in marketing research, we learned how to use census data. some income facts:

My high school school district:
$100,000 to $149,999 - 27.5%
$150,000 or more - 46.0%

My college school district:
$100,000 to $149,999 - 19.6%
$150,000 or more - 15.5%

My grad school disctrict:
$35,000 to $49,999 - 14.5%
$50,000 to $74,999 - 21.3%
$75,000 to $99,999 - 14.7%
$100,000 to $149,999 - 14.9%
$150,000 or more - 11.9%

Not a very good trend.

i should be studying. but, i'm going to blog about our most recent guest speaker.

all the students are wearing business casual, the prof is wearing a suit - all customary. a man walks into our classroom, wearing paint-stained jeans with huge holes in them, a black t-shirt that is a little dirty, and a very long beard. yes, your typical biker outfit. he starts out talking that he has never been to college, even though he finished top 10 in his high school. he thought he was destined for harvard/yale, but unfortuately got rejected. he applied to many other schools, but ended up not going, because he couldn't afford it.

so instead, he started working at TimeLife as the IT guy, right out of high school. nobody knew anything about computers thirty years ago - not even him, but he lied his way through the interview and his career pretending to know stuff about computers. he would illegally sneak into the video room during his breaks and watch how-to videos on computers, and eventually made a decent living. by the time he was 19, he moved to HP and became a senior position in the computer sector, where he still didn't know anything but lied his way through again. he was making today's equivalent of about $80,000 as a 19 year old. he became a VP, got into some personal riffraffs with the execs, and decided to leave and just start his own company... even though he had just bought a house, got married, and a had a son. he wouldn't sleep because he was so scared of losing his shirt, and always regretted jeopardizing his family's future for a stupid business idea. some years later, the company grew and was bought by Computer Associates for 4 billion dollars, and the guy happened to have a huge stake in the company. instant millionaire. so with the passion he developed in starting companies, he decided to start his own VC fund.

one time, he was serving on the board of a company because he was friends with the CEO. the son was also a senior position and had a brilliant mind, but never made it through college, was a drug addict and an alcoholic. the dad passed away, and the company was about to go to the son. the mom said, 'no way that boy is running a company!' and sold his company from right under him. so he had no money, and was basically living on the street. the son comes to our speaker, and tells him about a brilliant idea. it's about a wire you dig into the ground, attach a shocking collar to your dog, and create an invisible fence. he just needed $400,000 to start it up. our speaker thought it was the dumbest idea he ever heard, but because he felt sorry for the kid, he gave him the money. the son invented the product, and presented it to investors. he showed a home made video of his dog with the collar, and the dog was so scared of the backyard, the son had to literally throw him out the backdoor and drag him to the invisible line. needless to say, the dog was shocked and the viewers were appalled. they decided not to fund the idea... and so the invisible fence idea was gone (but as we all know, someone else decided to do it and made millions). the son was back on the street.

soon after, he called our speaker again for more money and another brilliant idea. a kitty litter box, that self-cleans. our speaker told him that the idea was dumber than his previous one, but what the hell, here's some cash to start it up. overnight, the son became a millionaire. you have probably seen him on tv in the infomercials. he has been sober for 17 years now, and making a great living. our speaker? he gets $1.5 - 2 MILLION PER QUARTER on royalties. and that was just one business he helped launch.

he has also launched House of Blues, Margaritaville, a TON of real estate, and many many other companies. this guy... is rich. so the speaker, who liked to drop the F-bomb quite a bit and dressed up in the manner described before... has never owned a bike or has never drank any alcohol or done any drugs. he drives a Mini.

dear alex chang, who thinks his e-mail account is achangATgmail:

thanks for surfing all these porn and credit-fixing sites, because now i have 181 junk mail messages. by the way, your ofoto account is about to expire.

also, your girlfriend, "hunnie," wants to know how your trip in thailand is doing, and she "MISS YOU LIKE CRAZY." also, you better behave while you're in thailand because, according to her, "if you a good boy i give u a treat ok!?"


dear alan chang, who thinks his e-mail account is achangATgmail:

sarah has received your eHarmony communication and wishes to communicate with you further. you better tell her your real email address before i hit on her and steal her away.

dear

we had guest speakers come in today and last week for a couple of my classes. they were both very enlightening and gave really great stories.

so the speaker last week was telling us a story about his days in the ad agency when they had General Mills as a client. this is back in the 60's and 70's were drugs were accepted and rampant. they even had a room for the creative department where you could smoke marijuana to get the 'creative juices' flowing. so one day, one of the stoned creatives had the munchies and was going to make rice krispy treats. they had tons, since after all, they were the ad agency for that product. in any case, there were no rice krispy treats to be found, but what they did have a lot of... was granola. it was the new thing they were selling and devising a marketing campaign for, so they had boxes of granola everywhere. so the stoner says 'what the hell, i've got the munchies!' and proceeds to use the granola and make marshmellow-granola treats. it actually tasted very good, and when he let his coworkers try it - including the guest speaker - they thought it was excellent. they presented it to the management and client the next day... and voila!

the birth of granola bars.

