Update

I took this down temporarily. Now it's back (clearly).

ESPN did a cool article on Bo Jackson today. You can access it here.

I decided on a job, but you have to ask (in person) if you really want to know.

NOLA talent...

...no, I'm not talking about myself, but that's a good guess :-)

In addition to the Christmas tunes (I have an AWESOME collection), I am loving this song right now...

From The Mind of Chris..

Over the next week to 10 days, I will be writing about a variety of topics that have popped into my head. These topics will include:

• Things that I believe in (based on a survey of at least 4 people over the weekend)
• Why I can never be proper friends with girls (based on conversations over the past 12-14 months, this will probably be called F Bomb, Part Deux)
• How modesty and unmistakably superior talent go hand in hand
• My Christmas list (you'll want to pay close attention to this)

Like I said, each of these have been on my mind recently, so as I usually do, I'm gonna detail my thoughts (however ridiculous, I know) for all of you to see/criticize.

Anyway, I had a very average weekend, hope y'alls was better!

LUV

Why am I writing in this blog at 1:50am on a Friday night? Good question. I guess the answer ultimately lies in the availability (or lackthereof) of social options for the evening. I got caught up at Trudy's on this evening and never made it to downtown, so tomorrow will have to be catch-up.

At any rate, I spent my day in Dallas in a sell-day function for the 'debt shop' I mentioned a few days ago. I love day trips that require short flights (so basically Houston, Dallas, SA, New Orleans). I flew Southwest.

What I have always found interesting (at least since I have begun to fly alone) is the dynamic that pervades Southwest's boarding procedures (i.e. the open seating policy). Basically, if you're in the last part of the B boarding group or behind, you're screwed. No aisle seats, no window deats. Only middles. Today I was in the back half of B for both my flights. Perhaps no one else thinks about this, but I have to mentally prepare myself for my "seating strategy" on these flights. I swear I pulled the reverse-staredown on this one woman whose middle seat I was eyeing. I am positive her mind said "please God don't let him choose this seat. I don't have a legitimate excuse for telling him nom, but...." So I passed it up and sat somewhere else.

Anyway, that's it. Just thought it was interesting.

Finally, for you non-BHP students who STILL haven't figured out why the title of this post is so-called, I guess I'll have to spell it out. LUV is the stock symbol for Southwest Airlines.

Rule #73: No excuses, play like a champion.

Rule #26: Be straightforward in everything you do. Vagueness is undesirable.

Rule# 7: Always, always, always believe in yourself.

And yes, I listen/jam out to Beyonce. Deal with it.

Champs

I have the widest grin on my face right now.

We won it all. :-) :-) :-) :-)

Yep, team MBA entered tonight's all-university tournament the lowest seed (of the four division winners), and rose to the occasion to win the tournament. After beating the Orange A champion 20-14, we had to go to overtime to beat the fraternity league winner, Fiji, 21-20.

This was huge. No MBA team has won the entire unversity tournament. And since we're the biggest college in the country, and thus have the biggest talent pool, we're truly collegiate national champions. Awesome. Just awesome.

So we'll celebrate. Rosh and Rapp will go to Logans. Kenny will go to the Pig. I'll go to Spill. And we'll all toast to this performance. And it will be glorious.

I just came across what I think is a hilarious conversation between a seemingly bitter member of the "Legal Eagles" and one of his classmates which talks about how mad he is that his team lost to us. As if they were invincible. Enjoy!

