Alright, so speaking from a quite personal experience, I was wondering when all you thought that it would be okay to file an insurance claim. The other day, Chris and I were at the grocery store when we realized that the car next to ours had hit the side hard enough to leave a dent in the side of the car. I, of course, was quite angry (because this is my car ). We filed a police report and I called State Farm about the dent and they said that if I took it to a repair shop it would be $200 due to uninsured motorists and they would cover the rest.

That’s all fine, but I know who damaged my car and I would really like for them to pay the deductible, not me! When it comes to parking lot accidents it seems like it is so easy to get away with damaging someone else’s car. In this case, my car was dented and the other car (no matter if I got their license plate number or not) got away with it without having to pay the uninsured motorist’s deductible.

I just hate that some thug-wannabes were able to scam my insurance company like that. I have told my insurance company about the car that I am SURE did this and they said that because there wasn’t enough “proof” they couldn’t do anything about it. That is complete and utter BS!!

I will promise something to the people who dented my car; If I EVER see your car again, I will do something to your car to where you will KNOW I spotted it and noticed it hanging out in a parking lot where I already was. Revenge is a … well you know.

Anyway, today the Consumerist had a story about a man whose wife went to Wal-Mart in Las Vegas. When she came out she found a note on her windshield, handwritten, that said “Please call me about your car” and there was a number left on the paper.

Well, it was simply an awful way to get the woman to try to trade in her car for a new Dodge or Chrysler.

This is just an awful way to attempt to bring in new customers. If I got a flyer on my car that said that and it turned out to be just a way to advertise, I would never go to that dealership.

Source: The Consumerist “Dirty Tricks: Desperate Chrysler Dealership Resorts to Stupid Scare Tactics…”

“I want to thank all the speakers and performers for reminding us, through song and through words, just what it is that we love about America. And I want to thank all of you for braving the cold and the crowds and traveling in some cases thousands of miles to join us here today. Welcome to Washington, and welcome to this celebration of American renewal.

In the course of our history, only a handful of generations have been asked to confront challenges as serious as the ones we face right now. Our nation is at war. Our economy is in crisis. Millions of Americans are losing their jobs and their homes; they’re worried about how they’ll afford college for their kids or pay the stack of bills on their kitchen table. And most of all, they are anxious and uncertain about the future — about whether this generation of Americans will be able to pass on what’s best about this country to our children and their children.

I won’t pretend that meeting any one of these challenges will be easy. It will take more than a month or a year, and it will likely take many. Along the way there will be setbacks and false starts and days that test our resolve as a nation.

But despite all of this — despite the enormity of the task that lies ahead — I stand here today as hopeful as ever that the United States of America will endure — that the dream of our founders will live on in our time.
What gives me that hope is what I see when I look out across this mall. For in these monuments are chiseled those unlikely stories that affirm our unyielding faith — a faith that anything is possible in America. Rising before us stands a memorial to a man who led a small band of farmers and shopkeepers in revolution against the army of an Empire, all for the sake of an idea. On the ground below is a tribute to a generation that withstood war and depression — men and women like my grandparents who toiled on bomber assembly lines and marched across Europe to free the world from tyranny’s grasp. Directly in front of us is a pool that still reflects the dream of a King, and the glory of a people who marched and bled so that their children might be judged by their character’s content. And behind me, watching over the union he saved, sits the man who in so many ways made this day possible.

And yet, as I stand here today, what gives me the greatest hope of all is not the stone and marble that surrounds us today, but what fills the spaces in between. It is you — Americans of every race and region and station who came here because you believe in what this country can be and because you want to help us get there.

It is the same thing that gave me hope from the day we began this campaign for the presidency nearly two years ago; a belief that if we could just recognize ourselves in one another and bring everybody together — Democrats, Republicans and Independents; Latino, Asian and Native American; black and white, gay and straight, disabled and not — then not only would we restore hope and opportunity in places that yearned for both, but maybe, just maybe, we might perfect our union in the process.

