Bowling

I bowled yesterday. This morning my right forearm is totally tweaked and I feel like my left butt cheek somehow detached itself last night, ran 10 miles, and then reattached itself before I woke up. Is this what it's like to be 26? Despite the soreness today, I really enjoyed bowling last night. There is something very satisfying about throwing a strike, turning around and knowing that 30 people just saw you throw a strike. As Bos would say, "It's good for the confidence".

"Finger, tell them. Nobody fucks with the Jesus"

But let me tell you something not good for the confidence. Yesterday, it felt like I was one of three people in the entire MBA1 class not dressed up for recruiting. Between I-banking dinners, a Bain presentation, and a marketing symposium, it seemed like everyone was in jacket and tie or business casual. It got me thinking that maybe I was slacking off or something. I'm doing recruiting my own way, and shoot, if I get the job I want I'll feel pretty good about not having stressed myself out unnecessarily. However, if I don't get the job I want I'll be dusting off the tennis racket and posting fliers in Food Mart. I'm not throwing in the towel yet though. Ew.

Big weekend coming up. A big date...with my couch and TV tomorrow all afternoon for the conference championship games, and then my first hockey game tomorrow night. But now, back to reading about Foreign Direct Investments...

Endangered Species

A wise Michigan grad said, "If you make it to Thanksgiving without snow, consider it a small victory". Well, we made it to Thanksgiving without snow. However upon returning to the great state of Michigan we've been blessed with sleet, rain, snow, drizzle, shnizzle, and everything in between. The good news is that I think those crows either went South, or they died. I'm hoping the latter. Anyway, I don't remember seeing pictures of people bundled in their jackets walking to class in the Michigan brochure. It's snowing, what are you going to do about it? You can do what the ladies and squirrels do...gather some nuts and a few hundred boxes of Entenmann's and hibernate for the winter, or you can do what I'm going to do which is work out in preparation of a Spring Break trip that may or may not actually happen.

I haven't felt this rested in a really long time. I actually made it through the 8-9:30 part of Marketing without feeling like I was about to fall asleep. That's a first. I'm feeling energized but realize this feeling is going to fade pretty quickly. Oh well.

I have to keep this a semi-short blog today because of meetings and other necessary evils, but I will say this...how many Bambis had to die in order to warm the toes of the Michigan female population?













Oh, how cute...(gunshots)...oh how warm...












The name of the boot above is the "Rainier", which is just a little too close to "Reindeer" if you ask me.

Little Girl: Mommy, why is Santa's sleigh uneven?
Mom: Would you rather have cold feet?

All I know is that everyone and their mother seems to have a pair of these things, and of the hundreds of girls I've seen wearing these boots, I think eight have looked good in them, and I don't wear my glasses all the time so it was probably more like three. To all the girls who wear these baggy sweatshirts, leggings, and boots like the ones above....




Who am I to tell people how to dress though. I just call 'em like I see 'em.

What I am Thankful For, Factorial.

Current Knicks point guard/modern day romantic Stephon Marbury has been really busy these past few days. Between blackmailing Isiah Thomas and missing games Steph seems to be poised to ruin the Knicks season before the month of November is over. Hey, no worries though, because if basketball doesn't work out he can always teach math...



"If I didn't play the way how I played, I wouldn't have gotten no max contract," he said. "They can talk about whatever they wanna talk about me, because I got maxed. I'm a max player. Don't get mad at me, because I'm telling you what's real. One plus one is two, all day long, and it's never gonna change. And that's factorial."


One plus one is two, all day long, and that is a fact...orial. I am thankful for Stephon Marbury, because as long as he's out there I'll have blogging material.

I’m thankful for “Z-indicators”. I was talking with a friend last night and came to the realization that any company/product that substitutes a “z” for an “s” basically suckz. For example, Lugz, Hot-Headz, and Zales. Ok, maybe not Zales. Z-indicators take a lot of guesswork out of the consumer experience, which we should all be thankful for. Unfortunately, in Ann Arbor I blatantly ignored the z-indicator and went to a place called Nogginz for a haircut. Twenty minutes and twenty bucks later I walked out looking like a cholo. I’m not sure I understand the allure of having your hairline form a 90-degree angle, but I am sure I’ll never go back there.

I’m thankful for that fact that I don’t live in Detroit. Last weekend I tailgated for the Giants/Lions game and I thought I was on the set of the critically acclaimed HBO show “The Wire”. What can you say about a city that smells like marijuana and hot dog water? It was really sad actually. There were literally entire blocks that were cordoned off by barbed wire. Easily over 50% of the buildings I saw were partially boarded up. A typical one mile stretch is basically liquor store, liquor store, check cashing store/pawn shop, liquor store, Zales, mini-mart. I’m not sure a city like Detroit is ever going to enjoy a renaissance. They have such a long way to go. Ford Field, however, was a pretty spectacular venue.

Below: On location at the tailgate.

