Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch Freak OUT

“The venerable Lehman Brothers investment bank said early Monday that it will file for bankruptcy, while Bank of America unveiled plans to buy Merrill Lynch — two pieces of news that profoundly alter the American financial landscape.”

In case you’re just waking up, Wall Street is going through some major changes. Nevermind that Ike is causing oil prices to jump up yet again, two huge investment banks, both of which came through the 1930′s Depression, are in the process of folding. While Merrill Lynch may be finding new life under Bank of America, Lehman Brothers, which is 158 years old, is closing it’s doors for good.

What does this mean for you? Well, that remains to be seen. All eyes will be watching Wall Street today, hoping and praying that other stocks will stay strong in the wake of such monumental financial crumblings. It’s not news that our economy is currently shaky at best, and it may be too early to tell how exactly these two recent foldings will effect people’s wallets.

Let’s just think positively. And maybe…skip that latte this morning.

5 Reasons Why ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ Still Blows

Lots of action movies suck. Sure, some of them are worth their $20 million plus budgets, but most are products of testosterone, half-baked skills, and a complete miscalculation of how stupid the movie-going audience is.

So yes, lots of action movies suck, but every once in a while, there comes along a film so sh*tastic that it makes movies like Swordfish seem like Citizen freaking Kane. The Day After Tomorrow is one of those sh*tastic sh*t fests. In fact, I think The Day After Tomorrow is probably the worst movie that has been made in the last 6 years (and yes, I’m lumping in SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2). Need proof? Here’s a list.

5th Reason This Movie Blows: Lame 2 Syllable Or Less Names

Let’s run through a short cast of characters, shall we? Jack Hall, Sam Hall, Lucy Hall, Jason, Frank, J.D, and Brian. I mean, where’s John Johnson? Bob Smith? Usually, I don’t give a flying eff about character names, but when you have people saying each other’s names every.other.second, the exhaustingly uncreativeness starts to eat away at you.

4th Reason This Movie Blows: Nobody Cares About Their Damn Family (Except the Angelic Hall Family Who Are So Angelic They Might Be Decedents Of Jesus) Read more

How Much is Your College Degree Worth? Not as Much as You Think

When I was in high school, my parents always told me that the only way I was ever going to do anything in life is if I went to college. NOT going wasn’t even discussed. You had to go to college if you wanted a job. If you wanted to work at McDonald’s or Wal-Mart forever, then fine, you could skip out on college – but everyone knows (at least according to my parents back then) that working at Wal-Mart wasn’t really a job as much as it was a sentence to the worst life ever.

Well, I went to college, and I even did my parents one better and went to graduate school. Armed with both a BA and MFA, I was certain I could pretty much get any job I applied for, and would get paid 35K at the minimum.

Ha. Ha. Ha. And I’m not alone. Not only have most of my friends with MFAs scrambled to find anything to pay the bills post graduation (working at Borders, in a file room…with freaking MFAs!!), but it seems like degrees in general are losing the battle to inflation. Read more

Republican Delegate Outlaws Your Areolas

Okay, let’s get one thing straight. When people go to strip clubs and titty bars, they go there for the nakedness. Not the costumes, not the lighting, not the soundtrack (I mean, who hasn’t heard their fill of Pour Some Sugar On Me?), the nakedness.

Strip clubs are for seeing more than you could see strolling across a beach. Experiencing porn-like situations. Living out fantasies. Wasting hundreds of dollars. These are the sorts of experiences strip clubs provide. It’s common sense.

Except to idiots. Like Delegate John A. Cosgrove, a Chesapeake, Virginia, Republican. Cosgrove recently sponsored a bill that fights back against an August ruling that a Virginia law “prohibiting lewd conduct at establishments with liquor licenses was unconstitutional and too broad”. Read more

Airborne, I’m Ashamed To Have Ever Bought You

I cannot stand getting sick. About a month ago, I caught a vicious flu bug and completely denied its existence in my system until I woke up one Sunday morning hallucinating and unable to stand.Had I only taken more Airborne….my feverish mind reasoned as my roommate and I raced to the emergency room…I would be completely healthy right now…

Well, it turns out, I could have popped one hundred little Airborne tablets and it probably wouldn’t have made an ounce of difference (it also turns out that if you’re crazy sick and in an emergency room, crawling onto the floor and lying there gets you in to see a doctor way ahead of everyone else).

The makers of the popular take-it-and-you-won’t-get-sick tablet have recently settled a class-action lawsuit for $23.3 million, a lawsuit which claims that despite Airborne’s compelling advertising campaign, “There’s no credible evidence that what’s in Airborne can prevent colds or protect you from a germy environment”. Read more

My First All-Nighter

My first all-nighter at the end of my freshman year taught me some important lessons about what my mind and body is capable of when placed under the stress that is going without sleep for more than 24 hours.

1) Between 3 and 5 a.m. I’m incapable of forming coherent sentences on paper and possibly aloud. I have some stellar thoughts, complex ideation that I’m incapable of during normal waking hours. But when it comes to recording them, I have the language capability of a non-Einstein like fourth grader writing about quantum physics.

It’s funny in retrospect, but it makes me want to jab a pencil in my eye when I need that thought to get me through a paragraph or two at 6 a.m., when I’m able to write again.

2) Hot chocolate disappoints like no other, as it’s more of a distraction than an aide in concentration. Marshmallows – either their presence or the mere of idea of them melting sugary goodness in your cup – are the funnest thing ever when you’ve been studying pre-colonial African history for seven hours.

Coffee will never let me down, but hot chocolate is more of a party in my mouth kind of beverage and not quite the upper I wanted and needed it to be.

3) If I end the 24 hour no-sleep-athon with a 20 minute run, upon beginning my cool down, I will have an orgasm. Read more