College.

By JoshPetersel in Josh on Josh 0 Comment

College. Damn.

Here’s a video that fairly succinctly explains what graduation is like.

Second, a forewarning: This is a very *me* post.  If you have no interest in lists of inside jokes, see you next week.

///

Of the many reasons why I like writing: Pieces of paper have an infinite memory.  The internet never forgets.

Here’s the (expanding) list of things I hope I’ll never forget about college.  Kind of like the closing scene from The Girl Next Door, only I’ve got more writing space to work with (and fewer Elisha Cuthberts).

Freshman Year

There's just so many things to comment about here. This image should be *huge* on the internet.

There’s just so many things to comment about here. Kramer Poster, the ratio, the Mike Lew face.  This should be *huge* on the internet.

  • Recouping
  • RA Brian
  • D3: Bigger, Longer, & Quacktastic
  • “Zighbi,” “Skillz”
  • Disco Dolls in Hot Heat in 3D
  • Bear’s Den, the Bradley Bomb, the Buffalo Chicken Caesar, and of course, Patrick Ewing
  • “wtf is b00n”
  • Arrested Development at 2:00a.m.
  • Half-pledging Beta
  • Arnold and Shadows of the Collossus
  • Something dying in our bathroom
  • Not liking Marius when I first met him (I know, I don’t get it either)
  • The bush near the B-school on the way to the frats
  • “Push your limits” (by proxy)
  • The shopping cart trip to Bear Mart
  • Accidentally meatspinning Anthony’s mom
  • Roller hockey, and relatedly:
    • The Garlands
    • “Step up, Matt R”
    • “C’mon, Sully”
    • “THURSTON”
    • “Slow ‘er down, JP! 21!”
    • “1-1-2”
    • Dollar Gatorades at Quik Trip
    • Bob Evans
    • The Hockey Playlist; “Walk Away”
  • Neve Stash, Mikembe Dutumbo, and flipping the first letters of any two words
  • The World-Champion Pittsburgh Steelers
  • The Statue of David (and later, the iPod Guy, Soulja Boy, and the Juggernaut)

Sophomore Year

Dear Future Self: I promise that, 20 years ago in 2007, this was a really cool and funny costume.

Dear Future Self: I promise that, 20 years ago in 2007, this was a really cool and funny costume.

  • Girlzilla
  • Jonas, WR
  • Raja Bell
  • That other roommate
  • Dick in a Box
  • Mud Wrestling
  • The Matt & Josh moving company
  • “Unfortunately”
  • Secret handshake with Craig
  • Ski Trip
  • Santa Fe
  • Professor Johanek, Mark Shevitz
  • Smash, and relatedly:
    • The Epic Sesh
    • The Rotay
    • Walkin’ it off
    • The Good Captain, his girlfriend Anne
    • Sweet Lou
    • Weakachu, the Win button
  • How to Become a Hipster
  • Ruining Beyonce
  • Soulardi Gras

Junior Year

I have no idea how someone managed to tag me in this (I'm the forehead & curly hair near bottom left). The tall guy behind me would eventually throw an elbow across my face, and eventually-eventually get tasered by the police.

I have no idea how someone managed to tag me in this (I’m the forehead & curly hair near bottom left). The tall guy behind me would eventually throw an elbow across my face, and eventually-eventually get tasered by the police.

  • “SND”
  • Nature’s Glove
  • Dan Beckman
  • Driving to White Castle with Carlos in the snow
  • Doo dah doo doo (and part 2)
  • My office in the B-school
  • All the crap I did abroad (needs a separate post)
  • Girl Talk Concert, the Taser, Sammy
  • The moustache party
  • Rams games, outnumbering Rams fans 8-1 at the Rams-Steelers match
  • Cigar Nights with Jake

Senior Year

Man, look at all these goofy haircuts.

Man, look at all these goofy haircuts.

