maybe just looking at the file and noticing....'hey, this is a guy, he probably isn't having any ultrasounds done on him'

So with my gender as proof, the Aetna rep agreed to void the claim and work back to see who actually received the services. It didn't help that the doctor's phone line was disconnected (shocking, for someone who clearly doesn't run an efficient operation).

But they've assured me they'll take care of it....we'll see

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Zombies

I decided to take a break from plotting an elaborate revenge fantasy against my cable provider to post another update of the goings on around here.

Last night we had our awards ceremony for the cohort films. So the class is divided into 8 groups called cohorts, and each one makes a film about the school in some way, and they get judged. We got to see the five finalists for best film last night before the award was announced, and I was amazed at the high quality across the board. Apparently, we’ve got many more creatively talented people than I would’ve guessed for a school with a number-cruncher reputation.

They were all really good, it’s too bad only one could win.

But I’m glad that ours did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QNE3qxAsoA

That’s a link to our film, winner of the 2007 Golden Gargoyle for Best Film (also winning for Best Actor and Best Dance Sequence). And since the Writers’ Strike has killed a lot of good new television, you probably need something cool to watch anyway.

If you focused really really hard, you might be able to see me in a very bit part. But you probably won’t, and that’s fine by me. I focused most of my time and energy on collaborating with the directors to create the story. Without spoiling the surprise for those who haven’t seen it, it’s a zombie movie, and it’s pretty darn awesome.

Of course there’s been other stuff going on here apart from movie-making. I competed in another case competition yesterday morning, and continued my tradition of playing the role of bridesmaid (without the dress).

So in my first case competition, the judges didn’t select us to advance to the finals, but told us they really liked what we did and that we were the last team eliminated.

I hoped this one would go better, and was looking forward to it because it was asking us to create a growth strategy for a real company, and required us to actually present it to a panel of real consultants. The last competition didn’t require a presentation.

So our team plotted our strategy, made the slides, and presented yesterday morning. And like last time, we didn’t get selected as one of the three finalists. But I talked to two of the four judges from our presentation, and they both had identical things to say;

‘We thought your presentation was fantastic’

‘You were really creative and insightful’

‘You explained things in a phased approach which clients like’

‘You actually addressed issues that most of the groups largely ignored’

‘If you had put any kind of quantitative numbers in at all as for projections, we would’ve put you through’

Our group didn’t project revenues or costs of our strategies, mainly because we had no information to base it on. Our thought process (and our critical mistake) was that it would be better to keep it qualitative as opposed to making a bunch of crazy assumptions for numbers.
So that was a little disappointing, but it was still a really good experience and a good opportunity to actually present something.

Now that’s it’s over, I actually have some time to do some other stuff, you know, like reading for classes.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

I've been parodied...or something

So I saw this video posted as a response to my Kebert Xela video...I'm really not too sure what it is, but I thought it was pretty funny to see myself turned into some kind of cartoon character.

YouTube - eMax - Jeopardy

In other news, school's been pretty darn busy now that recruiting has started.

The good thing is that midterms are over (and they went pretty well with relatively little stress), so recruiting has taken on most of my time.

I did also spend a bunch of time on this presentation as part of a case competition. Basically, a consulting firm sponsored a competition where groups of students formed consulting teams and were given the same hypothetical business problem to solve. It was good to interview a bunch of role-players and get the information. It wasn't as much fun to actually put it all together in a presentation, but we put some serious effort into it.

There were 15 teams, and apparently we came in 6th...which wouldn't have been so bad, except only the top 5 teams made the finals and got to actually present their findings. (of course presenting involved starting at 8 this morning, so there's a silver lining in missing out I guess)

It was a pretty good experience, and I'm interested to see how the next one (next week) goes. I figure I'll try to do as many as possible and try to work with as many different people as possible. That'll have to be helpful.

The recruiting stuff has been pretty much what I expected, although I never really knew what it was like to have companies actually interested in hiring you. Coming out of PSU in one of the worst hiring markets since the depression, let's just say the firms weren't banging down our door. Now it's almost the opposite, there are so many firms competing for your attention, and it's up to each one of us to figure out how to best allocate our time.

I still haven't figured out what the optimal mix is, but I feel like I'm getting better at telling my story and asking good questions. Of course, we won't really know until the winter when I find out if I succeed in getting interviews or not.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

And They're Off

This past Monday, firms from all industries and all locations could begin official the on-campus recruiting of first-year Chicago GSB students.

Tons of firms, lots of which you've heard of, and none of which I'll mention specifically on the off-chance they stumble across this corner of the blogosphere.

This all means I have a bunch of additional things I want to do, and I've now reached the conclusion that I actually have negative free time.

My DVR is slowly gorging itself on all the shows I haven't watched, and lots of the songs on my winamp playlist now seem strange and unfamiliar. Poor YouTube may kill itself because I've gone days without looking for videos of idiots hurting themselves.

Even my blackberry is begging me to go into I-banking for the summer so it'll get a little break from all the MBA emails.

But it's kind of nice to be busy, and don't tell anyone, but I'm kind of liking it.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

More Banking Troubles

At this point I feel like I'll never actually have my Jeopardy money thanks to terrible banks and their policies.

Last I left off, I had my whole terrible ordeal with Citibank, who eventually closed my account and mailed me a check for my Jeopardy winnings and the other cash I had put there (total over 32k)

They mailed me the check on October 22nd, and it arrived on October 27th (does this seem a little odd to anyone else?)

Anyway, this morning I finally went to put it in my PNC bank account. Now PNC has no branches anywhere near this state, but I figured the irony of depositing it to PNC through a Citibank ATM would be good.

So I take my 32k check and go to the ATM

DEPOSIT DENIED - EXCEEDS ACCOUNT LIMIT

Argh

I was all alone in the Chicago pedway, and actually screamed that I would never get this money.

So I called PNC, and the rep told me that you can never deposit over 30 grand at an ATM (over 30 grand, like my jeopardy winnings + the cash I wanted to have in the Citi account)

Can't do it at an ATM, you need to go to a branch

A branch that doesn't exist in this time zone

I'm almost ready to cry at this point, I just want my money

Now the PNC guy explained that I could do banking by mail. I just send the checks and a letter to this address and it should get taken care of.

SHOULD

But the address is this long complicated mess, Mail Stop F6-F166-02-C at the 'Miscellaneous Account Services Department' in Philadelphia.

Does anyone really think that if I do send my giant check to this place, that it will actually end up in my bank account???

It'll be another game of 'Let's See How Jared's Bank Can Screw Him Over With Ridiculous Policies'

I can't wait

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Boston Fans Suck

I'm now actively trying to avoid all forms of major sports media because it's too damn frustrating

Not only have the Philadelphia teams been totally sucking (Phillies swept in playoffs, Eagles just terrible, Flyers have been good but since only a couple of us care I'm not sure they count), but everything keeps going right for those Boston jerks.

I used to identify with those jerks and even rooted for them on occasions. I liked that we shared common bonds of sports futility and a hatred of New York.

Now they're the assholes, with their Red Sox and Patriots.

I had no problem when they were losing, now that they're winning, the media can't stop themselves from fawning all over their greatness.

Did you know that the New England Patriots are the best team ever?

Did you know that Tom Brady is the supremest quarterback in the history of the ever-expanding universe???

Since you can't possibly escape all the Patriots = Football gods BS, I really just can't bear to watch any NFL stuff anymore.

Those freaking Patriots, not only do they cheat (which everyone in the media seems to have forgotten), not only do they feature at least one HGH-all star, but they're also a bunch of complete losers with no sportsmanship.

I'm not a Dolphins fan, but they played the Patriots on Sunday. The Dolphins haven't won a game all year, they're pretty terrible. Yet, that didn't stop the Patriots from running a fake spike when they were ahead by 28 points. For those who don't know, football teams will often spike the ball to stop the clock. A fake spike is a trick play designed to trick the defense into being caught flat footed.

Of course, it's almost exclusively used by teams that are behind and desperately trying to catch up, not by teams with a four touchdown lead.

They remind me like some kind of arch-nemesis for the NFL, like I wouldn't be surprised if they went up to the Dolphins water boy and swirled him in the toilet after the game.

But if there's any karma out there, it's dark clouds ahead for those assholes.