9/11/2004 passed more than a week ago. i hardly noticed it, and in a way, it makes me feel a little guilty. 9/11/02 and '03, i remember thinking, 'man, what if there is going to be another terrorist attack...' airlines were literally giving away seats to boost volume, and a lot of other people just stayed at home. there was nothing going on at all anywhere. people were either in remembrance or scared or both.

this past year, the thought of another terrorist attack happening did not even cross my mind until today... and it's been over a week since. it only came into my mind now because i was reading from my book and it said 'refer to figure 9.11'. there were football games, parties, etc. this past 9/11. cnn.com only had 9/11 stories running as their headline for less than half the day.

anyways, how easily i forget things. i even forgot it was my bday until my family e-mailed me.

some good laughs

this is awesome.

http://thirdrate.com/misc/krypto.mov

as i was blogging on my previous entry about people not really listening or me being passive, there was a pattern that i detected. if i was at work, people listened to me more and trusted my decisions. if at school, nobody really gave a crap. i think the fundamental difference is that at work, you are judged more for your accomplishments/work ethic than your looks/personality. at school, you may get good grades, but that still doesn't matter nearly as much as how 'cool' and 'respected' you are... obviously, i need to work on that.

and ann was right on the money when she said that you have to talk louder for people to notice you. i have noticed the same things as well... and on top of that, people who always get heard never lets the other person finish a freaking sentence... both traits that i do not possess.

in any case, those are my thoughts for today.

so i watched the first episode of 'the apprentice' the other day (bitTorrent is just great). i must say that it was better than i expected. the asian girl is definitely annoying (sidenote: one of my classmates actually made it to the last round to be a contestant!).... so sorry steve. in any case, the guy that got kicked out ( SPOILERS ) was someone who didn't contribute to the group - not because he was lazy, but because he felt like it was his place not to say anything while everyone else was going crazy with ideas... and when he DID speak, nobody really paid attention to him.

i felt really sorry for him, because that is exactly how i am during group meetings. although i may be different with you guys, i am a lot quieter at school. and when i do say something, people really just don't listen. it really irks me that people don't really listen to my ideas when i speak... even though they may be good ideas. and no, steve, it's not because i am asian because this happened since my college days when i only hung out with asians. during our church meetings, i'd say something and nobody would listen... but someone else would say the exact same thing and people would say 'what a great idea!!!!' this also happened yesterday, when i made a suggestion about a project, which turned out to be dead-on, and everyone congratulated the guy who supported my idea. i guess some people have this 'aura of loserness' about them, like me, and i don't really know how to get out of it.

on another note, as art/chow yun fat would say, 'my condorances' aileen.

one interesting story, one boring story.

the interesting story shall remain short since i have to get to bed, but basically, my friend and i went bar hopping and we talked to five different girls (all med students and all white). each time, my friend would either just not talk or say something really crass (because he was completely drunk) and the girl would run away. i would tell him, 'stop screwing it up! do you want me to help you get a number or not!?' but i guess he just didn't care and decided it was more fun acting really stupid than anything else. i think the highlight of the night was when he shouted to me, in front of these two girls that we were talking to, 'HEY! let's bet that i will before you will!' i had no idea what he was talking about, but it sure didn't sound good. the girls ran away in a hurry, like how girls run away from guys at a club who try to freak them from behind (jason knows what i'm talking about). needless to say, i felt really embarrassed... i'm going to ask him monday what he meant by that (if he remembers). so after his 'smooth moves', that was when i cut him off, made him pay his tab, and shipped him home. i apologized profusely to the two girls who ran away. good thing i don't stand out in a crowd and so they probably won't remember me. just kidding... the only chance that i have is that they can't tell asians apart.

boring story: during business school, you hear a lot of buzzwords that are used in the academic circles. during one class, i can hear the word 'value' about 30 times. it's really annoying me. value capture, value creation, value chain, value migration, value proposition, value this, value that. it gets really tiring to listen to. the only value that really matters to me is value meal.

from my 365 stupidest things ever said daily calendar:

actual testimony recorded in court transcripts:
q: how many trucks do you own?
a: seventeen.
q: seventy?
a: seventeen.
q: seventeen?
a: no, about twelve.

(this is an entry that paul would drool over)
last night i was hanging out with some of my friends, and it really dawned on me that my friends are the people who are getting rich, and not just because of their parents.

when we were all growing up, it was our parents who knew wealthy people. sure, the kids would also be wealthy, but only because their parents were. now, i'm at the age where my friends are becoming rich through work instead of parents.

yesterday, my friend brought up that he was going to buy a porsche 911 turbo within the year. my other friend said that he too, was going to either buy a mercedes C55 AMG or a BMW 645ci in the next few months. another friend was considering getting the new corvette. not because their parents were buying it for them, but because they could afford to themselves.

word to the wise... if you want to get rich quick, get an mba in finance.

okay... new topic.

i believe that bands, or as they call themselves, 'artists', who get famous for remakes/covers shouldn't earn any respect. especially when you can't even tell the difference between the original and cover.

what ever happened to original composition?

i know i'm going to regret posting this, but i feel that the only reason why a lot of people do not like george bush is because it's 'cool' not to like bush - to protest war, to promote peace, to be radical and rebellious... so cool. a lot of people i talk to really have no clue on what the world is going through, and how serious an issue terrorism really is. i'm no expert, but i have to read about his actions daily... especially about his economic policies... and they actually make sense.

in any case, i'm going to throw it out there... one of the main reasons why the younger people do not like bush is because it's the 'in' thing to do. especially with all these actors and singers protesting against him (practically none of them with college or high school degrees mind you).

(is anyone using my frames page, btw?)