  • “Bang Out” Day
  • Pocket Josh
  • Climbing the fence onto the baseball field
  • Margaret’s Birthday Party
  • My Parents’ Birthday Gift
  • “What do the 5 fingers say to the face?”
  • Family Thanksgiving Dinner
  • “Do you always go around trying to pick up gay guys?”
  • Dan Kandy’s Party Dream
  • The Prohibition Party, and subsequently, the Punishment Barbecue
  • The 8.5-boy Man Room, and specifically:
    • Disagreeing with Straszheim about everything, simply on principle
    • Balls in the nuts
    • Going into Woody’s room to watch Youtube videos
    • Double D waking up on top of a pile of meat
    • “Tron!”
    • Bumming cigarettes from Brian
    • Brad ordering wings only for himself prior to the AFC championship game
    • Truffle Shuffles
    • Crossing swords with Owen Wilson
    • Always suggesting, but never eating dinner with Danny
  • Getting Zach into Pinup Bowl
  • Practically having Jimmy John’s on speed dial
  • Five broken windows
  • Discovering, after four years, that the local pizza place gives discounts to college students if you show your school ID
  • The 45-minute Teach for America infomercial

If any of that made sense to you, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.  Man, what a heinously fast four years.

The Art of Nonconformity

By JoshPetersel in Josh surfs the Internet 1 Comment

On the heels of my most recent post on travel, I’ve discovered a blog written by Chris Guillebeau called The Art of Nonconformity.  Wow.

Chris does an obscene amount of traveling: 25 countries per year, with the goal of visiting every country in the world by his 2013.  Holy smokes.

I’m scorching through the archives right now.  Here are a few of my favorite pieces:

What’s the sell on Chris’ blog?  There really isn’t one.  He just writes about what he loves.  For those super 5% of his readers who want to go the extra mile, there’s a product or two for sale (your typical salesguy, on the other hand, pitches for the bigger 95%).    Chris’ 5% has grown so much that can support himself with an above-average salary.

I’m infatuated with the lifestyle Chris has afforded himself.  I’ll see him there, someday.

///

I also wanted to thank Brett (of Art of Manliness) again for reaching out to thank me.  It’s astounding how easy it is to be social on the internet.

AoM on Traveling

By JoshPetersel in Josh surfs the Internet 3 Comments

The Art of Manliness really hit the nail on the head for me today, writing an article on the virtues of traveling.

You must know this about me by this point:  I love traveling.  Live for it, live by it, dream about it.  Chortle at people who fear the adventure of an unknown new city, new people, new lifestyle.

The most important subtlety here that AoM really harps on is the experience of traveling – that if you really go on a great vacation, you’ll have a story you can share with your friends for ages.  I’m glad that most of my friends had a “fun” time in Santa Fe over spring break, but they’ll never fully understand my experience in traveling into the mouth of hell, which I got to enjoy while driving and boating to Bocas del Toro in Panama.

I’m glad that somebody else in the world gets it.

Here’s my favorite quote:

What vacations do not offer, however, is the critical element provided by real travelling, an authentic experience. You may brag at work for a couple weeks about how many mojitos you drank last spring break, but you’ll be talking about your experience meeting a real Masai [sic] warrior in Kenya or the time you rode on the back of an elephant through the jungles of India for the rest of your life.

Funny, because I’ve actually met Maasai warriors while traveling in Tanzania.  I wear the handiwork of one of the warriors’ wives around my neck every day.

From my own experiences:  I absolutely love staying in hostels.  The author’s right, saying “you are always sure to meet quite a few interesting people in hostels, which only adds to the experience.”  Having backpacked around Europe on my own for nearly a month, I can’t stress the value of hostels enough.  It takes a special kind of person to stay in a hostel, and you’ll instantly be provided with entertainment, conversation, and if you’re not terribly unlucky, partners in crime adventure.  This probably wouldn’t fly well for families, but I’d venture to guess that at that point, you’ve probably got all the adventure you need just in keeping the kids from barreling down flights of stairs (not that I’d know anything about that).