(Maybe like if Tom Brady had an illegitimate kid...oh wait)

Friday, October 19, 2007

Goings On

A lot of stuff happening this week, so I'll stick to the highlights...

- Had my first Chicago hailstorm yesterday, although I don't know if that'll be like a regular thing. It kind of just blew in right around the time I was looking to leave the GSB. It was kind of biblical, the sky got completely dark, ice pellets rained from the sky furiously for like 5-10 minutes, and then it kind of cleared up...weird

- If any future Chicago GSB students are reading (which I guess is possible as I get closer to 1000 hits...who the heck is reading this anyway?) , my one piece of advice is this. Don't take 8:30am classes on Friday morning. I have statistics, and while I like the class and the professor's great, it completely messes up Thursday night when most of the other GSB students are getting obliterated. It's not fun to have to leave the bar at 1am to learn about discrete random variables the next day. Never again.

- I volunteered to help out with admissions events, and was really excited when the assignments came out because I was hoping to get something like giving building tours or speaking at an information session. Nope. I get to escort students to classes, which isn't really much involvement with applicants. And what's more, I get to escort them to the 8:30 Friday morning classes (shockingly, I'm figuring not a lot of other people could pull off that shift). That's pretty weak.

- With that said, I picked up my first applicant building tour when someone else had a conflict. I'll be giving my first tour next Tuesday, should be a good time (or it could go horrendously, hard to say what's more likely at this point)

- The Flyers are apparently amazing now, after like their worst year in franchise history last year. WTF? I mean I'm happy that they're back on track, but I have no idea what's going on being half a country away.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Citibank Sucks

Ok, for those who don't know, I keep an internal list of large corporations that have wronged me in some way. I've realized that complaining does absolutely nothing to solve problems (except for the potential opportunity to get free products/services from said companies, which just gives them another chance to screw up) so I just blacklist them from getting any of my money, forever.

Citibank, welcome to the blacklist. Take a seat between Enterprise Rent-a-Car and MetLife.

So why am I so pissed at these guys? Well, it all started when I moved out to Chicago.

After a couple of ATM withdrawls with my PNC bank card and some surcharges, I resolved to get a new bank account for spending money. I wanted to go with a national bank, someone with lots of ATMs, and I figured, a reasonably easy process. Citibank has an ATM in the basement of my building and one out at school, a natural fit right?

So I went online and signed up for a free checking account. No hassles, just some online forms and my initial deposit from my PNC account. I could expect to receive my new debit card in the mail soon.

Great right???

Well, so I got my debit card a little while later, and got all excited. Not only did I have a new ATM card (and would avoid fees) but I also got my Jeopardy prize check in the mail. All that money, and a new bank to put it in.

So I went to the nearest Citibank. Inserted my ATM card (which said it only needed to be put in an ATM to be activated) and had no problem depositing my Jeopardy monies.

Now just a quick withdrawl...

ERROR MESSAGE

Hmm...let's try that again...

ERROR MESSAGE

What the hell??? I just deposited a ton of money with this card, but I can't take out any money?

YOUR EMOTIONS ARE POINTLESS...ATMs DO NOT FEEL SYMPATHY

Ok, this seemed not too unusual, maybe there was a problem activating my card. I picked up the phone next to the ATM to contact customer service. I spoke with some nice lady on the phone, who then told me that my account was frozen.

'But why?' I asked, I went through the whole online application process, could deposit money, but couldn't use any ATMs???

Apparently, my account had been flagged because they were unable to verify my address. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, as you'd figure at least one other person in my 48 story apartment building must have a Citibank account. But for some reason, they couldn't let me access my account through ATMs until they've verified my address (if anyone could explain why, I'd love to know).

'Ok, how do you verify my address?'

They needed either a utility bill or a phone bill, something with my address on it.

'But, I don't have a phone line, and I just paid my cable and electric bills a couple days ago, they won't be back for months.'

Citibank can't be reasoned with. Rent bills don't count, neither do printed statements off the internet, and don't even think about using a cell phone bill...

Ugh...fine, I'll wait the next 3.5-4 weeks to get ANOTHER bill and mail it to them. And let's not even get started on the fact that they disclosed nothing about these requirements during the online application process.

So I wait, and I wait, and I wait, trying to avoid using cash.

Finally, last weekend, I got my electric bill. I've never been so happy to see that. So now with my bill in hand, on Monday, I go down to Citibank to have them fax it to their corporate office (it's the least they could do right???).

Columbus Day...closed

Alright, another mild inconvenience, I'll just go to Office Max and fax it myself.

Which is what I did, after failing a number of times because the number was busy.

Finally, I thought, they have my electric bill and I can get my account online and forget about the whole hassle.

Friday rolls around, and I wanted to get some money. Four business days is plenty of time for an efficient corporation to process one fax right?

Apparently not...account still frozen...

Alright, at this point, I was getting beyond frustrated with these guys and their stupid corporation.

I finally called Citibank to get some kind of answer to what the hell was going on.

God help the poor guy who answered the call that day...

Why?

Because when I called him, he explained to me the following two things...

1 - My utility bill wasn't good enough. Apparently, the address was incomplete. I can't see how this could be possible, as it had the full street name, apartment number, city, and zip code right on it. Maybe they need a bill that also featured a photo of me smiling with the doorman or something. God only knows.

2 - Once the utility bill was denied as proper verification, the 30-day time limit on getting Citibank the information verification (remember waiting for the next bill) lapsed. My account was now automatically cancelled.

Poor poor Indian Citibank employee...he really should've called in sick that day, because I went to town.

I realized after my first 4 or 5 minutes of profanity-laden diatribes that this poor guy didn't deserve that. So I spent the next 3 minutes apologizing and telling him that I didn't think it was his fault and that I shouldn't have yelled at him.

After all of that...I finally get it all out of my system, and there's a long awkward pause...

'I'm...I'm sorry sir' the poor Indian call center guy replied

I don't know what happened after that, maybe I drove him to quit, that would be nice.

Anyway, after all that crap, I officially have no Citibank account. I was expecting to get my check any day...and lo and behold, today I got a letter from the good people at Citibank.

It was my first account statement, not my money.

Yeah, Citibank is definitely on the list.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

A (Busy) Day in the Life

I was trying to think about a longer blog post regarding this presentation I heard today...then I realized I was pretty busy and didn't have a lot of time to write it...then I figured, lots of people (ok, maybe just my family) wonder what exactly I do all day. I think their guess is a lot of ultimate frisbee and guitar hero.

So, here's my day today, as I best recollect it...

6:55 am - Wake up to get ready for the 7:48 train down to Hyde Park. Eat two yogurts. Shower. Etc.

7:30 am - Walk down to the METRA station, which is fortunately connected to my apartment building

7:45 am - Board train, which proceeds to not move for 15 minutes before we are told to transfer to another train, this time, one that works

8:15 am - Trade stats homework advice with classmate on the ride down to Hyde Park while hoping I won't be too late that my Accounting professor will make fun of me (because he likes making fun of people for not obeying the rules or for not knowing the material).

8:35 am - Sneak into class through the back hallway, only marginally disturbing everyone. Fortunately, the other 10 students from my train are right behind me and deflect most of the shame.

8:35 am - 11:30 am - Financial Accounting class, spending three hours learning the intricacies of the income and cash flow statements...yay. We get a 15 minute break, which I used to dash to the computer lab and print out next week's accounting presentation and this week's case assignment.

11:45 am - 1:00 pm - Attend lunch session with Steven Levitt (the Freakonomics guy). I really good presentation, centered around his corporate consulting efforts and how companies are reluctant to perform experiments to see potential revenue/profit/cost improvements. Also talked about his work with prostitutes...good stuff.

1:00 pm - 1:20 pm - Run into cohort film chair, talk about our upcoming student film production and the work we'll need to do.

1:30 pm - 2:50 pm - Microecon class, focused on cost and production curves and discussion of our Nike sweat shop case.