Below: Chris and Marlo from The Wire...tailgating?












I'm thankful for the few days off from school that I have. I'm sitting at home in CT in the comfort of my living room, computer on lap, football on the TV, with a cold glass of milk. Milk, and sleeping late...definitely will do a body good.

I'm thankful for a lot of things, and I'm thankful that you all keep reading my blog. Have a great Thanksgiving.

Mirror Mirror on the...floor? God Damn those Shoes are Fly

I purchased a mirror the first week of school and it still sits on my floor, effectively making my changing area look like a Foot Locker, since I have stacks of sneakers and one of those tilted sneaker mirrors. But the point is not about the sneakers, it is about the lack of time and the prioritizing I do here at Michigan. And the priority for this weekend is soaking up all the yummy goodness knows as Michigan vs Ohio State. I came back from the gas station and there were two junkyard cars painted scarlet and grey out in front of the AEPi house. Students are lining up to take sledgehammers and destroy the cars, and best of all, it's sponsored by Domino's. I'm serious.

I hope the Ohio State football team can understand this shirt, considering the majority of them are majoring in geography.


But, yeah, I'm pretty psyched for the weekend, which is also a double whammy, as I'll be going to the Giants-Lions game on Sunday. But on Monday I'll be knocked senseless by my Finance Midterm, so there are definitely pluses and minuses. I'll only get one Michigan-Ohio St game in Ann Arbor while I'm here, whereas I'll definitely be taking another Finance test at some point later this term. Priorities.

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm hoping Michigan wins and it gets so crazy that the Earth opens up and swallows the Big House. Well, I'm thinking this might not be that far off considering the trees right outside my window have become the hangout for hundreds of black crows or grackles or some devilbirds. The apocalypse is upon us. All night long for the past week or so...caw caw caw caw caw caw caw caw caw caw caw caw caw caw caw caw caw cawcawcaw caw cawcaw caw caw caw caw caw. I want to go out and start throwing rocks, by I'm kind of afraid the crows would come down and tear me to shreds. And this really isn't that wild of an assumption...

http://paperfrigate.blogspot.com/2005/05/birds-attack-people-on-sidewalks-of.html

If you want to know how annoying it is, just call me right before you go to bed, put the phone by your ear, and I'll "caw caw" you until you can't take it anymore and you hang up. And then I'll call you back and "caw caw" you some more. Caw.

Watch the game tomorrow at noon and have a good weekend.

Pot Luck

Oh man, I really have no business writing this post given the amount of work I have to do, but I've been away too long and I miss it. I'm trying not to run into making these weekly posts the "this is what I did last weekend" type of post, but this is what I did last weekend....

Saturday was one of the stranger days I've had in a really long time. I watched the Michigan game with some friends and then went to a pot luck dinner with some of my classmates, some of their spouses and even some of their kids. I remarked upon arriving that this was hands down the most grown up thing I've done since coming to Michigan. I made a cold barley salad with peppers, mozzarella, onions, tomatoes and cilantro. The theory behind my dish was simple, add as much color to it as possible because color is impressive. It actually happened to be pretty good too. When I opened the dish someone said, "Finger, that looks delicious." To which I replied, "It is, and look how colorful it is". It was nice to hang out with people who I typically would not hang out with. One of my classmates was there with her daughter. She's raising a 6 year old by herself, while attending Business school full time. Does someone like that even get phased at being cold-called? For Christsakes, she's had a person come out of her body, everything else must be child's play right? After changing how many diapers, and cleaning up how many spills do you feel like you could step into a ring with Mike Tyson? I don't know how she does it.

So after having a great, and extremely diverse dinner I went home and then went to one of the campus bars to hang out with some friends and consume the Saturday night special of $6 hard liquor pitchers. Full regression was underway as my mentality went from "grown ass man" to "frat boy" in about the span of an hour. But I guess that's part of the charm at Michigan. There's something for everyone, and if you're like me, you can make your two years a "pot luck" and sample a little bit of everything.

Anyway, in honor of the chick pea masala I ate on Saturday night that ended up giving me nightmares (although it was quite tasty), I'm going to leave you with a link to a video I found amusing. I've got to figure out how to embed some of these videos.

This is Safe For Work although it has sound. If you don't like stupid humor you should just skip it.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/9da8271a25

This weekend...Michigan versus Ohio State. I'm hoping the Big House gets so loud and crazy that the Earth just opens and swallows everyone whole. It's going to be quite a crazy weekend, and quite a busy week leading up to it. Happy Monday.