I’d argue the same about trains, though for me it was actually cheaper to fly point-to-point across Europe, thanks to stupidly cheap airline companies like RyanAir, EasyJet, WizzAir (who for some reason let me fly from Berlin to Budapest for a flat $6.00) and price-hunting site skyscanner.net.  But talk about experience – for the small price premium of a month-long train ticket, you’d get to see the entire countryside of Europe.  I was lucky enough to take the train from Geneve to Interlaken and back, absorbing the gorgeous Swiss countryside with time to go skydiving in between, for kicks.  And the train might have even worked out cheaper in the long run, if I was careful to work out overnight flights and shave off a few nights of rent in hostels.

I’ll never understand why my Wash U buddies in Madrid were so disinterested in checking out early and taking the European continent by storm, but I suppose it’s their loss.  Some of my other favorite experiences, off the top of my head:

  • Making friends in Oslo, Norway via a conversation about how the bar places pillows over the urinals in the bathroom (it’s for the drunk people to rest their heads).
  • Accidentally stumbling into a gay bar in Copenhagen, Denmark, on a quiet Monday night, befriending some Danes, and letting them introduce me to their straight female friends.
  • Deciding on a whim, “You know what, why don’t I buy a ticket to Sweden for the afternoon?”  And doing it.
  • Getting sick all over the bathroom at a friend’s house in London, because I’m hopelessly bad at mixing hard cider and dark beer.  (Sorry, Jules.)
  • Getting hopelessly lost and exasperatingly hungry in Paris and wandering into a bar  because there was a cute dog sitting in the doorway.  Nobody spoke a word of English; we ordered using hand gestures.
  • Eating whale stew.
  • Stopping for waffles in Brussels and listening to the guy behind the counter weave in and out of four different languages in a single sentence.
  • Soccer lunatics in Prague.
  • Did I mention the skydiving?

Please, for your next trip, don’t just vacation.  Adventure.  Experience something totally wild, new, and unimaginable.

Then, tell me all about it.

Twitter [Things I Hate]

By JoshPetersel in Josh surfs the Internet 3 Comments

Twitter is arguably, if not probably, the new internet.  I’ll let someone else drool all over you in relaying its benefits.

My disappointment with Twitter stems from the obscene lack of knowledge the site puts on display.  It’s evident to me that, say, 80% of Twitter users have absolutely, positively, no idea what the hell they’re doing on the site.  Let’s break Twitter users down into four categories:

1. Non-User. Like this guy, who took a completely awesome username off the market and is doing nothing with it.

2. Yeah me too guys, right? Heard that Twitter is the new thing, but has no idea what he’s doing.  Probably is of the assumption that having more followers is better, and randomly clicks “follow” on a hundred other Twitter-ers so that they’ll follow him.  Has no expectations of actually paying attention to these people, yet for some reason, expects that they’ll give a crap about what he has to say.

I’ll give you a great example:  I used to be on Twitter.  Over the summer I started a website, which was a ton of fun until schoolwork sort of happened again in the fall.  I hopped on the bandwagon like everyone else, and started a Twitter account.  Note two things about that link:  First, that I was thoughtful enough to write actual posts on occasion, to supplement shamelessly directing followers to read my blog (you’ll probably call me a hypocrite later, anyway).  Second, note the date on my most recent update:  September 16th, 2008.  Nearly 7 months ago.  That in mind, here’s a screencap from my email inbox:

Look how popular!!

Look how popular!!

Like instructions for a Where’s Waldo puzzle,  here’s what I want you to look for:

  • The dates when these users decided to follow me
  • The total number of users who’ve decided to follow me
  • The user listed here with the most brain cells (okay, trick question)

Again, this kind of blind, shameless following does nobody any good.  You don’t win at Twitter by having the most followers.  You win by getting a few followers who really care about what you have to say.  Twitter is like a number of male body parts:  It’s not the size that counts, it’s how you use it.