3:15 pm - 4:30pm - Gym, shower, back to school

4:45pm - Computer lab, print out new updated resume for tomorrow's session with a career advisor. Run into a classmate, plan future accounting review

5:19 pm - METRA back downtown

5:30 pm - 6:30 pm - Eat dinner, talk on the phone, respond to emails, and watch about a half hour of Law and Order (which is ALWAYS on TNT HD)

6:30 pm - 10:00 pm - Read accounting chapters, do study problems, do accounting case, with frequent breaks to bash my head against the wall

10:00 pm - Blog, watch DVR'd South Park

11:00 pm (projected) - Pass out

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Ugh

Maybe someday, after another couple decades of sports futility, Time Life or ESPN or some other media company will come out with a 10-disc DVD package of 'Great Philadelphia Sports Disasters.' Or maybe it'll be on hyperdrives or terabit flashcards or something weird by then.

But I'm convinced, now more than ever, that there will never be a happy ending for a Philadelphia team as long as I'm alive. The Phillies mounted a stirring run to the postseason, overtaking the hated Mets, only to collapse in a horrendous 3 game sweep at the hands of the Colorado Rockies (with a storied tradition dating back to 1993!). The lesson, as always, is that Philadelphia can't win. I'll still keep rooting for the Phillies, the Eagles, the Flyers, and the Sixers (not to mention Penn State), but I feel like I'll always be left disappointed like some 35 year-old single woman in a romantic comedy before John Cusack shows up.

I was born in 1981. Now, you may say, 'but wait, the Sixers won a championship in 1983, so isn't this whole thing a bunch of BS?'

You could say that, but that would make you a jackass. I wasn't a sports fan when I was 1.5 years old. I date my sports consciousness back to 1987, my first sports memory, watching the Flyers lose in the Stanley Cup finals to some loser named Gretzky.

So 1987, that's the beginning...in that time, there have been...

20 Flyers seasons
20 Phillies seasons
20 Sixers seasons
20 Eagles seasons
and if you want to throw in Penn State football (which I didn't begin to support wholeheartedly until I started there in 1999), eight Nittany Lions seasons.

88 sports seasons

ZERO championships!!!

Am I some kind of sports-world Job?

I'm not sure, my bible knowledge is kind of spotty...but I definitely think I'm cursed if nothing else.

Monday, October 1, 2007

Google Trends: kebert xela

The labs people at Google do a pretty cool job of coming up with new and interesting tools they can use to analyze their ridiculous amount of data.

One of those cool tools that's been around for a while is the Trends tool, which allows you to put in any term and see how it's fluctuated in terms of its google frequency, that is, how often people are googling it.

For example, the link below shows how the peaks and valleys over time (ok, so it's just one peak and lots of nothing) around a certain Family Guy joke.

Google Trends: kebert xela

Major spike right around June 2007...but that's probably pure coincidence right???

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Heavy Outlook

So it's been a while since I've blogged, but it's definitely been an adjustment period as classes have started and the time demands of a full-time MBA program have started to sink in.

I'm only taking three classes this quarter (excluding an additional leadership focused course that all of us are taking). It's funny, because it doesn't seem like a lot...but when you're trying to do all the readings and the homeworks and form study groups and all that, there's a lot to do.

Not only have the classes started, but the student groups have also kicked in. There are a ton of groups for all kinds of interests, many are career-focused (naturally), but many are more socially- or community-focused.

I've already joined up with a bunch, mostly career-oriented groups...all of which need their membership dues paid. At this point, every time I owe an extra $50 or $100, it all seems like play money now. Just another drop in the bucket, it's all an investment right?

Anyway, the benefits of those groups seem pretty obvious. You get to meet up with lots of other people pursuing similar fields or holding similar interests. You also get access to events and resources that so far seem like they'll be pretty cool. The only downside is that your calendar kind of fills up fairly quickly and as with lots of things that are resource-constrained, there have to be sacrifices.

As an example, Haas is holding a case competition in late October. It's in conjunction with HP and focuses on digital media as a part of their media conference. It sounds pretty cool, because that's a really interesting sub-sector of the media industry that I've really been reading up on. It would be a great opportunity to get together with some other GSB'ers and strategically analyze a business problem in one of my favorite sectors. Of course, it's also the same day as my statistics mid-term. Sigh.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Sick of Chicago GSB

Classes haven't even started yet, but I'm already completely and totally sick. Not sick of school, which has been really good so far, but physically sick.

I haven't really been sick in a while, and I forgot how much it sucks. Fortunately it's nothing serious, just cold/flu symptoms that I'm sure haven't been helped by staying out late at all the social events that have been going on lately.

I'm guessing this is just a one-time thing as all of us students get acclimated to each other. It seems as though everyone I've spoken to has been/is getting sick in the last week. It makes a lot of sense when you think about it.

Take a couple hundred people from over 50 countries and cities...

ADD daily gatherings which often involve close quarters

ADD dozens and dozens of introductions (which include shaking hands with new classmates)

SUBTRACT sleep

MIX liberally with alcohol

a perfect recipe, let's just hope it passes before classes start this Thursday.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Linkognito: Top 10: Jeopardy Mishaps

Linkognito: Top 10: Jeopardy Mishaps

A friend sent me this link, a website that puts out daily lists augmented with YouTube video clips.

This particular day, they listed the Top 10 Jeopardy 'Mishaps' of All Time.

It's a pretty good list (even if I am biased)....and it's got me at the top, narrowly beating out the time Ken Jennings responded to a question about an immoral pleasure seeker/garden tool with, 'What is a ho'

So there, I beat Ken Jennings.

I've never heard of this Linkognito site before, but it must be fairly popular. When I went to the main YouTube video of my 'mishap,' viewership appeared to have spiked.

That one video is now over 220k views...

I wonder if I can ever get to a million...

Sunday, September 9, 2007

On, Wisconsin

This past week me and about 550 of my new closest friends took some buses up to a scenic lakefront resort in Wisconsin.

I never knew Wisconsin had any kind of tourist destinations, but they do, so we went.

The purpose, to particpate in a bunch of exercises designed to foster unity and relationships among our new cohorts. For those outside MBA programs, cohorts are groupings of seemingly random people from the incoming class. In many MBA programs, that random group is who you'll share a majority of your early classes with. At the GSB, it doesn't work that way (which seems like a good thing to me) with the whole flexible-schedule thing. Still, we will be working together for at least one class, so bonding clearly seemed in order.

We had a couple different activities, which allowed us to work in teams, learn how to function as a group, and generally get to know each other. Good times.

On the last day, our bonding included a trip to the local ropes course/bible camp. We did a couple group exercises in small units, which were pretty interesting, but the real adventure came when we got access to the high ropes course.

The high ropes course at this bible camp consisted of a number of elements in this main area, mostly different types of rickety/small/wobbly/string bridges located significantly above the ground.

It would've been nice to do, but with only a small number of harnesses, helmets, spotters available, there wasn't really enough time. And I wasn't about to go up there without a harness or a helmet.

But there was one thing I wanted to do. The Leap of Faith (at bible camp)

What is the Leap of Faith?

Picture a telephone pole...

Got it?

Now picture a wooden platform attached to the top.

Still with me?

Now, across from this platform, suspended in mid-air, is a trapeeze (is trapeeze singular or plural? either way, I assume you get it).

The idea is that you climb the pole, walk to the end of the 3.5-4 foot platform, and leap for the bar, roughly 30-40 feet off the ground. You either grab and hold it, or you plummet into a pit of alligators.

Ok, so there weren't any alligators, and if you miss you only slowly descend to the ground, but still not a joke.

And I really wanted to do it.

So I did, I waited forever in line for my turn, harnesses up, and ascended the phone pole.

Oh, the pole wobbled, a lot. Climbing it was really easy, but once you got up to the top, the whole thing swayed with every tiny movement. So I took small steps, trying to keep the whole thing steady.

I finally got to the end, and looked down. Not my best idea. But below there were only about 100 of my classmates, definitely no time to chicken out. It helped that it wasn't really scary.

I steadied myself, bent the knees a little bit, and made a mighty leap.

But I didn't make it, I plummeted as the whole class laughed, then I cried, and now I'm transferring to Northwestern.

Of course, I'm kidding, I made the jump, grabbed the bar and everything.

It was fun.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

First Day of School

Had the first day of business school yesterday, feeling like a first grader again. Bright-eyed, eager to learn, with a brand new Trapper Keeper and everything.

Classes haven't started yet, so yesterday was really just a series of welcome and information presentations from the staff and others at the GSB. Informative stuff, but eight hours of lectures was tough to sit through, and really took me back to my first days of orientation at my first job (where I may or may not have fallen asleep, costing me any chance of significant advancement with the company)

I saw some sleepers yesterday too.

