AOL’s contribution to my MBA education

One of the things that never fails to fascinates me about business school is that in almost every accounting or finance class I have taken, there has been a mention of the AOL Time Warner merger. In taxes and finance class (which is a finance class taught by the accounting department) today, the professor used it to illustrate the tax consequences of a merger. He talked about the $99 billion net loss the merged company reported in 2002 mostly due to changes in accounting rules and impairment of goodwill.

 

He said my former employer “makes GM (General Motors) look profitable” as everyone laughed while I just sank deeper in my seat and chuckled awkwardly.

24 returns

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS OF TONIGHT’S EPISODE.

By “24 returns,” I mean that not just literally but figuratively as well. I was beginning to think that its writers have completely lost their ability to shock us and then saw tonight’s episode. First off, two of my last week’s predictions came true – the missile being a dud and the situation between Mike Doyle and Nardia beginning to heat up. Just when I thought the show was becoming a bit too predictable with Fayed being rescued in an ambush, we find out the ambush was staged and by the end of the hour the nuclear warhead story came to an end.

Like many of you, after Jack and the CTU team recovered theremaining warheads, I was waiting for the “other shoe to drop.” I was expecting either Doyle to shoot Jack or for Nardia to walk into a bathroom stall and start text messaging information to the terrorists. But instead the phone rang and on the other end was Audrey! I guess it makes sense for Kim Raver to return to the show since The Nine on ABC has gone nowhere. And I think it’s about time that Chinese returns as the villains since it’s pretty obvious the Arab terrorist plot has jumped the shark. Did anyone notice that the name of the Arabic military general who was captured for aiding Fayed was Habib? We already had a terrorist name Habib, Habib Marwan during season 5. I am hoping that thistime around the writers will do a better job at keeping the villains interesting.

Resurrecting my Sundays

About two years after I graduated from college, I began doing something that I had long considered doing but never really put into practice. I began honoring the Sabbath by taking Sundays off. By that, I am not saying that I merely refrained from going to work on Sundays. I actually began to adhere to the commandment about honoring the Sabbath and “keeping it holy” by coming home from church and then refraining from doing anything for the rest of the day. This includes errands, household chores, and anything that was mentally or laboriously taxing.

 

I know this confounds a lot of you who do not share my religious beliefs and I admit that even among Christians, many don’t think much of the “honoring the Sabbath” commandment. But I think there are secular as well as religious benefits to this practice. During the time that I was doing this, I felt it strengthened my faith and helped me deal more effectively with my stress levels. I remember during the time when I was working, there were times when I heard coworkers complain that they felt more tired on the Monday than on the previous Friday. It’s clear that many people overextend themselves on the weekends and the results are evident during the workweek.

 

Unfortunately business school has gotten into the way of me continuing to make Sunday a day of rest. For the past twenty months, my Sundays have comprised of church, a quick lunch, followed by the rest of the day spent catching up on reading and assignments. Other than going to church in the morning, my Sunday s have begun to resemble every other day of the week. I very much would like toreturn to the habit of honoring my Sundays and with class work slowing down to a crawl and me getting ready to return to the workforce, I can think of no better time to recommit myself to this habit than on this Easter Sunday.

What the sneaky cell phone companies mean when it says “we never stop working for you”

The cellular phone industry must be getting more competitive because for the past month, there has been at least two (maybe even three) attempts by my cellular service provider to get me to renew my contact. And the attempts are getting more and more aggressive.

 

I am a bit of an anomaly among cell phone users because I have been with the same provider for more than eight years. My current two year contract runs out in July and my plans are to wait for it to run out and then try to negotiate a discount in return for renewing for two more years. Another reason I am not renewing just yet is because I may end up working for a company with a better employee discount than the one I am currently getting and in such an event I may have to switch providers to get the discount. 

 

About three weeks ago I got a call from someone at my provider trying to get me to sign up for a new phone with the “New Every Two” promotion, which grants a $100 subsidy toward the purchase of a new phone every two years. She tried to get me to upgrade by telling me I should have a phone with the latest technology. What she delicately didn’t tell me, but I knew from my previous dealings with the company, was that partaking in the promotion would renew my contract for two more years.  I explained to her that I was happy with my current phone and was in no hurry to upgrade.