3. Wayyyyy too much personal use. Right, like pre-teen girls needed another means of complaining to everyone who’ll listen about every single menial thing that’s going on in their tiny bubble of a world.  Youtube. GroupHug. PostSecret. Fmylife.  Xanga. MySpace. [Note, clicking those links is completely voluntary.  Save your sanity and just don’t.]  Give me a break.  The internet should have two websites on it:  Wikipedia, and some resource for free pornography.  That’s it.  Everything else is fluff.

4. The miniscule, miniscule percentage of people who actually grasp what’s going on – and this I’d further divide into two subsections:

4A. Twitter for personal use / fun. Realize that using Twitter is effectively a dolled-up medium for sending public text messages / instant messages.  So, instead of sharing this totally awesome link with my buddy Matt, I’ll tweet it so that everyone can see.  Or, I’ll direct the tweet at him, and let his followers see how cool and awesome at the internet I am.  On occasion, you get people like Eric who are incredibly talented at creating 140-character capsules of the most repulsive and hilarious comments imaginable.  I hesitate to link to him, since his material is far, far, far away from PG rated.  But if you find him, you’ll understand.

4B. Twitter for Business. I love this one – I’d call it “apparent transparency.”  [I’m an alliterary genius]  Now, your big ‘ol corporation can make it look like it’s got a human side by opening a Twitter account and interacting with people on a one-on-one basis. They used to have a term for this back in the day… customer service.  But why actually invest in human beings to interact with your customers when you can have just one guy feed them information in text message-sized tidbits?

Alternatively, you might read this segment as those companies who acquire hundreds of followers a la category 2, then sending out mass updates about useless crap a la category 3.  But still, consumers are buying into it.  Hell yeah, I want up-to-date information on what’s going on with M&M’s.

///

Perhaps most of all, I’m infuriated by those Twitter users who exclusively use the site as a means to re-direct followers to their own webpage every time they’ve updated it.  For two reasons:  First, because they’ll use a URL-shortening service like tinyurl.com, or is.gd, and I’ll leave it up to their best judgment as to whether or not I really want to be on that site.  You literally have absolutely no idea what to expect if I told you to follow this link: http://tinyurl.com/czmf2c .  Is it a Rick Roll?  Is it safe for work?  Is it a virus?  I promise you it’s a link to Eleven’s fancy new website, but do you believe me?  Hope so.  There are already Twitter viruses going around that are counting on it.

Second, it’s asinine for you to tweet me every time your site updates.  That’s just adding a step to a service that’s already readily available on the internet – one that’s a a lot more effective to boot.  It’s called an RSS feed.  Don’t harass me to follow you.  If you’ve got something engaging, intelligent, and worthwhile to say, trust me – I’ll find a way to you.

Don’t buy the Twitter hype.   Learn about what an RSS feed is, and sign yourself up for a great (and of course free) RSS Feed reader at Google.  It’ll compile everything on the internet that you already like to read, and might even come up with some good suggestions for other stuff you’ll like.

And ultimately, if you liked what you read here, you can subscribe to my posts by following this link.

Top 11- Issue 5.3

By JoshPetersel in Eleven - Grills Gone Wild, Josh does Music 0 Comment

I thought it’d be an easy cop out of writing an original blog post this week fun to give you guys a sneak preview of my article that will appear in Eleven‘s next issue, which is set to drop this Wednesday, April 1st.  This is only the first half of the article – I’ll post up the second half a few days after the magazine is released.  I’d hate for you to not pick up the next issue on account of already reading the only article written by the only author worth his salt I’ve written.