This is what I believed, but you made this belief real. You proved once more that people who love this country can change it. And as I prepare to assume the presidency, yours are the voices I will take with me every day I walk into that Oval Office — the voices of men and women who have different stories but hold common hopes; who ask only for what was promised us as Americans — that we might make of our lives what we will and see our children climb higher than we did.

It is this thread that binds us together in common effort; that runs through every memorial on this mall; that connects us to all those who struggled and sacrificed and stood here before.

It is how this nation has overcome the greatest differences and the longest odds — because there is no obstacle that can stand in the way of millions of voices calling for change.

That is the belief with which we began this campaign, and that is how we will overcome what ails us now.

There is no doubt that our road will be long. That our climb will be steep. But never forget that the true character of our nation is revealed not during times of comfort and ease, but by the right we do when the moment is hard. I ask you to help reveal that character once more, and together, we can carry forward as one nation, and one people, the legacy of our forefathers that we celebrate today.

Thank you, America. God bless you.

Source

But, that’s what the news is telling us…that if we are offered a job to take it because the unemployment rate is ridiculous and that hundreds of thousands of jobs are lost every month. It is terrifying to me, and I can only hope that things get better by the time I (as well as everyone else I’m graduating with) begins looking for work.

Here’s how:

And I escaped that with a bruised knee.

I believe if Chevy or GM could market the safety of even the bottom of the line cars (see the wrecked Cavalier above) then perhaps people would be more willing to buy them.

They talk a lot about fuel efficiency or how some of the cars compare against Honda or Toyota…I just don’t think that’s the way to go. I couldn’t compare a Chevy to a Toyota (other than they are both cars). However, if they told stories (with pictures and testimonials) about how people escaped bad accidents (I was hit by an 18 wheeler) then maybe people would be more inclined to purchase the cars.

It wasn’t enough to entice me to purchase another Chevy, because I had too many problems pre-accident with the car to have to deal with it again.

Today I went to the local Wal-Mart to see how after Christmas sales were going and the store was packed. Not extremely crowded, but definitely more crowded than it should be with no (or few) students in town.

Will this jump in sales increase retail profits for the quarter? Probably. In some countries today is celebrated as “Boxing Day,” like our Black Friday in the United States. This will still be a very bleak shopping season compared to holidays in the (recent) past, but we will have to wait to see the damage.

Many independent colleges, like Antioch, are starting to see fewer students because both students and parents are seeing the benefits of attending lower priced schools. So, the schools are having problems making ends meet.

I would be devastated if my college decided to suspend operations, however, I go to a public university with an enrollment of over 10,000. I just think perhaps these private colleges should limit their satellite campuses and focus on their main campus. If Ole Miss focused on their "DeSoto center" a satellite campus 5 minutes or so south of Memphis, TN, rather than on its main campus in Oxford, MS…there would be some issues.

Recently, I went searching for open positions related to my field of study (marketing and communications) for when I graduate in May. Even when searching through the countless positions on websites like Monster.com, most positions for my major requires years of prior experience. I also visited a college career fair, and most of the companies were not looking for business graduates, but were more interested in pharmacists. Unfortunately, four or five years of sitting through endless lectures and classes devoted to the very position they are seeking does not count toward any experience.

The odds are not in their favor either. In the second quarter of 2008 the Labor Department gave the unemployment rate for those in the 20 ? 24 year old group (the age range is the most likely for new graduates). Unemployment had risen from 7.7% last year to 9.8% this year.

Most colleges require students to intern and/or take career counseling to give them an idea of what to expect after graduation, but they still do not guarantee a job after graduation.

So you are a new graduate and cannot seem to stand out of the crowd? Here are a couple of tips to make you and your resume more noticeable to potential employers.

- Network. Networking helps you stand out to an employer. If you are currently a student, become involved in plenty of events and groups related to your major.
- An impressive resume. Making your resume stand out is not as hard as it may seem. Little things such as adding a picture of you or using positive phrases can add luster to an otherwise vanilla resume. An example of a use of positive language is instead of saying you have no experience in a certain area, saying that you are willing and open to learning is obviously more constructive. Employers are always more open to someone who is willing to conform to their job descriptions, rather than a position having to conform to an applicant.

