Unemployment Reaches Record High

With IBM's 5,000 layoffs today (about 4% of its workforce) jobless claims are rising.

"For the 10th week in a row, the number of people receiving jobless benefits grew. It now stands at nearly 5.6 million, the government said — an indication that the labor market is still grim."

President Obama believes that it will take until the end of 2009 until intense hiring resumes.

"As a proportion of the work force, the number of people receiving benefits is at its highest level since May 1983, when the economy was recovering from a deep recession. The total of nearly 5.6 million is almost double what it was a year ago."

In this time of desperate need, just remember: "Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden". - Orson Scott Card

Earth Hour

More than 2,000 cities around the world will turn their lights off for 60 minutes at 8 P.M. on March 29 to draw attention to climate change and global warming.

Hundreds of popular tourist landmarks and buildings around the world are participating in this event, some of them include...

• Paris: Eiffel Tower and the Cathedral of Notre Dame

• New York City: Broadway theaters, Rockefeller Center, the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building and the United Nations Headquarters.

• Boston: the signature CITGO sign in Kenmore Square, the lights at the Prudential Center and the John Hancock Tower

• Los Angeles: the Capitol Records Tower, the Santa Monica Pier Ferris Wheel, the "LAX" sign, the Getty Museum and the Griffith Park Observatory.

• London: City Hall and the London Eye

• Toronto: the signature Fairmont Royal York will illuminate its indoor pool area with more than 100 floating candles
  

• Great Pyramids of Giza, the Acropolis in Athens, Niagara Falls, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and Chicago’s Sears Tower.

• Las Vegas, visible from space due to its lights, may be the most melodramatic of places to go dark. Casinos’ interior lights and slot machines will remain on, but the bright lights that light up all the casinos and buildings on the Strip will go dark for the hour. Even the famous "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign, which has never been turned off, will be in darkness.
  

Take part in this effort and "black-out" at 8 P.M. on Saturday March 29.

Live 2 Give

The Live to Give Foundation is a non-profit charity that helps families during a time of need in a personal way. Live to Give is in competition with 7 other charities to receive a $10,000 grant from MiPro Consulting. This charity is most deserving of this money because its for a great cause, started by college students, and in competition with huge, national charities.

It takes just seconds to vote! Enter your information, scroll down & click the option next to "Live to Give" and then click submit.

Click here to vote for Live to Give and help them receive a $10,000 grant!

MiPro is looking to tally the votes on April 6th and announcing the winners April 13th.
Vote Now!

Click here to visit Live to Give's Website

Freshman in the Kitchen

Are you a college student who needs help cooking and is pressed for cash?

Freshman in the Kitchen, From Clueless Cook to Creative Chef, is a cookbook designed to help college students learn how to make meals for themselves. The cookbook starts off with easy recipes to get you used to cooking on your own. Towards the end of the book, recipes get progressively more intricate and voilà- you're a chef! Besides becoming a seasoned chef, you're going to be pleased at how much money you can save by making your own food and eating out less.

Featured on the Today Show April 17th, make sure to tune in (or at least DVR it.)

Click here to order your book now~!

Tweet Tweet

Is Facebook's new design boring you? Need to spice up your social networking? Check out twitter- a "free social messaging utility for staying connected in real-time." At first I didn't understand what all the hype was about. Then I became addicted. You are even able to stay connected with your favorite celebs, I "follow" Justin Timberlake, Perez Hilton, and Chelsea Handler to name a few.

March Madness

Completely confused as to whats happening in College Basketball? My roommate came to me today with questions about March Madness, brackets, seeds, upsets, and overall what it all means.

Impress your boyfriend...

• March Madness: a popular term for season-ending basketball tournaments played in March, especially those conducted by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and various state high school associations

• "The NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship is a single elimination tournament held every spring featuring 65 college basketball teams in the United States."

