Ads by GEICO: Enough is Enough

GEICO has really pushed full-throttle with an advertising blitz to encourage people to spend 15 minutes in the hope of saving 15% on auto insurance. Coincidentally, I'm hit with a GEICO ad 15 times a day on average, and, also coincidentally, I tune out these ads 15 times a day.

The gecko, the cavemen, the celebrities... ok, we get it. You guys have a million characters and will continue to pound the average consumer into submission until they request a quote. You win. Try having an all-around good company in an all-around good industry that people want to talk about and you won't need to spend millions on advertising. The word will spread itself.

But now that I think about it, State Farm, AllState, AIG and others are also flooding the airways with their commercials. Shame that when people get flooded out of their houses, the money doesn't exactly come pouring in.

Ok, I understand that insurance companies have helped build America to become a great country by minimizing risks caused by fires, weather, burglars, stray golf balls, etc., but there's got to be a better way to make money than squeezing dollars away from claimants when they're in need. Fortunately, I've never had to make a major claim, save for one minor fender bender which was not my fault, but I cannot imagine what people have to go through in order to get their money back when insurance companies either don't pay quickly, drag out lawsuits, pay less than they should, or don't cover a loss at all. I'm all for capitalism and businesses earning money, but people who pay for peace of mind should get it when they need it. 15 bucks lost should be 15 bucks paid. Plain and simple. Put that in an ad and smoke it.

Rebate Credit Cards: The Latest Borderline Phone Company Scam

Back in January, I upped and left my old cell-phone carrier Sprint to join my fiance on her plan with Cingular/ATT. While I had no real qualms with Sprint, Cingular presented a better all around deal for us, and thus far I have been mostly happy with them, which is pretty much on par with cell phone companies in general... complete satisfaction with a cell phone company is not humanly possible, as you will see in my mini-rant...

So as part of my switching to Cingular and locking in on a 2-year contract, I was given a $100 rebate credit card after purchasing my phone. For starters, rebates are perhaps the most agonizing way to save money on a product purchase. Instead of getting 100 bucks back at the register right then and there, you have to cut out the UPC code on the box, mail it in, wait a few weeks, and now, deal with another credit card in your wallet. It's no longer a check that the company sends that you can drop in the bank or turn into cold hard cash. I could at least tolerate that scenario.

The credit card, I think, is a borderline scam. My $100 card, after several retail purchases, has dwindled down to about $6 remaining on the balance. But it's not like I can pay for a $40 item, use this rebate card and max it out, then pay the remaining $34 or so with cash or another credit card tocomplete the transaction. Nope-- the rebate card gets denied and I have to pay in full some other way. So essentially if I want to use the complete $100 that was given to me, I have to make a purchase that costs exactly $6.24 (or whatever the exact amount is), or else I forfeit that money after a year from activating it.

So is this hassle the end of the world for me? Of course not. But it's just another little dig at the consumer, as far as I'm concerned. Cingular will probably end up saving a few cents or a few bucks on my rebate card because I most likely won't be able to max out the card to the exact penny. Figure in the thousands of other folks out there in the same situation, and Cingular just pocketed themselves thousands of dollars that should otherwise NOT BE THEIR MONEY!!! To me, that's rather scammish. Just give us lowly consumers the cold hard cash and let us live our lives (or better yet, ditch the rebate and make us happy with a discount right at the register--- the old fashioned way). Instead, unless I'm totally missing an alternative option of maximizing my rebate amount, I have to precisely plan my purchases in advance in order to get 100% of my rebate. Plus the fact that they're probably tracking my purchases and will be marketing to me according to my patterns.

Just what I want... more offers to buy stuff and get a rebate card in return.

All in all, not a great way to introduce yourself to a new customer, huh?

(Thanks to this blog for the image!)

The Art of Finding Unusual Gifts

I recently discovered this site featuring unusual gifts on a random search that I was doing for garden stuff. It amazes me how the internet truly has everything, somewhere.

I mean, where else can you see an otherwise attractive woman blowing snot out of her nose with a genie lantern?

Or a "spooky" ghost towel...

It's a shame that, with the influx of large chain stores, we lose the edgy and innovative products that can be found at quirky mom-and-pop-shops that are falling by the wayside. But fortunately the internet has found a place for every last oddball item, like a warbowl?