Some notes:

  1. In exchange for copy/pasting most of my written material, I’ll at least do you the service of linking to each song’s YouTube video.  This, technically, should be a regular feature on Eleven’s actual website.  You’ve got as good a guess as I do as to the problem our webmaster seems to be having.  It’s been well over a year, Jacob.
  2. If you’re a student at Washington University, or if you’re a random dude reading this and you’re from the St. Louis area, definitely come check out Eleven’s Great Mixtape Exchange, set to go down on distribution day, Wednesday.  Details about it on our Facebook event page.

All right, enough nonsense.

///

Top 11 Disney Songs

I was originally planning on writing a Top 11 about poop.  Then I thought about it:  I’ve nearly graduated. In like a month I’m going to be out in the real world, at a real job, and all that.  Maybe I could have gotten away with that Freshman year; by now I ought to be writing about things that are more mature.  On that note, for your reading and listening pleasure, here are my picks for the eleven best Disney songs.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWzNJOfLVJ4]

11. Down to Earth, Wall-E – An incredibly peaceful and relaxing song that was the perfect finishing touch to a sublime movie.  The music in “Wall-E” was a huge part of what made the movie so good, and I don’t just say that because there wasn’t any dialogue for like the first 25 minutes.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcxYwwIL5zQ]

10. Zip-a-de-doo-dah, Song of the South – Didn’t even realize this was as Disney song until after I did some research.  It’s transcended the Disney stigma, which is rare enough to warrant its mention here.  Also, it’s great to whistle.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMU2NwaaXEA]

9. Theme Song, Duck Tales – I think I’ve been pretty consistent in making sure to include one theme song in each of my Top 11 columns.  I’d hate to disappoint my following.  The “Duck Tales” theme song is the cream of the Disney theme song crop.  Definitely wish my life more hurricanes, racecars, lasers, aeroplanes.  Wouldn’t mind Scrooge’s swimming pool of gold coins, either.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3xafme2PWA]

8. Why Should I Worry, Oliver and Company – If you’re like me (and you are), you won’t immediately recognize this song, or even name of this film.  I’ll fill you in:  A dog wearing sunglasses romps around New York City, makes a big mess of everyone else’s stuff, and basically says, “yep, I don’t give a damn and how do you like that?”  Plus, he wears sausage links for a neck tie.  Plus, he’s voiced by Billy Joel.  What’s not to love?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejEVczA8PLU&]

7. Hakuna Matata, The Lion King – There’s definitely a running motif here of songs along the Bob Marley “don’t worry, be happy” train of thought.  Interesting thought #1: Google couldn’t confirm this, but I’m pretty sure I learned that warthogs and meerkats (the Timon animal) live in entirely different areas of Africa.  I wonder how Simba would have turned out had he only learned the “matata” half of the phrase.  Interesting thought #2: In retrospect, how uptight were we as a society in the ’90s that Disney couldn’t say “fart” in a G-rated movie?  Our vocabularies might have been soiled (hah!) forever.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOcyYyxqN_g]

6. I Wanna Be Like You, The Jungle Book – Here’s our other running theme: Parallels with Eleven. Readers, you want to be like me. You want to walk like me, talk like me, too. Pardon me while I stroke my ginormous ego.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD8HDta7Z_4]

5. The whole movie, Fantasia – This whole movie was just one long song with a tripped-out theme, story, and characters. It also doubled as an instructional video for children on what happens when an LSD trip goes sour. This movie traumatized me as a child. Funny to think that about 50 years after it was made, Walt & Company wouldn’t even be able to get away with a little fart joke.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b-Z0SSyUcw]

4. Supercalifragalisticexpialidocious, Mary Poppins – I make up a lot of words. You better believe I’m jealous of how Supercalifragilisticexpailidocious has vaulted a fake word into the mainstream. And I’m esophagating [like salivating, but more in your throat] about being mean to my copy editors. As of this draft submission, I’ve intentionally spelled Supercalifragilisticexpiallidocious differently and incorrectly in all three uses. Thanks, Mary Poppins, and have fun, guys!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwSKkKrUzUk]