• bracket: the diagrammatic representation of the series of games played during a tournament usually leading to a single winner, are so named for their resemblance to square or curly brackets

• seed: ranking of a team, usually in a tournament (ex: in the Midwest, Louisville is a #1 seed, meaning that they are ranked first in their bracket for the tournament and played the #16 seed, which is Morehead State)
  

• upset: when a higher-seeded (better) team loses to a lower-seeded (inferior) one

Here are the important dates for the 2009 tournament:

Selection Sunday: March 15, 2009
Opening Round Game: March 17, 2009
First Round: March 19-20, 2009
Second Round: March 21-22, 2009
Third Round: March 26-27, 2009
Fourth Round: March 28-29, 2009
Final Four: April 4 & 6, 2009 at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan.

Click here for the most up to date bracket

GO MICHIGAN STATE!

What is Eaten in One Week Around The World

Germany: The Melander Family of Bargteheide

Food Expenditure for one week: 375.39 Euros or $500.07

United States: The Revis Family of North Carolina
Food Expenditure for one week: $341.98

Italy: The Manzo Family of Sicily
Food Expenditure for one week: 214.36 Euros or $260.11

Mexico: The Casales Family of Cuernavaca
Food Expenditure for one week: 1,862.78 Mexican Pesos or $189.09

Poland: The Sobczynscy of Konstancin-Jeziorna
Food Expenditure for one week: 582.48 Zlotys or $151.27

Egypt: The Ahmed Family of Cairo
Food Expenditure for one week: 387.85 Egyptian Pounds or $68.53

Ecuador: The Ayme Family of Tingo
Food Expenditure for one week: $31.55



Bhutan: The Namgay Family of Shingkhey Village
Food Expenditure for one week: 224.93 ngultrum or $5.03



Chad: The Aboubakar Family of Breidjing Camp
Food Expenditure for one week: 685 CFA Francs or $1.23

New 4-Gig iPod Shuffle

A newer, better, smaller, and cheaper shuffle is set to hit stores this Thursday. The third-generation Shuffle, an aluminum rectangle less than 2 inches long, is half the size of the second-generation Shuffle. Its appearance is smaller, but it doubles in music storage space at 4 gigabytes (1,000 songs.) Apple had to remove most of the buttons from the body and build them into the headphone cord to make up for its small size.

It also has a new feature called VoiceOver, which at the push of a button, can speak the song and artist name that the owner has loaded onto the device. "Here's how it works: As you synchronize a new Shuffle using an updated version of iTunes, your PC or Mac looks at each track and playlist and creates a small file of a computerized voice speaking the title, artist or playlist name. If a song is in Spanish or Chinese, say, the software figures this out and speaks in the appropriate language. Apple says the device can handle 14 languages."

It comes in silver or black aluminum with a shiny stainless steel clip and is retailing for only $79.

iPhone free from AT&T?

Public interest groups, such as, the New America Foundation, the Consumers Union, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, along with with software provide Mozilla, MetroPCS and Leap Wireless International, are wanting to end the partnership between Apple and AT&T. These groups are taking their case to the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Copyright Office, and congressional leaders.

"The argument is that these and other "exclusivity" pairings are anti competitive and limit consumer choice." The Rural Cellular Association (RCA), which represents smaller carriers, is lobbying Congress to get involved and awaits a bill that bans exclusive carrier deals to be proposed in the near future.

Finally! Now I can get an iPhone to complete my iLife...

What's New in Europe this Year?

• Several Eastern European countries, including Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Baltic States, have recently rid border controls for travel within Europe. Therefore, you can now travel country to country without stopping to show your passport. Switzerland is expected to join the bandwagon this month.

• Smoke-free trains are standard in much of Europe now. Smoking isn't allowed on trains in Great Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Poland, or Norway.

• The biggest change is the European acceptance of Obama, expect friendly faces and lots of questions about him. 
  

According to Conde Nast Traveler, Europe's four rising destinations are:

• Cassis, France: The Côte d'Azur without the attitude — or the price tag
• Valencia, Spain: Cutting-edge architecture courtesy of Santiago Calatrava, a laid-back lifestyle at a fraction of the price of Barcelona and Madrid
• Cornwall, England: Miles of wild coastline with superlative surf, a new wave of top seafood restaurants
• Porto, Portugal: Excellent classic and contemporary cuisine in unpretentious settings, fine port and wine vineyards in the rolling Douro Valley

Traveling Europe on a tight budget? Visit Travel & Leisure's 13 Affordable Trips to Europe

Texts from Last Night

Remember that text that you shouldn't have sent last night? We do.