Student loans are creeping up and you still have not gotten the position to build your career on? Some people have begun to take a more unconventional attitude on job hunting: Create their own career by starting their own business. Once thought to be something only highly experienced professionals do, new graduates are starting businesses related to their fields of study.

If you have the ambition to start your own business, either a new graduate or someone who just has some new or great ideas, here are a few pointers that may help you start:

- Since you are probably bogged down with debt (thanks to student loans), try to limit your start up costs. Internet companies generally have very low startup costs, as long as you have an idea as to what you?re doing. Starting a business with a friend can also limit your costs and you will have more than one person working toward a goal.
- Remember those old textbooks that you could not or did not sell? Some of them have some great ideas in them. I have kept marketing books just because I thought in the future they could come in handy.
- Have a business plan. If you have a business plan, even a simple one, you always have a reference point. Eventually we all hit road blocks, like writing essays and having an outline, a business plan can keep you in order.
- Finally, do not give up and work hard to achieve your goals. Getting through college was not easy (or cheap), so do not be discouraged if your business does not take off immediately. Successful businesses take patience, time and a LOT of hard work.

It is not hard to become discouraged by the declining job market. Plenty of people I know are working in fast food restaurants while waiting to land ?the job.? When the economy is good, graduates may get multiple offers with competing salaries, but now these offers are not landing in people?s laps like they once were. An applicant must do more to be noticed in today?s job market. So good luck graduates, I will be seeing you in May.

Sunday Powell will meet with Tom Brokaw live on "Meet the Press."

Powell has advised the last three Republican presidents and if he does endorse Senator Obama, he will surely cause some kind of ruckus in the McCain campaign.

All of this news is speculation and I can certainly wait until Sunday to see who Powell endorses, but I do have to say I am really not interested at this point.

Meanwhile, the entire town of Oxford, Miss. is holding it’s breath.

Even without classes today I went to spend some time on campus (Univ. of Miss.) to see the media spectacle that is going on there. There were literally more media personnel on campus than students. I guess that is still good news for the University, because even if John McCain fails to show up for the STILL scheduled debate, the media will stay in town for whatever does happen. All the events surrounding the debate (like Rock the Vote) are still happening.

Tomorrow will be interesting, not only for Oxford, but for everyone. Very interesting events will unfold in the next 24 hours.

Let’s take a look back at a couple of the “improvements” from the past:

- News Feed a.k.a. “Stalker Feed” : Upon logging into Facebook you can see all your “friends” recent activity on Facebook. Thankfully Facebook decided that it was in their best interests to let users choose their own privacy settings, so not EVERYTHING you did would show up on someone else’s “stalker feed.”

- Applications : Ok, maybe this one isn’t so bad…but some of the applications in the past have been able to sneak their way around their privacy settings (see: Top Friends).

So what have they done this time to anger people enough to start the “Petition Against the New Facebook” group with 991,000 members as of 1:26 pm on 9-11-08??

Well, they’ve moved all those cute little applications to tabbed format at the top of the profile… Over the past year or so I’ve been moving around my applications on my profile to make my profile look cute and have everyone see the bumper stickers my friends send me.

Moving the applications takes a lot of the “personality” out of the profiles…I looked at the new Facebook and really didn’t even know where to start as far as re-organizing everything.

On the first tab of a profile page…the mini feed (a stalker feed just for the profile selected) and that person’s wall are the same thing. It gets confusing between wall posts and status updates.

And my least favorite change of all: Friends are no longer split into networks… Once upon a time Facebook was only for college students with a valid .edu email address. Then they added high school students…then everyone. It is becoming less and less personal and more like Myspace, where people go by screen names… I really liked being able to find someone in my class by their name incase I needed to get an assignment or something.

R i p old Facebook. I’ll miss you.

Now that the conventions are over and the balloons have all been put away, the candidates have to take their proverbial gloves off and slug it out…or make empty promises in order to persuade independents to vote for them…

I would personally like for the campaign ads to take a nicer approach this time around than the last election. I am just not that into attack ads. Earlier this year we had a special election (actually several) to choose a representative…it got nasty. I was so disenchanted by the end I wasn’t even interested in the race.