Jeepers Creepers, Rick's and Skeepers

So by now you all know that I start looking forward to the weekend starting Sunday morning. Given that we just started a new quarter I don't have as much on my plate now than I'm going have in the coming weeks, so I can afford a little more FingertheBlog Time than normal. On Thursdays the business school has a mixer with another one of the graduate schools, as I've previously mentioned in past posts. This past Thursday was the Medical School. Basically there was one girl/lady/woman/future doctor who was attractive and all my friends wanted to speak to her, but instead we just watched from afar and made a few hours worth of awkward eye contact. Finally one of us went up to her and asked, "do you have a boyfriend?", she said yes, and then we all left. At that point we were on Main Street, a healthy 20 min walk from where most of us live. Being that is was cold out, I was wearing a sport coat and jeans. I'm not trying to get sick. We walked two blocks down Main Street to another bar and stayed for just a short period of time. It was about 1:15, the bars close at 2:00.

It's not my fault that Rick's, one of the campus bars, is a block from my apartment. It's a natural stop on the way back home. So one of my buddies and I decided to jump in a cab and head to Rick's to catch the last 45 minutes of a Thursday that had otherwise been mediocre. Just to tell you about Rick's, it's in a basement and it's dirty. The bathroom stalls have no doors, a la jail (or so I'm told). The floor is linoleum, and they have carpeting which probably hasn't been cleaned since Pabst actually won their Blue Ribbon back in the 1800s. So that's the scene. Despite it being a disgusting bar, people dress up. It's not uncommon to see girls in heels and dresses. So after splitting a couple $4 pitchers with my friend it's getting on 2:00am and the "ugly lights" are about to come on. When you're dancing with some girl at 2am and it's dark and you've maybe had a couple too many sodas you really can't tell what kind of hand you've been dealt, the ugly lights come on and reveal all. There's nothing flattering about that lighting. You're sweaty and nasty, your pupils start to dilate, and you look you just came back from the gym. I've seen guys on the dance floor acting all cool, impressing some girl, and come 1:58a they're a wreck, and all they're thinking is "please don't have a mustache, please don't have a mustache, please don't have a mustache". The ugly lights can be a game changer, they really can. Imagine having the lights come on and seeing this...





In the dark, she's got nice smelling long brown hair, and she probably just another sorority girl. When the ugly lights come on, she's Danny Trejo, Hollywood actor.






So the ugly lights came on and I start talking to some girl (without a mustache), and the girl's friend comes over, pulls her aside and says, "Only the creepers are still here" clearly referring to me. I've been called many things in my life, but a creeper hasn't been one of them. Kind of taken aback I said, "oh so because I'm wearing a sport coat I'm a creeper. I'm soooo old and creepy because I have a sport coat on huh?" She kind of shrugged, looked somewhat apologetic and then left.

I don't understand. A guy wears a t-shirt like this and he's cool....
and a guy looks like this and he's a creeper...
That's Bond. James freaking Bond. He wears a sport coat. Is he a "creeper"?

Moving along to Saturday...after watching Michigan pull off quite the comeback against MSU a bunch of us went to Scorekeepers, aka Skeepers. Just to give you some idea about Rick's and Skeepers, it is pretty obvious when looking at the patrons that it is mostly an undergrad scene, and it isn't a coincidence we end up at one or both places a few nights a week. Skeepers gets packed at around midnight and at that point everyone's mingling and hanging out. I see a girl who I met on Halloween so I go over and say hello. I say, "hey I'm John, we met on Halloween, what's going on?" She looks at me and says, "Halloween was a looooong time ago" and then turns around. For the record, Halloween was three days before (stupid), but I got the point. She was one of those horrible, sorry, "haaarrrible", Long Island girls, so maybe I should've expected as much. I apologize for that sweeping generalization, but even if you are a sweetheart from Long Island even you know that there's something in that drinking water that turns some of these Long Island girls into some of the saltiest women on the face of the Earth. I'm not going to get into that though, because I'm writing a dissertation on it for release later this year.

But getting back to the story, I couldn't understand what was difference between Saturday and Halloween that would cause this girl to act the way she did. Taking a self-inventory, I noticed that this time I was wearing a sweater over my buttondown, as opposed to just a buttondown. Surely that wasn't it, or was it? Not 20 minutes later some girl comes up to me and says, "you're not from here are you?" I say, "no, I was living in New York before I came to Michigan and I grew up in Connecticut". I asked her where she thought I was from and she said, "another country", to which I responded, "like England, or like Bulgaria?" She says "Israel". Now I may have the map of Israel written all over my face, but given the heavy NYC/LI area contingent there that night I was far from being the only Jew up in the club. I literally could not understand what the hell prompted her to say that, and then I asked, "is it the sweater?" and she said, "yes".





Sweaters and Jews go together like...
peas and gefilte fish? Who knew.







Unless it is a text book for a class that you know is going to kick your ass, don't judge a book by its cover. Two nights. One night a "creeper", the other night a "sweater wearing Israeli". Are undergrads naive and a little dumb, undoubtedly. Will I continue going to Rick's and Skeepers, undoubtedly. But in case my tastes just aren't appreciated up in Michigan there's always Washington and Lee.


http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/10/30/education/edlife/20071104_Trendspotting_Slideshow_index.html