15's Company

Yesterday the Rotman Rugby team made the 2 hour drive to London to play in the U of Western Ontario's MBA Rugby tournament. Teams were there from the Ivey School of Business (UWO), Ivey Alumni, Fanshaw and from Cornell University, who made the trip up from New York State. We were a little undermaned, but we managed to win one game out of three and generally make a pretty respectable showing. Yes, we played three games of rugby in one day. It was not good times this morning. In fact, I felt like that time Jack Tripper tried to dance and fool around with his gym instructor and not let her know he was so stiff from lifting weights that he could barely move. The late John Ritter was such a great physical comedian that I start to laughing everytime I think about that scene.

Its times like this though - almost too sore to climb out of bed this morning - that make me wonder if maybe I'm too old to be back at school. Maybe I just don't fit in on a University campus anymore.

No. No way. On second thought, I'm good.

The tournament was followed by an awards presentation in the Rugby clubhouse (congrats to the Ivey Alumni team for taking top spot), where the MVPs from each team, as tradition apparently dictates, were made to chug beer from a game worn rugby boot. The world has finally found a good use for Lucky Lager. I suspect the boot may even have improved the taste if they were using Lucky. After that all the teams drank a little beer together, and sung a few songs. It was worth the trip just getting to meet the MBAers from other schools out on the field and in the bar. Great group of guys.

Elsewhere, this Greatest Canadian debate is really rattling some cages. I'm on the record in this matter from last year picking Terry Fox, Billy Bishop and John A. MacDonald as my top three. Some people though, are taking it too seriously. Andrew Coyne from the National Post can't understand why Don Cherry is on the list. It's simple. People voted him on, in Cherry's own words, to piss off liberals. Others aren't taking it seriously enough. Winnipeg radio dj Hal Anderson got his listeners to vote him on as a stunt. Now, maybe Avril Lavigne doesn't deserve to have her name next to inventors and Prime Ministers. But maybe to the people that voted for Avril, her music means more to them than anything any of the others did.

Speaking of music, I can't stop listening to Franz Ferdinand. Get hip and check them out. The band says they picked the moniker to wipe the name of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand from the face of history. He was credited by many for starting World War I.

The Subway is a Porno

Short post this week. Keeping busy with schoolwork and interviews and living life Toronto style - whatever that means. I went to see Interpol, one of my favorite bands of the 21st century at The Docks this week. Great show and a cool, fun crowd. Yes, there are still bands worth going to see these days that wont charge you $75 for a ticket, but it seems like they are getting harder and harder to find.


Other than that, its business as usual here. I've got my intern and the entire TAML research staff working on a major feature on comic books. Look for it soon. In the meantime, go read the best thing I've seen all week: Tony calling Avril out - somebody had to say it. The money quote is "when ashlee simpson is more punk rock than you someone has led you astray". After all, none of her real fans are happy about this.

Don't Be Journalistic Girly Men

Rugby season kicked off this week, and I took part in my first game since high school. The Rotman team played against fellow MBAers from our archrival Ivey School of Business (University of Western Ontario). For those of you hip to Rugby, I'm playing Lock. This seems to consist essentially of getting down in the scrum, getting trampled on when mauls go bad, rarely touching the ball, and hitting people all game long when they try to run at you. Like the narrator said in Fight Club "I ran. I ran until my muscles burned and my veins pumped battery acid. And then I ran some more." We ended up losing but we kept it close most of the way. After the game, as is the Rugby code, both teams drank together at the Ballroom. "Hey, aren't these your teeth marks on my leg"? Fun day.

The National Post came out today with another girly-man in a slap-fight style attack on political bloggers. It continues to irk mainstream media that bloggers just exist, let alone that they are getting more and more attention on the political scene. Heaven forbid, bloggers were actually given credentials to cover the recent Democratic National Convention (as if they were actually real journalists). The blogoshere recently fact checked Dan Rather's ass causing him to issue a public apology over faked documents pertaining to Bush's Vietnam War record. But this doesn't seem to matter much to J. Kelly Nestruck though. Nice article J..

Although this blog is by no means in the class of the best political bloggers, like Instapundit, Vodkapundit or Michelle Malkin, I don't like seeing them attacked by hacks like J.. No, my purposes here are much more modest. Mostly its just a way for my friends and family back in Vancouver to keep track of what I'm up to, and for people considering doing an MBA to get a first hand perspective on the experience. It's also just a vehicle for me to spout off and practice writing.

In another Rotman-related item. I have an interview this week with a certain large Canadian financial institution. It's for a great position, so send me out any telepathic positive mojo you can spare on Thursday afternoon.

Since I don't think I've mentioned it here yet, two books I read and enjoyed this summer were The Number by Alex Berenson:

In the wake of Enron's spectacular implosion, the scandals
surrounding the collapse of Tyco's stock price and revelations that WorldCom
inflated its earnings by $9 billion, many wonder how independent auditors could
have overlooked such huge discrepancies in financial records. Others ask how the
SEC failed to spot corporate fraud and errors of the accounting firms on such a
scale when reviewing the annual reports. New York Times reporter Berenson
provides eye-opening answers to these and other equally disturbing questions in
this hard-hitting and well-documented study. Against a background of the decline
in independent investment research and the shift in client base for investment
houses from individual investors to corporations, he charts the ascent of
earnings per share-"the number"-to measure companies' health.

and A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market by J.A. Paulos:

We like to think not only that mathematicians are smarter than
the rest of us but that by dint of their mastery of numbers, they hold the key
to understanding the baffling mysteries of the universe. Alas, Paulos
(Innumeracy) says that's not always the case. As the author relates in this
funny, insightful little volume about attempts to bring order and science to the
free-for-all that is the stock market, he himself was once a big investor (in
WorldCom). Despite strong evidence to sell, he desperately hung on to his stock
as the price plummeted, proving that a head for numbers doesn't always translate
to Wall Street know-how. Through most of this book, Paulos discusses various
methods for predicting markets and offers thoughts on why people keep trying to
perfect them.

Also, In my continuing effort to keep readers abreast of the retro 80's music scene, check out this post reviewing The Killers latest offering from one of my newest favoritest blogs, Off-Wing Opinion.

"That's great" you might be saying to yourself, "but what's is the newest, cutting-edgiest trend in technology this week"? Answer: people are downloading and reading TAML on their portable devices.