law student (2:44:49 PM): well hello
Legal Eagles player (2:45:21 PM): hello to you too
Legal Eagles player (2:45:34 PM): what did I do to deserve this special attention?!
law student (2:45:48 PM): are you or are you not a member of the legal eagles?
Legal Eagles player (2:46:04 PM): I am, what of it?
law student (2:46:08 PM): hahahaha
Legal Eagles player (2:46:16 PM): boooo!
Legal Eagles player (2:46:29 PM): so what's up?
Legal Eagles player (2:46:37 PM): are you going to give me a hard time?
law student (2:46:58 PM): pretty much
law student (2:47:03 PM): one of my ta's is on the team
Legal Eagles player (2:47:11 PM): the eagle's?
law student (2:47:23 PM): no, the team you suckers lost to
Legal Eagles player (2:47:53 PM): god I wanted to jump off a building
Legal Eagles player (2:48:37 PM): that was the worst game we ever played, you can tell him I say your welcome for gifting them the win
Legal Eagles player (2:48:53 PM): we dropped a sure interception that would have changed the game
law student (2:48:59 PM): yeah yeah. stop making excuses, brady quinn.
Legal Eagles player (2:49:05 PM): I mean I can make excuses all day long
Legal Eagles player (2:49:10 PM): I don't play QB
law student (2:49:14 PM): hahaha
Legal Eagles player (2:49:17 PM): but for real we beat ourselves
law student (2:49:29 PM): well, i'm glad my boys could be along for the ride
Legal Eagles player (2:49:44 PM): I know they were pumped as fuck
Legal Eagles player (2:49:55 PM): "the reign is over!"
Legal Eagles player (2:50:02 PM): got shouted about forty million times
Legal Eagles player (2:50:37 PM): the other TD they had got tipped twice
Legal Eagles player (2:50:46 PM): I mean really we totally fucked shit up
Legal Eagles player (2:51:20 PM): it was fucking embarrassing
law student (2:51:32 PM): deep breath
Legal Eagles player (2:51:36 PM): a team from a different division came specifically to scout us
Legal Eagles player (2:51:41 PM): and then we shit the bed
law student (2:52:05 PM): good thing it's only flag football. you're even more competitive than i am.
Legal Eagles player (2:54:29 PM): I would like to stop talking about this now
Legal Eagles player (2:54:35 PM): thanks so much for bringing it up
Legal Eagles player (2:55:24 PM): goddamnit
Legal Eagles player (2:55:35 PM): I really wish there was a forum for us to play them again
Legal Eagles player (2:55:46 PM): now I am all worked up about this shit again
Legal Eagles player (2:55:47 PM): fuck

This guy sounds alot like little Matt Leinart after USC lost to Texas in the 2006 national championship.

MBA '08: All-University champs baby!!!!

The Worst Class Ever

I am currently enrolled in what I firmly believe is the worst class ever conceived and administered by an academic institution. It is so bad that the students have taken to complaining (rightfully so) to the administration. I provide a sample of the complaints for your enjoyment below:

• Corona (current professor) is a sharp contrast to Brandl (former prof)
• Microphone malfunction has a big impact (this guys wears a mic, it never works. he blames our freaking cell phones!!)
• Taught in a childish way
• Attendance taking by the TA is not organized and consistent from class to class
• No one wants to make the idiot answer to the childish question
• The rules for the class are explained in a way that is very juvenile
• Students are disinterested and are demonstrating this through "checked-out" behavior
• "No man left behind" approach to teaching
• The class focus is on homework problems and how to solve the problem without discussionof theory or the "why"
• No connection from topic to topic
• Lack of depth of teaching
• Tone is boring/lack of energy

Yep, the worst class ever. All for $225 per hour. Way to go, managerial accounting!

Sweet & Sour...

Today was awesome and slightly crappy at the same time. Allow me to explain...

4:45pm: I get out of my Investment Fund class. I prepare to go to the IM fields to begin preparation for our IM championship game.
5:15: get to the fields, beging warmups
6:00: game begins
7:00: game ends. WE WON!!! We defeated the squad that hadn't lost the championship in 10+ years. Life is very, very good.
7:05: Chris officially floats to Cloud nine.
7:13: Chris's guest (incidentally the girl he goes out with yesterday who comes to watch the game) drops the F bomb. "I'm such a good friend for coming out tonight." Chris agrees, but is clearly taken by surprise. Thinks to himself, "oh shit, she said friend. Uh oh."
7:14: The crew leaves for 3rd base (this is a sports bar, people).
8:30: Chris goes to help finance challenge team.
10:00: C&A
2:00 (i.e. now): blog entry

Yep, there you have it. First and foremost, team MBA1 defeated the 10-time defending champion Legal Eagles 19-13 to win the university championship of graduate level football. As a team member, I was (am) super excited about this achievement. Proudly will I display (translation: wear) the 2008 IM champion t-shirt. I think I'll be celebrating this victory for at least the next 2 to 3 weeks. Goodness knows I will toast to it every chance I get (along with Texas' 2005 national championship of course).

Second, some general commentary (in this case, me complaining about something). I wish I could broadcast simultaneously on every medium available, but ladies, you all should recognize that the F bomb (aka the word "friend") is not easily received by guys who may have some sort of an interest in you. I couldn't be more clear (guys, back me up on this). You may as well take the dagger, puncture, twist, and release b/c it's just about the same effect. If you're putting 2 and 2 together, scroll up to my mini-timeline and do the math. Yea, exactly. This may be over before it gets off the ground. We shall see.

Finally, evidently, I have some haters in my midsts. Guess I'll be on the lookout for y'all as well.

Rockets won tonight, beat those Spurs by 8. Nice!

Ok that's it. I'm tired.