But while the presentations were important, most people were primarily concerned with meeting lots of new people and working the room during our break periods. Even with the past few weeks of going out and meeting people, it's amazing how many I had never seen before. What's more, is that everyone seems to have a completely unique background/story (which actually really helps when you're trying to remember what their deal is). I've already met people from more than a dozen countries and just about everywhere in the U.S. There are 559 students in the class of 2009, and it's hard to reconicle the fact that I just won't be able to meet all of them (especially if they aren't out at the bars)

Anyway, today we all are getting on the bus to go up to an outdoors retreat event up in Wisconsin. I believe it's a multi-purpose 'adventure course/bible camp'. So that could be potentially interesting. But more likely, it will be some outdoors activities mixed in with more bonding/connecting to the classmates. Should be fun right?

I just had the first day of school, and it's already the first day of camp.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Costa Rica Trip Report

I’m back in the U.S., after a great weeklong trip to Costa Rica. I thought I’d blog a brief recap of the trip, covering each day and what we (myself and a bunch of other incoming MBA students) did to better prepare ourselves for the busy school year ahead (short answer: relax, socialize, and drink).

Every GSB student I’ve met has had nothing but good things to say about their Random Walk trip (which is what the GSB calls these, Random Walks). I’ll be no different, with one small exception.

After staying up all night and grabbing a cab to O’Hare, I met up with my new classmates and we were off to Miami where we’d board a connection to our final destination, San Jose, Costa Rica.

As we descended towards the little country down in Central America (right near Panama as it turns out) I thought about all the fun there would be basking in the warm glow of the hot Costa Rica…

Thunderstorm???

Apparently in my mental picture of Costa Rica, I forgot that a country with tons of rain forest would probably have more than its fair share of rain.

And it was cool, like maybe 50-60 degrees cool as we boarded the bus that would take us from San Jose to Arenal Springs, our first hotel.

Immediately, I started mentally picturing a vacation completely ruined by constant, overpowering rain. (which still would’ve been better than the trip to Belize that got nailed by a hurricane).

But we boarded the bus and made our way towards Arenal Springs. After two ~3 hour flights, a long bus trip through the mountains of Costa Rica wasn’t exactly something I was in the mood for.

But there was no choice, and the rain continued to fall as we wound our way up and down and up and down and up and down winding Costa Rican ‘highways.’

I put the quotes on highways, because unlike the United States and other major industrialized nations, the Costa Rican transportation system leaves a lot to be desired.

They might call their roads ‘highways,’ but to me, it was just a one-lane each way road with no lighting.

Add in the darkness and the rain, and it made for one of the more harrowing bus adventures I’ve ever had (but not worse than my legendary trip to Pittsburgh, ask me about that one sometime).

Thankfully our driver was a professional, but even he couldn’t seem to make traffic disappear. So the ride took us forever, and we arrived at Arenal Springs maybe sometime after 9pm (which is actually 11pm EST and 10pm CST).

Arenal Springs turned out to be a beautiful place, of course we couldn’t tell in the dark, but there would be plenty to see tomorrow on our first full day in Costa Rica.

DAY 1: Zip Lining Away

We weren’t wasting any time on our first full day, with a scheduled trip to a zipline canopy tour for the morning. Anyone I’ve ever spoken with who’s been to Costa Rica has done one of these tours, which is a really cool way to get a decent view of some natural Costa Rican beauty.

Essentially, you climb up to a platform high in the jungle, lock yourself onto a wire suspended across the terrain, and glide across to the other side, continuing the process for multiple cables.

For something that seems so inherently dangerous, it didn’t really feel that way. And even if you did fall off a platform hundreds of feet about the forest floor, you’re wearing a shitty bike helmet. So there’s nothing to be afraid of.

Unfortunately, the one drawback of canopy touring via zipline is that while beauty is all around you, you kind of have to pay attention to make sure you don’t inadvertently go too fast (where you could kick someone on the next platform right in the face) or too slow (where you could end up without enough speed to reach the next platform, necessitating an embarrassing crawl for the final couple meters).

I had one of each during our journey. On one cable, I was enjoying the scenery a little too much, watching this river wind through the forest, when I looked up to see our guide giving me the ‘SLOW DOWN’ sign. Fortunately, I didn’t kick anyone in the face. I also had to stop towards the end of one of the cables. But this one wasn’t my fault. Typically, you set sail off your platform the moment the preceding zip-liner has arrived at your target platform. Except in one instance, our guide insisted on setting me loose while the guy in front of me was slowing crawling the last few meters of wire. I don’t know if he wanted to motivate him to go faster or what, but it’s a good thing I knew how to slow down, or I totally would’ve kicked him in the face. Better to crawl the last few feet, I figured.

Anyway, we finished up the tour, and agreed that it was a pretty cool experience. Later that day, we headed off for our second activity, a trip to volcanic hot springs.

I probably should’ve mentioned it already, but Arenal (or Mount Arenal, or whatever they call it) is an active volcano. I don’t know if it’s active in the Dante’s Peak explosive lava bombs sense, but it’s at least active enough to create some pretty warm hot springs.

The hot springs we visited were a series of pools heated by natural geothermal energy. The pools ranged up to the warmest at 108 degrees (With that said, the ad for another rival hot springs mentioned temperatures up to 152 degrees. Does that even sound remotely comfortable??? It sounds like a tourist stew to me)

So we went there, and got a nice relaxing soak. Apparently many volcanic hot springs reek of sulfur (I’m no geologist, so I can’t tell you why, but that’s what I hear). These hot springs suffered from no such smells.

Anyway, the hot springs certainly were relaxing, which was aided by their alcohol honor system. The way this place worked, they had multiple bars around the hot spring pools, but you paid nothing until you were leaving the place for good. They trusted you to be honest about how much you had to drink.

What a refreshing change of pace from the United States, but can you imagine if they tried that policy anywhere in America???

DAY 2: ATV Adventure


ATVs are like redneck golf carts. I’ve never run into them in the U.S., but I know they’re big with the outdoorsy shoot at stuff Toby Keith crowd. It’s easy to see why, they’re freaking awesome.

We spent a good couple of hours tooling around on these things, forming a giant MBA student convoy and going over some trails that led us through giant mud puddles, through the forest, and even through a river (which apparently wasn’t on our scheduled tour, but an addition thanks to a rebellious young ATV guide with little regard for safety or company property).

The only downside was when I became a victim of the numbers game. You see, we had to sit two people on each ATV (despite a big warning sign on each ATV saying not to ever put more than one person on them). Not a big deal, but there were 18 of us total, eight girls, and ten guys.

That meant two guys would have to get nice and close on their own all-male ATV. Guess who was one of the lucky ones?

I’m trying not to take it personally, plus it’s rare to get to know another guy in the biblical sense. Overall, ATVing was pretty awesome, even though we got completely covered in dirt and dust and god knows what else that came flying off the road.

After that, we went back to the hot springs, which felt pretty darn good again.

DAY 3: Another exciting bus ride

It was time to bid farewell to Arenal as we headed to our second hotel of the trip in Quepos. While we all had a good time, we also weren’t that sad to leave. Arenal Springs is a very nice and scenic place, but it’s literally off by itself in the middle of nowhere. Quepos, as we understood, was a beach town on the Pacific Ocean, and much larger in terms of things to do and accessibility.

But of course to get there, we needed to take another bus ride.

At least this one was in the daylight, so I could actually see the terrifying potential disasters as they approached.

When people say that the US desperately needs to invest in its infrastructure, I don’t think they’ve got anything on the Costa Ricans. Every bridge in the entire country, every single bridge, is at least 100 years old, one lane, and completely rusted over.

The same bridges that 100 years ago must’ve handled wagons with a couple oxen now are responsible for truck after truck loaded with god knows what (and buses filled with American tourists).

Of all the things we did in Costa Rica, I think the bridges were the closest to putting us in actual legitimate danger.

But we made it, and arrived at our hotel, La Mariposa, just in time for the skies to open up with another thunderstorm.

Oh, and the hotel didn’t have an elevator, which wouldn’t have been a problem except that the large spiral staircases were outdoors and very slick when wet.

Forget the bridges, that was the most dangerous part of the trip.