So here’s to the 2008 Presidential election…may the best liar candidate win.

If students can’t understand what a professor is saying, how can it be expected of us to learn anything? In the subject in question, there is no professor at my university who is originally from the United States.

I would just like to understand why the university feels as though they have to hire someone to lecture that can’t be understood past the 4th row in a 20 row room. You can’t say they don’t know because even when I go back and look at past teacher evaluations, there are several evaluations (for every semester) that say the same thing: “He is extremely difficult to understand.”

To me this says that the university doesn’t care what the student may or may not learn in a classroom.

I think John McCain picked her because of her very conservative background, as well as her ties to Alaskan oil. He is also trying to win over those who wanted Hillary in office. I don’t think this will do it, Hillary is a liberal democrat…Palin is her polar opposite.

First, if I can, I buy my books online. Campusbooks.com lets you compare prices on used books from several different online places. This also comes in handy for the second tip…

I also try to buy previous editions of textbooks. For example, in my consumer behavior class, the syllabus clearly stated that the previous edition of the textbook was accepted. However, plenty of my classmates decided to buy the $108 current edition. The previous edition cost me $5 AND it’s where the professor got most of her charts and graphs for PowerPoint presentations.

In a lot of my classes, the professors usually never use an entire book. I utilized iChapters.com and saved around $50 on my business stats book because we only needed a few chapters. At iChapters you can buy chapters instead of whole books.

Sometimes I don’t buy the book at all. In lecture classes, my professors usually never used the book for tests, but would test directly from lecture notes. This depends on the professor though, and usually doesn’t work for higher level classes. Ask my journalism ethics grade…I needed the book but was just too cheap to buy it.

Another way to save money on textbooks is to rent them. Websites like campusbookrentals.com let students rent books for periods of 55, 85, or 130 days and offer them at pretty good prices. For example, Principles of Macroeconomics by Case and Fair retails for around $130 (which is outrageous considering it’s a paperback…well it’s outrageous anyway) you can rent it at campus book rentals.com for around $34. However, I’ve never rented books… with this macroeconomics book, if you look at campusbooks.com you’ll see that the cheapest price online is $34.95 to BUY the book. I’d rather buy it then rent it because at the end of the semester, you can always sell it online too…

It isn’t only the pretty card that draws in the freshies, it’s also the free pizza or t-shirt they give away when you apply. When I was a freshman they were basically giving these cards to anyone who would take one. I will say freshmen, because AFTER you’ve been in college for a while you realize what’s going on. They write about it in the university newspaper.

So as we embark on a new school year, I’d like to give a piece of advice to the income freshmen and anyone else who wants to listen:
Go to the Union, buy your posters. Go to half.com (or amazon or wherever online), buy your books, and don’t give these credit card pushers the time of day.

I am not the only person with this problem. There are plenty of new grads out there hopelessly looking for professional entry level work, who just aren’t finding it. We’re told when you graduate high school, the next step is OBVIOUSLY college, but does it have to be?

People are getting laid off, unemployment is up and student loans are needing to be paid. This is why you’ll find new grads working as delivery drivers for your local Domino’s. They can’t find work anywhere else.

Perhaps its time to give high school students time to really think about what they want to do with their lives rather than sending them blindly into college. Not everyone knows what they want to be when they grow up.

Here’s my take on this, people have to pay for groceries rather than gas. They take fewer trips and therefore, are not on the road as much. However, there are still plenty of awful drivers on the road. They will continue to use their cell phones, drive like there isn’t anyone else on the road and not pay any amount of attention as they make left hand turns.

On another note, I suppose accidents will be going down a bit more, because oil is trading at $147 a barrel today. lame. I would like to speculate for a moment, because it seems like every time I hear something about oil prices, it’s bad. I think there will be peace in the middle east starting tomorrow. Oil production will be through the roof, and prices will fall below $50 a barrel again. That is my speculation. Now…only if someone believed me, lol.