That is the end of the 1st Quarter

With the submission of my group's 15 page paper on video game consoles between 1999 and 2005, I officially finished my first quarter at the GSB. I shaved my playoff beard and started drinking. I only took three courses this quarter, but one of them was the infamous "Turbo" microeconomics, with John Bates Clark Medal winner and "Genius" Grant Recipient Kevin Murphy. I loved everything about that class, except for perhaps the loads and loads of work that it sometimes required. Nonetheless, I really feel like I learned a lot.

My other two courses were Financial Accounting and Competitive Strategy. Accounting is the language of business, so although it's dry, it needs to be done. Competitive Strategy is the kind of course I expected to take when I came to business school. It was so good, I'm taking another course with the same professor next quarter (Technology Strategy). It was probably the course I did worst in gradewise, but hey, about 2/3 of my grade was based on analysis of video games and ice cream makers...Russian ice cream makers to be more precise.

I now find myself in a hotel in Sunnyvale, CA about to embark on the "VC Trek." I'm pretty excited about it. We're really seeing some high powered VC firms out here in Silicon Valley, that I would be reasearching more carefully if I weren't procrastinating by updating my blog.

Random thoughts:

• Does anyone else chuckle everytime they see the Citizen watch commercial with skater Sasha Cohen because she almost has the same name as Ali G?
• How exactly did a studio executive greenlight another movie about dragons with Jeremy Irons? Seriously. This is a sign of very, very bad things to come. After the god-awful Dungeons & Dragons, my buddy commented that Jeremy Irons had to sit in a room for years and contemplate what he had done. Apparently that time of reflection is over, and Irons is back to making dragon movies.
• This is the first time in a long, long time that I've eaten greasy cheeseburgers two days in a row. Yesterday, feeling happy after finals, I treated myself to the Double Cheddar Charburger over at The Wiener's Circle, complete with a monstrous order of fries. Then today when I got into Sunnyvale, I went looking for a burrito joint or s ub shop, only to settle on an In N Out Burger nearby. Mmm...Animal Style.
• If the Dolphins played top-rated teams each week, would they be undefeated on the season?
• I'm reading The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty by Buster Olney, and it's top-notch thus far. Although it kills me that they keep mentioning the 2001 series, and Curt Schilling especially. Put simply, the world is a better place if it were a Curt Schillingless world.
  
• I was in Utah for the first time at the SLC airport, which is tucked in between the mountains and is rather scenic. I still was a bit freaked out thinking that many people around me might have been wearing special Mormon underpants.
• It's nice to escape that Chicago weather. I've heard people saying it was "the coldest late Autumn in 17 years" or someshit. All I know is that for about the past week, it was usually in the single digits with the wind chill, which is a bit much for early December. As I expected however, it compared to Boston as "colder, but with less snow and crap." I think by this time in Boston, we would seemingly be assured of more days of snow, ice, and sleet.
• Is Paul Krugman getting better about making TV appearances, or is this guy just a chump, or is defense of the current administration and Congress so untenable that Krugman has it easy?
• I have eclectic musical taste, but had one of those occurences the other day when I simultaneously bought a CD by the Brodsky Quartet playing a Janacek sonata that I heard live when I was in Prague in Spring 2001, the Ghostface Killah CD with Cherchez La Ghost, and a CD entitled "Welcome to Carcass Cuntry" by Jeff Walker und die Flüffers, an album of folk and country covers by the lead singer and bassist of Carcass. Very strange.
• In an attempt to be adult, I'll likely send out X-Mas cards this year. Email me your addresses.
• I'm getting a new cell phone shortly, and currently am leaning towards the Blackberry Pearl and T-Mobile, whose unlimited plan for the 5 people you call most seems pretty good. Besides, Verizon fails math