But the payoff was worth it, our room on the top floor had a sick view of the Pacific Ocean. Check my facebook for pictures, but it really was beautiful.

Since the bus trip took us a really long time, we didn’t have many options as far as things to do.

But this hotel had a swim-up bar, and rain or shine, we were going to take advantage!

Throwing caution to the wind, and disregarding the rapidly cooling temperature, a bunch of us leapt right into the pool. A pool we then discovered, was not heated.

But dammit, it was a swim-up bar, you can SWIM to it! So we persisted, ordering drinks and drinking to our satisfaction, even if it was raining.

The remainder of the night was marked with pizza Costa Rican style (no different from American, except that a vegetable pizza apparently includes cucumber down there) and plenty of Imperial (which may be Costa Rican for Budweiser). Nothing like some American-style staples to bond over for the group.

DAY 4: White Water Rafting

Early the next morning, we got together for what promised to be an exciting day. A voyage down the class 3+ rapids of some Costa Rican river (I forget the name, something in Spanish). I had never rafted before, but apparently the scale of intensity goes from 1-6, which meant I really didn’t know what to expect.

Like the zip line and the ATVs, we got outfitted with helmets that didn’t seem all the protective. We also had life preservers, which were a good thing, because one of our MBA students couldn’t swim (a fact that didn’t dissuade him from rafting, kayaking, or renting an individual jet ski).

After some brief safety instructions (as all of our safety instructions seemed to be), we were in the water. It was a pretty simple role as a paddler. Row forward when the guide tells you, row backward when he tells you, stop rowing when he tells you. Easy enough.

Oh, and don’t freak out if you get thrown from the boat into the water.

I wasn’t hoping it wouldn’t come to that.

But not 10 or 20 minutes into our trip, we lost our first crewman. Fortunately, he was promptly rescued by a tiny female MBA student. I still don’t know how the physics worked, I was too busy paddling to notice.

The rapids weren’t too bad as it turned out. While you’d get pretty soaked, it wasn’t anything even remotely close to dangerous, and it was a lot of fun paddling the boat as the water crashed around you. I’m not sure I’m ready for class 6 yet, but I’m that much closer.

Of course, no excursion would be complete without the opportunity to get physically intimate with a classmate, and rafting was no exception.

And of course, it was another dude. Score.

So as our trip was winding down, one of our crew, the same guy who can’t swim mind you, decided it would be fun to jump in the river for a quick dip. Fine, only someone had to pull him out of the water.

Guess who got to be the hero?

So I get him close to the boat, grab the shoulder straps of his life preserver, and pull.

Nothing at first, but another try…
Still nothing.

OK, I’ll put my legs into it, and do it on three.

One, two, three!

And now there’s some dude in a speedo lying on top of me across the boat.

Thank god I have a good sense of humor.

The remainder of the day featured some much needed R&R by the pool, dinner at a decent restaurant, and a lot of both freestyle and competition based dancing (none of which came from me, as I had come down with some kind of bug that day).

DAY 5: More fun with boats

Fresh off our whitewater rafting adventure, we were back with the same tour company for a kayaking trip through some Costa Rican estuaries.

I was actually pretty excited about the kayaking, and not jut because I’m an excellent paddler. I figured this would be a good time to have a low-intensity trip and maybe, just maybe, get to see some of those famous Costa Rican monkeys.

That’s exactly what we got.

Of course, most of the kayaks were two person watercrafts.

But this time, I wasn’t going to have to get anywhere near another dude’s junk. Because in the world of kayaking through still water for like three hours, being male suddenly made me at least a little desirable as a partner.

So this time I got a girl, which was a nice change of pace.

The paddling wasn’t too strenuous, and although we had on life preservers, I soon ditched mine to concentrate on something way more important than safety, a decent tan.

So we paddled around Costa Rican waters, as our guide alternated between telling us everything we needed to know about the Mangrove tree and hitting on every girl in sight.

This actually wasn’t unusual for our trip. Wherever we were, whatever we did, rest assured that if there were attractive American women around, there would be some Costa Rican dude playing the, ‘I’m a dark and handsome foreigner and you really should mess around with someone you’ll never see again on vacation’ card.

It was like that Ben Stiller movie Along Came Polly, except, you know, funny.

I can’t say I blame the tour guides. Attractive young American women who as MBA students have significant future earnings potential. That could buy a lot of Mangrove trees. Of course, they also could just be trying to fuck everything that moves. Hard to say.

But I had a lot of fun kayaking, after all, the guides weren’t hitting on me. We got to see lots of little creepy crabs, a snake or too, and a whole neighborhood of monkeys that vacillated between being happy to have our food and furious at the invasion of their monkey-town.

I would’ve taken pictures, but I didn’t want to chance bringing the digital camera on a long kayak adventure. Plus, there’s a chance one of the tour guides would’ve fucked it.

DAY 6: Free day

We had nothing on the schedule for our last day in Costa Rica. Some people wanted to be productive and take a surfing lesson, some people wanted to lounge by the hotel pools. But eventually, most of us got persuaded to cab it down to the beach, which would be my first time in the Pacific Ocean.

It was a pretty decent beach, even with all the people constantly trying to sell you stuff. Some people rented surf boards (which I tried for a little bit, and which is really really hard), some rented jet skis, but I was pretty content to just chill on the beach.

It was a pretty good activity to close up the trip.

DAY 7: Back to reality

Our last day really shouldn’t even count as a day in Costa Rica. We spent a lot of the time on the bus to San Jose to catch our flight, again passing over some shady bridges. Then we caught our flights back to Chicago, which generally went off without incident (with the notable exception of me being searched twice in San Jose).

By 9:30 we were back at O’Hare.

In summation, it was a pretty fantastic trip (as if you couldn’t have guessed based on all of the above). It was great to see a part of the world that was completely new to me, and everyone from the trip leaders to the other incoming students was really cool.

Be sure to check my facebook for all the pictures fit to publish on a social networking site. And you can always ask me for the ones that aren’t.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Less than four hours to Costa Rica

It's about 2:30 in the morning here in Chicago, just less than four hours before I take off on a flight bound for Miami. There, I'll connect and head to San Jose, where I'm hoping I'll get a week of non-Hurricane relaxation in Costa Rica.

The GSB had a big gathering for all the students going off to random parts of the world, which was nice, except that while most flights leave in the middle of this afternoon, mine departs from O'Hare at around 6 am.

So I've been trying to keep myself awake based on the assumption I'll sleep on the two three hours flights ahead of me. I really hope a) I don't accidentally fall asleep right here and b) I can in fact sleep on a plane.

I figure I've got another hour or so before I have to find a cab. Fortunately, Full Metal Jacket is on my HD Movies Channel, so that's giving me something to watch.

But unless I somehow miss my flight, this will be the last you'll here of me for a week.

Hopefully when I get back I'll have a tan.

Friday, August 17, 2007

Alex Trebek Is A Potty Mouth Drunk

So whenever I see something funny and Jeopardy related, naturally I take notice. This video was picked up by some sports blog, which was in turn picked up by SI.com (thus garerning thousands more hits) and then in turn picked up by me (garnering maybe one or two more).

It's some outtake clips from what appear to be Jeopardy promo shoots. And let's just say Alex doesn't seem as nice as when I was on the show. But to be fair, recording promos does suck (given my brief experience) and I can't fault anyone for swearing when they have the power to do so.

Deuce of Davenport: Alex Trebeck Is A Potty Mouth Drunk

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Superbad...more like SuperAWESOME

Finally, after months and months of waiting, what has become my most eagerly aniticpated movie debut since Death Wish 4 is finally coming out.

I'm sure you've seen the previews because they're absolutely everywhere. Between all the different trailers, I figure I've seen about 20% of the actual film.

And it's still going to be amazing.

When I first read about this movie on IMDB, I thought t had tremendous potential. I've been a big Judd Apatow fan ever since I found out he was the brains behind Heavyweights (an underrated film). I've still never watched Freaks and Geeks or Undeclared, but I've only heard good things. And then there's his more current stuff like 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. While Superbad wasn't written by Apatow, it looks to be in a very similar vein.

Anyway, add in Michael Cera (a.k.a. George Michael Bluth of Arrested Development) who's a master of being the awkward straight man and the fat guy from 40 Year Olf Virgin (who wanted to buy the crazy disco boots).