Faux Pas

As some of you know, I had to leave town last week for interviews at a company in Dallas. As is typical with the second/final round interview format, the company took us out for cocktails and dinner on Thursday evening, followed by lots of interviews on Friday. The event which I am about to detail for you took place at dinner this past Thursday night...

We were taken out to the Sambuca cafe in Uptown, where we had their entire patio area reserved for our visit. This was nice because the patio was spacious and there weren't very many people in our party (maybe 9 students and 6 or 7 current employees). After cocktail hour, we take our places at the 3 tables they have set up for us (pre-arranged namecards determined where we sat). I end up sitting in front of an associate in the group who happens to be a former Fund manager (don't worry if that doesn't mean anything to you). I'm on the Fund, so we have a conversation jumping off point (which is good because I wasn't wearing a wristband...). At some point during the conversation, we observe that we're both out of wine and we want some more. Unfortunately, the restaurant only gave us 1 waiter (for a party of 15), and he was nowhere to be found...

It is at that moment when my friend Caroline comes through the door to join our party. Caroline also goes to UT with me and was also interviewing. Caroline is also Asian (this will become important later). She took a later flight from Austin and thus arrived later than everyone else. Everyone knew this was going to happen...

So, upon seeing a fresh new face, the associate across from me assumes this girl is a waitress or hostess or someone in the servitude function. So he stops her and asks her if she can bring more wine for the table. Caroline, being very tactful about this, calmly says she's actually a student interviewing and not a waitress. The associate is totally embarrassed. He apologizes profusely. I am amused.

This story gets worse...

So we get through our meal and the associate (after having another 3 glasses or so) decides he has to go home. Before he leaves, however, he says he should apologize once more to Caroline. I'm thinking this is a good move. So I say farewell and he proceeds to the table where Caroline is sitting (we had 3 tables). In the meantime, I make smalltalk with some other students and associates. This continues for about 3 minutes when I look up expecting to see the associate apologizing again to Caroline. What I was was absolutely incredible (and not in a good way). He was apologizing to the wrong girl!!! To make matters worse, he was talking to the only other Asian girl there! I almost lost it. This other girl, who goes to Chicago GSB, had a total look of confusion on her face. Caroline can't believe it either. Nor could I. These two looked completely different (Caroline is fit and pretty cute, the other girl was, well, lets just say she should start each day with some situps and make a large equity investment in ProActiv.) They were wearing totally different outfits and looked nothing alike.

Caroline and I shared a pretty good laugh about this later at the hotel. Never in my life have I seen such a turn of events. Absolutely amazing.

Why does the Carpenter center smell like a locker room today? I think people have decided to shop showering to make more time for the finance challenge.

Football championship and C&A (maybe) tonight!

Wildcard

Before I write this post, I want to say how much I am flattered that some of you implore (beg) me to post more stuff on this blog (that goes for you, TJ and Tiger2L). It feels good that many of you are, at a minimum, mildly entertained by what I have to say on here. All I'll say is this: Most of you know me personally. For those that don't, I am a graduate student and sometimes don't have a lot of time to post stuff. I do it when I can, but just know that sometimes it is not possible.

Anyway, I finally have more, relevant, somewhat entertaining material to talk about tonight...

I found myself on this first Monday of November explaining to someone about how I went about getting background information on this particular individual (Chris was kind of on a date tonight. Yes, I know what you're thinking. Trust me, I can't believe it either. I guess I have at least a minimum level of charm lurking somewhere on this body...) when she also informs me she did some background research on yours truly. Thinking nothing of it, I said it was a good move on her part. So she says she's talked to some of my friends (which I expect) but then breaks out what can only be described as "the wildcard." Yep, you guessed it, she reads my blog. I'll be honest, I freaked out in my head for a few seconds. I'm thinking, "FUCK! Wow, I've been out with her for like an hour and she just Game, Set, Matched me. That's a wrap on any chance I had with her." Thankfully it wasn't (well, the jury's still out on that one). Anyway, I thought it was funny. I guess I don't get upstaged very often, so part of me was somewhat impressed.

She makes a valid point: I guess I don't consider how these blog posts some across to people who read them (e.g. the Hot Black Guy and Bisquick posts). Of course, this is the benefit of actually knowing me. Any good writer needs some spice to keep the people coming back, so perhaps that's why I give a little more, but who knows.

In other news, the last IM football game of my illustrious career is tomorrow. 6pm at the IM fields. Come support MBA1 as we challenge the Legal Eagles for the graduate league championship!

As usual, C&A tomorrow night.

Stay up y'all.


...and yes, she asked about the wristband :-)

Debt Shop

Got an offer today from a debt shop in DFW. More to come. Go me.