3. Circle of Life, The Lion King – A fantastic song that really sets the tone for what I’d consider the masterpiece of all Disney movies. The song (and the movie, for that matter) is even better live on Broadway. But I think the best part about Circle of Life is that everyone who hears it has their own lyrical interpretation of Rafiki’s monologue in the opening seven seconds.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB8UjOUHP04]

2. A Whole New World, Aladdin – Think of the magazine as your magic carpet, and the Eleven staff as your handsome and mysterious guide to a whole new world of music. Man, that sentence was about as cheesy as I could muster. I just did one of those half throw-up-in-your-mouth things. I hope you feel uncomfortable having read it. Just consider that at least you don’t have to listen to a topless and flamboyant Robin Williams running his mouth while you’re reading the mag.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sjAb-qYflE&feature=related]

1. Eye to Eye, A Goofy Movie – As per the movie: a down-on-his-luck high school outcast rocks out on stage in concert with his favorite artist, Powerline (think: a Disney version of Michael Jackson, but with more yellow tights and less artificial skin). Also, in doing so, he wins the heart of the really cute redhead, Roxanne. Yeah, Roxanne. (Why aren’t there more girls named Roxanne??) This is literally every hipster’s dream; Disney just somehow managed to visualize and animate it.

A QuikTrip Campaign

By JoshPetersel in Josh for Business 3 Comments

This past Wednesday may have very well been the last time I get all hot and sweaty from playing roller hockey.

It was our last hockey practice of the season.  We’ve got regionals this weekend, but that means we are actually supposed to care about winning and as such will be playing the short rotation of 8 guys who are actually really good on our team.  One of them is Canadian, which I think gives him some kind of unfair advantage.  Like I could be that good, too, if I regularly abused performance enhancing drugs (or just grew up with a rink in my backyard.  Which I think is more likely his case).  I hope the league puts an asterisk next to all of his goals and assists.

One of our prized and cherished hockey traditions is going to Quik Trip after practice every Wednesday night.  For those uninitiated, Quik Trip is kind of like a 7-11, but with a Gas Station in the front and a white guy behind the counter.

Back in the days of yore, you could get a 52oz yellow Gatorade from the soda fountain for a scant $0.99.  Two bucks and you’d have chips and a drink for the ride home, and enough electrolytes in your system to do this move from Street Fighter II. Now the 52oz cup is like $1.29, and you can only get a 32oz-er for $0.99.  In this rare instance, I’m not a big fan of change.  Alternative comment: Interesting how the price of Gatorade at Quik Trip has inflated more over four years than the price of the gasoline (minus, of course, last summer’s Bush-fueled extravaganza).

Speaking of change, here’s my other favorite thing about Quik Trip:  whenever your purchase total comes out to something like $1.97, the cashier will take your $2 bill, give you a nickel back in change, and say “thaaaaaaaanks have a good one.”   It’s not about making 2 cents on the deal every time.  Or about the fact that I’ve consistently been able to launder those afor-linked-to phony $2 bills there.  It’s about the fact that I don’t have to carry around pennies in my wallet. There are few worse feelings in the world than having to carry around 3 cents in change.   So I thank QT for their gesture of kindness.  And in the off occasion when my order totals $2.22, I’ll let them keep my change.  Generosity begets generosity, I suppose.

Here’s my idea for an awesome advertising campaign for Quik Trip: Abolish the penny. Don’t even bother carrying them in the cash registers.  Announce to the world that you’re not carrying pennies anymore.  Round up or round down on every purchase that comes down to a matter of cents. There’s certainly already a calling for this.