There is no way this movie cannot be fantastic.

The reviews (see link below) seem to be in agreement.

Superbad - Rotten Tomatoes

My only qualm is that I leave for Costa Rica at 6am Saturday morning and won't be able to see the movie until I get back.

I guess I'll have to deal.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

New Relationship

There's a new attachment in my life now. Hopefully you all will like her as much as I do.

She's well put together and has tantalizingly sleek curves, although I haven't exactly figured out how to press all of her buttons.

Here's a good picture of her...



What? Did you think I was talking about something else???

Anyway, I got the new phone, and it's definitely been a significant upgrade so far. I love getting email on my phone (although honestly, it doesn't deliver it fast enough for me). For some reason, Yahoo! and other email systems take a pretty good amount of time before their messages get sent to the Blackberry. But GMail works ridiculously fast. Not sure exactly why that is, but from now on i'll probably be doing most of my personal emailing through Google.

But back to the Curve. I've already sent in the $100 rebate because even with an upgrade, phones are freaking expensive.

The whole rebate thing is also similar to my ongoing quest to find a surcharge free ATM.

The search continues, after striking out at US Bank, Bank of America, Lake Shore Bank, and a bunch of other places (even one called the Five-Thirds Bank, for the life of me I can't figure out why you'd name your financial instituion that).

Of course, after running low, I did manage to get cash from another source...selling my body on the street.

Kidding (maybe), I started using my debit card and getting cash back at the register. Take that banking institutions.

People talk about being carbon-neutral, I want to be commerce-neutral. I don't want any store or business to make any margin or profit from my business. I want to be every company's WORST customer. (As an example, some analyst at MBNA [now Bank of America] probably hates me because I never carry a balance, I never respond favorably to their upsell pitches, and I always use my reward dollars....suckers)

Anway, the whole cash back thing it's honestly much better in theory than in practice. Bed Bath & Beyond will only let you max out at $40, and the cashier only had $5's and $1's. At least I'm ready in the event I accidentally wander into a strip club.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Furniture at last!

Yesterday marked the official christening of my new apartment as an actual living space.

For over a week, I had a set of walls, running water, and cable, but none of that stuff to tie the room together.

You know, furniture.

I got some last weekend, but thanks to my building's ridiculous freight elevator schedule, couldn't get anything delivered until yesterday. But now it's here, and now I sit on my couch rather than lying on the floor. I feel so much more civilized. Since I told people I'd post pictures of the new apartment, and since I only recently noticed I can include pictures here, I've done so.

The living room: Before Furniture

I was really going for the whole 'transient' look...It went well with the hobo beard

The living room: After Furniture


A significant upgrade I'd say.

With my furniture in place, I set about putting the finishing touch on my place. I had just the signature art piece to tie the whole place together, and today I finally got a frame and happily displayed it...


Marvelous!

Remember that Whole Moving Thing?

In one of my previous posts I talked about UPS' great work at mangling my boxes and lots of my earthly possessions.


The boxes were kind of heavy, but still, I really don't think that gives UPS an excuse to beat the hell out of them.


Again, nothing was damaged, but below are a couple snapshots of their handiwork, you think I should've stamped them 'Fragile' ?




See that blue thing? That's my shirt.
Part of me thinks I should fight them on it and try to get compenstated. But then again, nothing is really broken or missing. Even in the busted-up condition, the stuff arrived on-time and they haven't made any effort to charge me more for mis-weighing them. So I think I'm just going to call it even.

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Negative Beard

When I left my job at the end of June, I made the executive decision to stop shaving. I figured, with weeks off and nothing to do, and no real obligation to look presentable, why not let it go and see what happens?

Weeks later, I had myself a beard.

Whether it looked good or not is clearly inconsequential, and regardless, I won't have that opportunity until I become wealthy or powerful enough to tell everyone else to screw off.

Of course, when I made the decision to shave, I didn't realize it would take so long.

I'll put the pictures up on Facebook, but as I went through the process, I snapped some photos of other facial hair styles I could've gone with. (In hindsight, maybe I should've chosen the six inch mutton chops)

Anyway, I'm clean shaven now, so don't let anyone say I'm unwilling to sell out my principals to conform to the standard idealized corporate image.

Monday, August 6, 2007

Et Tu, WaMu?

Why does every bank insist on screwing people that aren't its customers???

I've been trying to find a nice surcharge-free ATM around my apartment, one that won't nail me for a couple bucks every time I try to get some cash. I hadn't made much progress when I finally got my hopes up.

There's a Washington Mutual ATM a couple blocks from my building.

Great right? Washington Mutual was the first (that I know of) bank to widely publicize a big 'No-Surcharge' policy.

"Come use our ATM's even if you aren't our customer! Be our guest!"

Apparently they've abandoned all that, and now it's just $2 for everyone without the benefit of a WaMu account.

Bastards.

It must really cost them a lot of money to not royally screw the cash-poor.

But I'm not giving up, since I have no job and nothing to do until Costa Rica, rest assured, I will find a free ATM!

Sunday, August 5, 2007

And thus, the era of HDTV was born

I'm not sure I've ever been as nervous as when I was transporting my new 47" LCD television, without the box and protective padding, in the backseat of a rental car.

Every intersection represented potential disaster, every oncoming car an inbound missle.

The reason the TV was out of it's packaging is because the freaking huge box wouldn't fit in the car trunk or backseat, even with the cushion ripped out.

So the driving between the Costco (one of the only stores to actually sell this model) and my apartment building was tense indeed.

After getting it in the apartment, I then set out to build the TV stand so I could put the TV on something and turn it on.

The TV stand was just one of about a million things I assembled in the last 24 hours, including a bookshelf, three lamps, vacuum cleaner, etc.

The TV stand wasn't hard to put together, but the entire process involved me rationalizing putting a really expensive TV on top of a $150 dollar TV stand.

But I did, and then with the HDMI cable I ordered last week, hooked it up to my cable box.

Wow....amazing

As a point of reference, my last TV was a cheap Philips TV I bought around 2001. That TV never really worked right, the buttons sometimes switched functions, and the closed captioning kind of went off and on automatically, but didn't really have the words right.

So this was definitely an upgrade.

I can't really describe how awesome it is to watch HDTV and I don't even watch that many TV shows. Now I just need RCN, my cable company, to drop these Chicago sports teams and hook up a feed from Philadelphia. That and some furniture, but for now the TV is just fine.

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Sweet Home Chicago???

So now I live in Chicago.

It’s definitely going to be a long process to get fully comfortable, but part of that is the complete lack of furniture.

I flew into Midway yesterday around 1pm and after collecting my giant checked bag took a cab up to my apartment building. The cab driver got lost, twice. An auspicious beginning for sure (Also, why is it that even if the cab driver gets lost, you still owe him the fare on the meter and all he has to do is apologize? Why didn’t he get lost back to Pennsylvania?)

Anyway, I got in, and after going through the move-in process and receiving about a dozen keys and a dozen forms, finally set foot in my new one-bedroom apartment.

Nice, clean, and completely empty.

So I went down to pick up my UPS shipment. I had shipped five extra large boxes to my building with a lot of my stuff in it. No furniture, but most of my clothes and personal stuff.

Apparently UPS routed the boxes to Chicago by way of Afghanistan. Every box looked like it had been beaten to death by a group of angry thugs. I’m putting the pictures up on Facebook, so everyone can see if they want, but it looked pretty bad.

Fortunately, all my stuff was there with only a few casualties. My dvd player now has a nice dent in it (but its functional, phew), and my Buddha came detached from his base. He’s still smiling though, so I’m guessing he’s cool with it.

So I unpacked the boxes and spent the last 24 hours trying to get situated.

To finish up my last post, the cable guy did come this morning and worked real well despite the handicap of not having a TV. So for now my cable box is a really expensive digital clock, but I should have the TV soon (crossing fingers). I also got my internet hooked up, although it doesn’t seem to be working as well as the Wi-Fi network I was leeching off of yesterday.

Even with all this running around, I managed to find time to catch the Phillies-Cubs game at a bar near the apartment. Stupid Phillies bullpen.

