MIT engineer accruing kids, cars, & acreage in the mountains of NH // Past & future founder // Odds & ends, bits & atoms @palantirtech
NH, USA
Joined April 2009
- Tweets424
- Following317
- Followers817
- Likes35.8K
Reminiscing on PSU heartbreaks of the 2010s has me thinking about where I watched many of those losses and what a sleeper elite college football town NYC is.
Every college that you can think of has an alumni group with a watch party in a bar somewhere, and you can walk between all of them, bar to bar to bar...
Or the time that I was dragged to the UT bar, wallowing in #4 Penn State's just-completed choke job against Minnesota, only to leave the bar in a burnt orange "I [Longhorn logo] NY" shirt courtesy of The Texas Exes xitter.cf/bdharva/status/2104937…
Nov 9, 2019: @ #17 Minnesota (L 31–26)
It's time to break the curse. There's no way we're losing to Minnesota. We're 8-0. We're in the top 4 of the first CFP rankings. My friends and I run into my cousin at Mercury West, where we watch the loss in stunned silence.
(They then drag me to Stout, the UT bar, afterward and get me something to cover up the now thoroughly cursed shirt)
It’s funny how much of both business and parenting small children is finding savvy ways to steer action with a “no but…” that lets them to feel like it was a “yes and…”
Was going through boxes on Friday, found my favorite old Penn State shirt packed away, thought to myself "Oh I love this shirt! Why'd I ever pack it away?", pulled it out, and wore it for the Wisconsin game. And now I'm remembering why I'd packed it away...
It's cursed.
Sep 26, 2026: vs. Wisconsin (L 24–20)
Almost seven year later, I rediscover the shirt while sorting through a box of old clothes, and I'm wearing it as I watch yet another two score lead evaporate late in the fourth quarter. And all those old memories come flooding back.