Is this legal? I don’t know, actually.  Could they get sued for false advertising if they say that a hotdog will cost $0.98 after taxes and then they charge someone a whole dollar?  Would someone be obnoxious enough to sue over this? I guess we’ve heard worse. Even if it is illegal, the campaign might still be massively effective. Here are a couple of examples that are popularly cited in marketing classes from video game company, Acclaim. (Remember NBA Jam? That was these guys):

  1. In the U.K., to promote racing game “Burnout 2,” Acclaim offered to pay for every speeding ticket in the country on the day of the game’s release.
  2. in 2002, to promote a game “Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance,” purportedly the bloodiest game of all time, Acclaim announced a “bloodvertising” campaign.  They intended put up posters and fliers that actually seeped a red, blood-like substance over the course of a week.

Both campaigns have obvious moral hazards, and neither of them ever actually went into effect.  As it turns out, Acclaim never actually intended for the campaigns to be executed.   Consider the massive free publicity they received from every single newspaper and website that ran a piece on the “obscene” ad campaigns.  Huge wins.  (By the way, you can read up on a few other entertaining guerrilla marketing campaigns here.)

So that’s the deal.  Quik Trip announces they’re abandoning the penny, newspapers say “what the hell?!”, the insiders chuckle, and everyone’s stopping by Quik Trip to see what all the hubbub is about.

You can thank me by bringing the price back down on my beloved 52oz.

The GMAT

By JoshPetersel in Josh on Josh 0 Comment

I thought that for this week’s post, we’d take a closer look at one of the aforementioned “productive” uses of my class time: preparing for the GMAT.

For those uninitiated, the GMAT is the standardized test that you need to get into a graduate business program, similar to the SAT you’d need to get into any college that doesn’t have the word “community” in its name.

I don’t actually know what G.M.A.T. stands for. What I do know is that unlike the SAT, the GMAT is a CAT, which stands for Computer Adaptive Test (personally, I was hoping for Cereal Advocating Tiger). This means two things:

  1. You get to do the whole thing in front of a computer (positive!), and
  2. The computer is smarter than your typical test booklet, and makes the test harder as you answer more questions correctly (negative!)

Also like the SAT, the GMAT consists of a Writing, Verbal, and Quantitative section. The third is really just a math section. I think the test makers just wanted to be pompous, so they gave it a bigger name. Supposedly nobody really counts the writing section for anything.

You end up getting an overall score out of 800, which is derived from your scores on the math and verbal sections. Those are each scored out of 60, even though the sections are 37 and 41 questions long, respectively. And if that wasn’t enough, the test weighs your right and wrong answers differently depending on the difficulty of the questions it fed you. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I have no idea how this thing is graded. Intuition suggests that answering more questions correctly leads to a higher score. This was as far as I got.

Oh, no, wait. The test also gives you a percentile score, showing where you rank compared to all the other people who’ve taken the test. I’ve got no idea why they’re still messing around with 800’s and 60’s and things, but I guess some people just like to make work for themselves.

The ultimate positive of having the test done electronically is that my score gets calculated instantly. I took the test and walked out of the building with my grade in hand.

You could argue that standardized tests don’t really do a great job of measuring aptitude. The test really measures your ability to take tests more than anything else. I’d agree with that. My mom points out that it’s a shame I can’t take tests for a living. Love you, Mom.

If you were thinking of taking the GMAT (or any test, for that matter), here’s a 3 step system that’ll probably raise your score by 40 points:

  1. Read Everything. The GMAT loves to ask questions like this:
    All of the following equal 4 EXCEPT:
    a) 2+2
    b) 4
    c) Firetruck
    d) 3+1If you’re rushing and don’t read everything closely, you end up circling A and looking like an idiot. This has always been my biggest crux in taking tests, and probably always will be.
  2. Write Everything. Most of the math functions on the test are easy enough for you to do in your head. But the more you do in your head, the more likely you are to forget that the answer should be a negative number. Or something equally insipid. And the devilish test makers seem to always pair the one correct answer with the three incorrect answers you’re most likely to arrive at when you screw up mental math. Writing it all down really doesn’t take any extra time.Writing everything is helpful in the verbal section, too. You might not have time to re-read everything you’ve written, but writing notes as you read a passage on a freshwater lake’s summertime ecology and water temperatures (yuck) is bound to help you better absorb the passage info. Unless freshwater lake summertime ecology is kind of your thing.
  3. Practice the Test. At roughly 4 hours in length, the GMAT is a freaking marathon. Practice doing the whole thing without breaks. It’s a lot harder to answer simple math questions when you’ve been staring at the light bulb that is your computer screen for the past three hours. But get used to it.