This weekend I’m hoping to get the bed and furniture settled (if not delivered). Maybe by this time next week, I’ll have a furnished apartment.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

So Much To Do

This whole moving across the country thing has proven to be pretty darn complicated. It’s not that it’s one giant thing to do, it’s dozens and dozens of really really small things that I’ve been struggling to keep in my head.

Maybe I should make a list. I made a list of things to do at the beginning of the month, and now I’ve crossed those all off. Unfortunately, they’ve all been replaced by more little stupid things that I need to do. It really kind of sucks that this will go on for the next 50+ years.

I got all my stuff together and packed in boxes. UPS will be picking them up tomorrow because although FedEx quoted me a cheaper rate, after 10 minutes of going all the way through their online pickup scheduling process, they finally informed me that my address isn’t in their pickup area and I would have to have the boxes picked up at another address. So Tom Hanks definitely deserved what he got, and I’m officially endorsing UPS as my official shipping company.

So my clothes and stuff are scheduled to arrive at my apartment by the close of business Wednesday, which is also when I should be showing up. So far, so good. Of course, I won’t have a bed, or a TV, or internet access. But the Phillies will be in town to play the Cubs, my guess is I’ll be able to find someplace with the game on, I head people in Chicago like the Cubs.

But what am I going to do about those three other items that won’t be in my apartment???

Good question…

Bed – I had gone to Sears to try out new mattresses, but wasn’t happy about their selection. My plan then turned to 1-800 Mattress (leave off the last S for savings!), which I used in New Jersey. But they don’t have any showrooms in Pennsylvania or Illinois, and I wasn’t too interested in buying a mattress without trying it first (even with their 15 day return period which comes with a couple hundred bucks in hidden fees)

Then I went to this company called SleepSquad. I’m pretty excited about trying them, because they’ve got a pretty cool idea. You pick out three mattresses you’d like to try, and they’ll drive their custom truck/showroom over to you. Then you try all your choices, and if you like one, they can just bring it upstairs. Sounds dangerously close to being pretty cool. It helps that they had all 5-star Yelp reviews, so I’m hopeful that I can make an appointment for Thursday and find a nice new bed for my nice new apartment.

TV – After much deliberation, I narrowed all the choices down to two LCD’s. In case you weren’t aware, I’m going to be springing for a pretty nice (and large) television. I promised myself I would if I won enough on Jeopardy, so now I’m trying to cope with having to buy something extravagant for myself. Anyway, I narrowed it to two LCD’s a 46” Samsung and a 47” Vizio. The Samsung has great reviews, and is supposed to be the best TV in that size as far as picture quality etc. goes. The Vizio, while it doesn’t have as great a picture as the Samsung, is also supposed to be very good. It’s also got a bunch of really good reviews. And despite being an inch bigger in terms of screen size, it’s at least $700 cheaper. I think I’m getting the Vizio, because honestly, my eyes kind of glaze over when I read techie reports talking about the differences in black levels and whatever else they’re talking about. It’s supposed to have a really good picture, and while it might not be a great picture, I probably won’t notice any significant difference.

Of course, since I haven’t ordered the TV yet, I still haven’t figured out exactly how I’m going to deal with the Cable guy, who’s coming to the apartment on Thursday. I’m assuming he can still give me the box and everything, but he just might not be able to test whether it works. They’ll be hooking up my internet also, so my guess is if that works, the TV should be ok. So I hope anyway.

With those three things down, there are only another 50 or so on my list.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

TV Recommendation

So recently there’s been this new game show on TV, and I think everyone should watch it. There seem to be tons of new game shows coming out now, which I guess is mostly because it’s the summer, game shows are cheap to produce, and every network would sell their children to find the next Deal or No Deal.

But this isn’t just any game show, it’s the WORLD SERIES

Of pop culture

VH1 has this show that sets up as a NCAA basketball-type bracket tournament pitting teams of three people against each other in questions dealing specifically in pop culture trivia stuff.

Finally, a show that actually measures real knowledge.

To understand where I’m coming from, it’s like Stephen Hawking turning on his TV and seeing the World Series of Astrophysics.

Anyway, the questions are almost all really cool…way better than Jeopardy. No French Composers. No Broadway. But if you’ve seen every Arnold action movie and remember commercial jingles, you can win $250 grand.

Unfortunately, the show is not without it’s flaws. So far, most of the contestants seem to be completely devoid of personality. To put it more bluntly, they mostly seem like losers.

I guess that’s correlated strongly with the world of trivia experts, but come on VH1, at least try to find some dynamic people. And doing a silly dance when you get introduced doesn’t count as dynamic.

But with that said, I’m eagerly waiting for the 2008 World Series tryouts. You need a team of three, so I’m welcoming any applications….

We only need a catchy name, and then it’s a guaranteed quarter million (because who are we kidding, we’d totally win).

Monday, July 16, 2007

Jared Cohen (II)

Woo-hoo, IMDB fixed their site...now I'm on a page by myself (although I'm a little miffed at being "Jared Cohen (II)"....that kind of sucks

Jared Cohen (II)

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

IMDB and ultimate glory

I'm officially part of the Hollywood Establishment!

Alright, so maybe it's only a tiny tiny foothold in the world, but I'm now a part of the Internet Movie Database (otherwise known as one of the coolest web sites in the world)

Finally, my appearance on Jeopardy has paid off!

The link below will take you to a listing of my television appearances (those three episodes of Jeopardy in case you didn't know)

Jared Cohen

Someday, that profile may be expanded and will hopefully include multiple credits as a background extra in major feature films or television shows. Either that or as the deadbeat loser on some reality show that involves me fighting to marry a trashy has-been celebrity.

Of course, if you click on my online profile, you might be confused as to why you never knew about my experience as an additional research for an episode of Frontline on Rwanda.

That's because it wasn't me...it was the bastard that has my name!

Now I've never met this other guy who has the exact same name as I have, but I knew all about him even before I saw the IMDB overlap. Why? Because like anyone who has spent significant time on the internet, I googled myself (in that, I searched for myself on google.com)

Unfortunately, despite all my worldly travels and adventures, I can't unseat this other guy. To make matters worse, he seems like a great human being who's accomplished so much.

Doppleganger

Degrees from Stanford and Oxford, accomplished writer, working to expose the plight of of many impoverished African nations.

Come on! It's like a have to compete for my own brand identity with some kind of altruistic superhero.

BS man, total BS

Monday, July 2, 2007

Finally, the third episode on YouTube!

It took forever (and the assistance of fellow contestant Angel Gomez) to get this third (and final episode) onto Youtube. Enjoy. But don't enjoy too much because I lose, and that shouldn't be fun

YouTube - Jared on Jeopardy - 6.15.07 - Part One

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Unemployed

After a zillion posts solely relating to my experience on Jeopardy, I thought I'd finally start to broaden the tags I can use in this blog by starting to write about that little thing called the rest of my life. Contrary to popular belief, I don't just spend my time wandering around the city asking people if they watched Jeopardy in mid-June.

For example, this past Friday I officially quit my job.

I decided that finishing up in June would leave me with enough time to totally get out of working mode for the transition to grad school. Although it was sad to leave my longest tenure at any one job, it was also kind of cool to think about how I won't have to show up early in the morning at the same office every day.

I've got ~2 years off from work for now, although it's not like I won't be working in business school (but at least the dress will be a little more relaxed), but still these two years may be the last time I have without work until I retire (or marry into a mega-rich tax bracket, which I'm not opposed to)

Hopefully I'll have some fun

But leaving my job has made me think about all the jobs I've had over the years (it's not THAT many, but still). I think they've all taught me something or other.

Job 1 - Supermarket Utility Clerk - High School
Responsibilities: Bag groceries, collect carts, clean floors
Pay: Minimum Wage
Lessons learned: Don't work for minimum wage. Unions suck ($45 out of every paycheck at minimum wage, weak). Customers aren't always right. Don't get a menial job in the same town where you go to high school.

Job 2 - Telemarketer - College
Responsibilities: Sell 'business newsletters' via cold-calling
Pay: Minimum Wage (as a result of not meeting sales quotas)
Lessons learned: I'm not the type of person who can screw people out of money via a seemingly crooked newsletter scam.