 

Then last week I got a flier in the mail from the provider giving me a list of phones I can upgrade to. I notice that it now offers 100 bonus minutes per month for customers who renew on a three year contract, a three year contract is something I have never heard of before. The latest attempt to get me to renew was earlier today when I got a call from “Gillian” asking me how happy I am with my phone and with my current plan.  I inquired as to whether the company was trying to lock in as many customers on a contract before the iPhone comes out. She countered that the company was trying to protect its customers from price increases, which was a ridiculous answer because I don’t see cellular service prices going up anytime soon. I told her I was happy with my service and didn’t want to make any changes right now. It was then that she went over the line. I had already told her I wasn’t going to renew and she said “we can renew you now and you will still have six months to get a new phone, is that okay?” I paused as the audacity of what she did began to sink in. I said “do not renew” and hung up.

 

It is clear that the cell phone companies are worried about its customer base defecting to Cingular when the iPhone comes out in June and are offering its employees big commission money to cold call its customers and badger them into locking in. The next time I get a call from Verizon Wireless, I am going to pretend that I can’t hear them. “Can you hear me now? How about now?”

Slow news week, or just slowing down

I know a lot of you have been disappointed with the lack of posting this week. I am at a loss as to why I haven’t been blogging. Last Thursday I wrote about my shifting priorities with classes beginning to die down. I would certainly say that in the time since, there has been a shift in my state of mind. It’s almost as though I have nothing worthwhile to blog about, or I don’t feel like writing anything anymore. I don’t think this is a case of senioritis setting in, more like the weather has been nice and I have just been busy enjoying my last three weeks of classes. Earlier today a first year student asked me how I have been doing and I told her I have been really busy. Then I paused and realized I could not possibly have been that busy because I have not had much to do.

Some observations of 24

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS OF TONIGHT’S EPISODE.

Today’s USA Today had an article about just how bad this season’s 24 is.

Here are someobservations I made from tonight’s episode. I think there is a lot of potential for characters hooking up for the remainder of the season. Tonight we saw the Vice President sharing an intimate moment with aide Lisa Miller when she agreed to perjure himself to help his court case. We also saw Mike Doyle going out his way to ingratiate himself to Nardia. Speaking of Nardia, I am not sure if it’s more fair to say that she is looking better and better as the season goes on or maybe I am just so bored out of my mind that every time she appears on the screen, I am appreciative of the distraction.

From looking at the previews for next week, my prediction is that the missile that the President fired at the Arabic country is non-nuclear and is intended to intimidate the terrorists into giving up information.

Buckyhoo announces bid for President of the United States

By Jayson Blair - Charlottesville, VA (April 1, 2007)

 

Surrounded by a dozen well wishers and approximately two hundred hecklers, Buckyhoo stood on the steps of the Rotunda at the University of Virginia and announced his intentions to seek the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. “Our country needs a strong leader to fight the culture war at home, the terrorists abroad and I need an opportunity to practice all the soft skills I learned in the MBA program. I can think of no better starting point than the American presidency.”

 

Buckyhoo plans to run on a platform of strong deterrence against domestic terrorism and efficient use of American force abroad. He advocates what he calls the “What Would Jack Bauer Do?” approach to dealing with enemy combatants and wants a quick withdrawal of American soldiers from Iraq – but to immediately redeploy them to Iran to topple the regime of Iranian president Mahoud Ahmadinejad. His economic plan calls for the streamline of America’s income and corporate tax policies – starting with the repeal of the recently enacted FIN 48. Buckyhoo’s campaign spokesman Mary Mapes claims that its repeal will “have the dual effects of saving American companies from mountains of paperwork and preventing generations of Kenan-Flagler students in the taxes in finance class from having to do that stupid Apache assignment.” 

 

Political observers say it is unclear what impact Buckyhoo’s announcement will have on the Republican presidential field. But opposition to his campaign has already begun to mobilize. Present at the announcement this morning was political activist S.R. Sidarth, who taped the speech on his video camera and plans to do the same at various Buckyhoo campaign appearances throughout the country. He plans to use the footage for an upcoming opposition documentary titled “Bucky Who?” Mary Smith, the Franklin Koury Moorehead Professor of ethical strategic entrepreneurial management communications at Kenan-Flagler Business School voiced doubt about Buckhoo’s political odds. “Does he realize that he’s not old enough to be President? I guess it never occurred to him to read the Constitution first before launching a campaign, that to him would be as unexpected as him actually doing the reading before showing up for my class.”