One final note: I wish death upon the Princeton Review. Be very wary of the scores you get on practice tests provided by guys like Princeton and Kaplan. I was sweating bullets the day before my actual test after taking a practice exam from Princeton and scoring a good 100 points lower than either of my other practice tests from mba.com. Then it occurred to me that those jerks didn’t really care about how much the practice test low score frightened me, they’re just trying to do business (“Hey, that score’s kind of low. Looks like you’d better sign up for a review course, y’know?” or “We guarantee that your score will go up by 100 points or your money back!”). One of these days I’ll throw a brick through someone’s window.

The Pizza is smarter than the Post

By JoshPetersel in Josh for Business 0 Comment

Maybe it’s because I’m gen-Y, internet-savvy, all-about-about-the-emails.  I just can’t figure out why receiving snail mail is so difficult.

From my understanding of the situation:  I’m set to receive a package.  The delivery man shows up at my door, notices that I’m not sitting out my my front porch waiting specifically for his arrival (I imagine I’d be playing with one of those paddle-ball things that I’ve never been able to figure out, either), and then turns around and leaves, hoping tomorrow will bring greener pastures.  I’m not even sure if he rings the doorbell.

Even more befuddling is the fact that I live with seven other guys (and three girls, too, technically), all of whom are of-age and should be able to sign for a package in  my leave.  And on multiple occasions, they’ve been denied the privilege.

So I’ll call UPS or Fed Ex and explain the situation.  I’ll ask, “Can you give me an approximate time when the package will come?”  Hmmm…that’s going to be a problem. “Can you have the package delivered just any time before 10:30?” I’ll try, but the problem is I have to call the delivery center, and they have to call the delivery man, and he might already have his route figured out, he might be on his way, or he might be busy porking some single, desparate housewives and we won’t be able to get in touch with him.  But thanks for choosing Fed Ex! Is there anything else I’d be unable to help you with today?

Then there’s the tracking number, which lets me look up my package’s progress online from warehouse to the nearest distribution center, then to delivery truck, then to nearest distribution center again, then to delivery truck, and then to nearest distribution center again.  It’d be great if I was worried about my box of trinkets getting intercepted by armored bandits on a train out in the Midwest, but I’m pretty sure that that only happens in the 1800’s or in space-future.

How do normal people, working full-time plus overtime much like myself, living alone, ever receive a package??

Here’s how Pointers, the local delicious pizza place, solves the problem.  When I place my order, they give me an approximate time of when the pie will arrive.  The delivery guy doesn’t even need to ring the doorbell when he shows up – he calls my cell phone and says “Pizza’s here!”  I drop everything, get to the door, easy exchange.

There’s no neuroscience here.  My cell phone is attached to my hip.  CALL ME!

If his route is already figured out, why can’t he call me at the beginning of the day and say “Hey, I just planned my route for the day, it looks like I’m going to be at your place at around 11:30 am.  Is that okay?”  And then, why doesn’t he call me again as he leaves the house prior to mine to confirm?

Let’s get real science-y.  Why not give me the delivery guy’s direct cell number?  What if they equipped their trucks with GPS systems (I’m sure they already do), and let me track the truck’s progress or proximity in real-time?

Nobody wins when I have to fight through layers of bureaucracy to maybe get the time of my delivery changed, or when the delivery guy shows up and can’t deliver my package.  He’s got to come again tomorrow, the company would lose my business if there was any reasonably sane alternative, and I have to get annoyed and write blog posts instead of being productive and reading my GMAT prep book.