Job 3 - Summer Financial Analyst - College
Responsibilities: 'Data Processing'
Pay: $10.50 an hour
Lessons learned: When you're getting paid hourly, but can do the daily jobs in less than one hour, bring a book to read or something

Job 4 - Finance Specialist, Major Coporation
Responsibilities: Learn and grow to be a future leader with a major corporation
Pay: Thankfully more than $10.50/hour
Lessons learned: Politics Definitely Matter

Job 5 - Private Equity Analyst, Small Firm
Responsibilities: Write research reports
Pay: Yes
Lessons learned: There is a lot of money out there, and I don't have most of it

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Appearance on G4TV

Apparently my little reference at the end of my third Jeopardy episode has attracted some additional attention.

I definitely figured I'd probably get on YouTube with the whole Kebert Xela thing. I didn't think I'd get over 80,000 views within the first week, but that's been pretty cool. For the most part people seem to have found it funny, except for the small minority that just hate Family Guy, and that other small minority that just thinks everything sucks. But no one likes those people anyway.

Regardless, the video of my Final Jeopardy answer has gotten some great links. It's been on a number of blogs and websites (including Aintitcool, which certainly is cool).

What's more, I got a call today that I appeared on G4TV's 'Attack of the Show.' I didn't get a chance to see the episode, but I believe it will rerun on Friday, so I'm Tivo'ing that.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Appearance in Daily News

So my Jeopardy appearance got me a brief mention in today's Daily News, only problem is it's pretty much not true.

This Narberth man raked in $27,000 over three nights on "Jeopardy" last week," but didn't fare as well playing Quizzo at Manayunk's Bayou Bar & Grill (4245 Main). Cohen, a 25-year-old private-equity analyst, celebrated his first night of victory there Wednesday, watching the show with 15 friends. The Penn State grad and pals stuck around for the pub quiz afterward, and Cohen's crew didn't come close to victory. Bayou owner Joe Abruzzo figures the bar's game must be harder than "Jeopardy." But we imagine Cohen's happier with his TV cash than a free bar tab.

Yeah, I did go to the Bayou on Wednesday, but it wasn't to watch Jeopardy (which I did with family and friends at home). We went there because we always go after our Sport and Social league football games. For the record, we also didn't play Quizzo, although if we did, I bet we could've rocked that sh*t.


Dan Gross Daily News 06/18/2007

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Jeopardy: FAQ

I also thought I’d make a list of quick answers to questions I’ve received or other stuff in case people don’t want to read my War & Peace length review. But if you DO want to read all about it, and if you want a far more complete account of the Jeopardy audition process (What taking the Jeopardy! test is like, exactly what happens during the follow-up in person audition, and then actually going on the show), my ebook is only a dollar and in my biased view, well worth the investment if you seriously want to consider taking the test)

- First off, why the hell did you write that long of a Jeopardy review?

Because it’s easier than writing parts of screenplays that no one will ever see? Probably funnier too. But also, I wanted to write it just so I could have this elaborate and intimately detailed recollection for myself (so I don’t forget it) and for any future generations (who can read it on blogger, or facebook, or on the dashboard of their flying Googlesoft Hovercar, or whatever else the future brings)

- I’ve been on Mars Jared, how did you do on Jeopardy?

I played in three episodes of Jeopardy, winning my first two and coming in third on my final appearance

- How good is it to win two episodes?

Well, I was curious to the answer of this question, so I ran a little analysis. Using the online Jeopardy Archive (google J! Archive, it’s a really great website), I collected summary data on somewhere between 600 and 1000 old Jeopardy episodes and found out what percentage of people appear on just one episode (coming in 2nd or 3rd place) versus two episodes (one-day champion), etc…The numbers are just an approximation….but my data indicates approximately 75% of Jeopardy contestants only appear on one episode and lose (which intuitively makes sense if you think about it). Another 15% leave as one-day champions after two appearances. After that, it’s roughly 5% that win two days (including myself)…and much smaller percentages for the remaining Super-Champions. I don’t think anyone else has ever checked the data for that, so it’s not confirmed, and the whole process only took like 20 minutes, but it’s my best guess.

- How much money did you win?

Just over $27,000. I won $4,001 for my first victory, $22,222 for my second victory (which was a lock game), and the $1,000 consolation prize for my final show



- How do you even get on Jeopardy?

Really?  You should just buy the book, it provides a very long and descriptive answer


Jeopardy Adventure: Part Six

What follows is a very brief excerpt of my newly published eBook, "How I Got on Jeopardy!...and Actually Won!"  The full book is available on Amazon.com for a very low price.

And so the process began to repeat itself. I shook hands with both of the other players. I really kind of felt bad about the whole thing, but I tried not to feel guilty about winning.

They took off our mikes and we all went back to the green room. For this next and final taping, I would be playing two men, one of whom I believe was about my age. So I really couldn’t rely on getting good male-oriented categories.

But I’ll be honest, I did start to entertain momentary fantasies about winning a billion episodes in a row. I thought about how sweet that would be, of course every time I thought that I caught myself and chastised myself for thinking ahead. I definitely wanted to win this next game, but at the same time, I also was realizing exactly how much I had accomplished.

Jeopardy Adventure: Part Five

What follows is a very brief excerpt of my newly published eBook, "How I Got on Jeopardy!...and Actually Won!"  The full book is available on Amazon.com for a very low price.

Alex came over and shook my hand (I think, I don’t remember anything other than being in total shock), I couldn’t believe it.

At the end of the game, the players come out from behind the podiums to stand at center stage with Alex for when the credits roll. The Champion is always assigned a spot on the left (or the right if you’re watching at home). And now that spot was for me!!!

Why? Because I was the freaking champion! Holy shit!!!

Those last seven words there, ‘I was the freaking champion, holy shit!’ was all I could say for the next hour or so.

Jeopardy Adventure: Part Four

What follows is a very brief excerpt of my newly published eBook, "How I Got on Jeopardy!...and Actually Won!"  The full book is available on Amazon.com for a very low price.



I’m not one for hyperbole, but it may very well have been the most critical moment in the history of the universe.

So we went back into the green room, and the woman from Virginia and I started to make our preparations. We got our makeup retouched, and we got our personal information cards ready for Alex. Long before we actually made the trip to Los Angeles, the producers asked us to email them a bunch of information. Within that information, were the set of one-liners, interesting facts or quirks that Trebek could use to embarrass us in front of a live studio audience and friends and family around the world.

My goals, a) try not to give him anything embarrassing and b) try not to make things awkward when the interview actually happened.

So the card was pre-made with my facts on it. There were four of them to choose from, and one of the coordinators asked me which fact I wanted to highlight and have Alex talk about.

“Of course”, I was warned, “Sometimes Alex just picks out a different one he’s more interested in”

Monday, June 11, 2007

Jeopardy Adventure: Part Three

What follows is a very brief excerpt of my newly published eBook, "How I Got on Jeopardy!...and Actually Won!"  The full book is available on Amazon.com for a very low price.

We left the green room, walked through this side passage around the studio audience sets, and came out right onto the stage…

Smaller than I expected.

But that said, it was totally amazing. I mean, right in front of us were the podiums (podia?) and the dreaded buzzers. We were only feet away from Alex’s podium and the big board o’ questions. There was a director’s chair with Alex Trebek’s name on it (which was totally cool).

They let us walk around behind the podiums and I just looked around in awe at the set I had seen on TV a million times. Some people get thrills walking into a famous concert hall or historical opera house….I got excited on the set of a TV game show.

At that point Glenn (one of the other coordinators from my Philadelphia audition) came out and began to take us through the intricacies of playing the game and the board lights.

Jeopardy Adventure: Part Two

What follows is a very brief excerpt of my newly published eBook, "How I Got on Jeopardy!...and Actually Won!"  The full book is available on Amazon.com for a very low price.

It was very close to 5pm, and I was about to leave the office for the weekend. A number popped up on my phone as it rang.

‘California?’ I thought. Who the hell do I know in California? I knew a couple of investment firms, but they would probably never call me. CalPERS is one of our clients, but again, clients rarely call me directly without me knowing it beforehand.

‘Jared Cohen?’ I said, as if I was the one who didn’t know what Jared Cohen sounded like.

The voice on the other end of the line asked for Jared Cohen, I guess he hadn’t listened to me when I answered the phone.

‘Speaking.’

‘This is Tony Pandolfo of Jeopardy’

‘Oh my god’

The next 20 minutes or so were a complete blur, albeit one spent entirely seated at my desk.