A friend of mine started this blog and its hilarious.
visit the site: Texts From Last Night

One of my favorite posts thus far:

(248): wat u doin
(1-248): Its 3:34 AM, what do you think I'm doing? SLEEPING. what are YOU doing is the question..
(248): Oh tight im jus chillin, how u been
(1-248): I'm going to save you some time, I'm not coming over to engage in high risk sex with you.
(248): Oh its like that?
(248): hater

Depression???

The Dow ended below 7,000 points today, an all-time low since 1997!
But what does it all mean?!

Last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, told the House Financial Services Committee that the "recession is serious, financial conditions remain difficult." He held out a best-case hope that it might end later this year, with "full recovery" in two to three years.

Again, what does it mean?! Are we headed to a depression? How can we tell?

"The Great Depression retains the heavyweight crown. Unemployment peaked at more than 25 percent. From 1929 to 1933, the economy shrank 27 percent. The stock market lost 90 percent of its value from boom to bust."

Unlike recessions, there are no set rules to define a depression. Credit remains tight, millions of homes are in foreclosure, and overall unemployment for the United States is at approximately 7.6% (as of January 2009)

Michigan is the state with the highest unemployment rate, currently at 8.4%, followed by Rhode Island and California.

So the question remains, are we in a depression? Only time will tell.

Ultimate Techno/House/Dance Playlist

Want the ultimate techno/house/dance playlist to load to your iPod before Spring Break?

Download these songs:

• Miracle- Fragma
• Not Falling Apart- DJ Tiesto & Maroon 5
• Something- Lasgo
• Silence- Delirum & Sarah McLachlan & DJ Tiesto
• Take Me Away- 4 strings
• Ordinary World- Aurora
• Heart of Asia- Watergate
• Pjanno- Eric Prydz
• Music Sounds Better with You- Stardust
• Children- Robert Miles
• Barber's Adagio For Strings - Orbit, William
• Adagio For Strings- DJ Tiesto
• Zombienation- Kernkraft 400
• Sandstorm- Durude
• Destination Unknown- Alex Gaudino
• Love Generation- Bob Sinclar
• Calabria 2007- Enur
• Delirious- David Guetta
• Rise Up- Yves La Rock
• One Night in Bangkok- Vinyl Shakerz

I could go on and on, but these songs will make a great playlist.

SPRING BREAK!?

Frantic about Spring Break? Jealous of all your friends that are going to places that will send them home resembling a bronzed god or goddess? Then go to FareCompare, I've used this website for my travels around Europe and even for my next two trips to Miami this month. I'm a broke college student, therefore you can imagine the deals I've found using this website if I'm able to jet set around. Here are some examples of the super cheap flights I've bought using FareCompare:

• Athens, Greece to London: $230
• London to Amsterdam: $150
• Detroit to Los Angeles: $200
• Detroit to Miami: $150

*note: these tickets were all purchased during "high season" traveling

Chaitra is so happy she only spent $230 and traveled from Athens to London with all this crap!

Table of Condiments

Click on the image to see it clearly
Condiments that periodically go bad...

Old Advertisements

Yes, these advertisements actually circulated during the 1930's-1960's and were "serious."
Things have come a long way.

Trash = Cash?

Have old ink cartridges lying around? There are many businesses in your area that will pay you for your used cartridges. Turn them into cash, while saving the environment at the same time! Did you know...

• It takes a gallon of oil to make one inkjet cartridge.
• We throw away approximately 13 cartridges every second.
• You can make up to $5 for recycling a single print cartridge.
• It is estimated that out of 65 million ink-jet cartridges in circulation, only 10% are recycled.

The Year 2008 in Pictures

The Boston Globe features "The Year 2008 in Pictures", displaying photographs that tell a story about the year. They are really awesome...some that are sad, beautiful, scary, violent...you get the picture.