A Lesson on College Costs in the Future

A certain co-worker of mine delivers rants, opines, and repetitive lectures every single day about the exorbitant cost of college. Despite the annoyance of having to listen to it day in and day out, I do feel for him, as he is in the process of putting two kids through higher ed and it ain't cheap. (I could give you an exact figure as to what each of his kids' college costs per year, but I'm sure can surmise a guess.) Indeed, financial planners around the country emphasize the importance of planning for your kids' future. College expenses are quite worrisome.

At any rate, twenty or so years from now I will likely be in a similar situation as this particular co-worker. I have no kids at press time, but for argument's sake, let's say I will have two kids going to college in the year 2027. On one hand, I'm scared to death as to what college will cost by then. On the other hand, I have to think that the entire paradigm of college will be completely different from what it is today. At least I hope.

As the years go on, college will become increasingly expensive. However, there will have to be a breaking point. A point where people say enough is enough, this doesn't make sense anymore. "Why am I paying $128,000 per YEAR to send my kid to college??? This is insane!" To add to that, life is changing SO fast that college classes will have to change their format to keep up with the pace. For instance, I graduated in 2001 and just six (wow, is it six already?) years later, I feel that 95% of what I learned is irrelevant in my life or outdated. This is nothing against my alma mater (I miss you Happy Valley!). But either technology has surpassed what I used in college (remember when modems and Napster were all the rage?) or the techniques of business and communications have changed so much that I've learned more by surfing the internet in the past few months than from the stale books I had to read for classes.

In the year 2027, today's internet will be long gone, or merely a fossil in the rapidly evolving line of technology. Information on ANYthing will be available instantaneously. Google will actually be imbedded in our minds. Well, you get the drift. So why would parents send their kids to an expensive institution just to learn things that they can get "online"... whatever online entails in 2027? People will be working FOR the internet, not the other way around. Education will be a whole new ballgame.

Putting that all aside, let's just say that I'm totally wrong at this point that learning will be completely different from today's college experience, and instead, kids actually ARE going to college in the same manner as they are today. I cannot imagine in my wildest dreams that the government, businesses, and American citizens will tolerate the price of college skyrocketing at such a tremendous rate as it is today. Either more scholarship and public money will be available for incoming students, or prices will level off. That's Economics 101.

Or maybe it's all just wishful thinking for me...

The New Age of News

Back when there used to be 3 or 4 TV channels with news segments along with the daily newspaper, you generally had to be important to make the news. Now that there are several TV stations with 24 hour news formats, internet news sources, news magazines, and the like, news outlets are stuck looking for news and ways of differentiating themselves from the other news competitors. So what do we end up with? People that get on the news who THINK they're important. Get on the news-- you made it in life!!! Personally, I find it annoying and a drizzle sickening. To wit... Why is celebrity gossip news? Why are the results of the latest TV reality show news? Why do we need to hear from the most moronic "people on the street" about the latest inane movie? Why? Why? WHY???

It's crazy. Crazy I's tells ya.

And that's the news from this corner of the blogworld. Print it!

The Joys of Music

Ever since the Great Imus Debacle of '07, there's been a question by
many white people as to why Mr. Imus should have gotten the boot while rappers can get away with using slurs, curses, and other degrading jargon. Well coincidentally or not, we're starting to see some people wake up to this reality that, yes, Imus was wrong, but rappers and radio stations do indeed need to clean up their acts. Big-name African-Americans like Russell Simmons and Michael Baisden have begun to call for an awakening in the African American community. Whether this happens or not remains to be seen, but it's honorable that at least this is a start to cleaning up the airwaves.

Meanwhile, I'd like to mention another problem on the airwaves: country music. I'm a channel flipper while in the car and I often wind up on the local country channels. I'll admit that I do enjoy some of the songs on these channels, though it's not my favorite genre. At any rate, if anybody listens to these songs for even five minutes, it's easy to hear that these country singers sure like to drink and carouse and sing endlessly about it! Hey, I'm all for a little of both, and I'll admit that country tunes make for great party music, but let's be real here... there are millions of Americans with drinking problems (and/or anger issues), and these songs go blatantly overboard at glamorizing each of these themes.

Should these types of songs be halted? Probably not, but I'm also confused as to why I don't see anybody taking notice to lyrics in
these songs. Maybe it's not as noticeable as racism, but drinking has definitely ruined the lives of many, yet many country singers are glamorizing it and could very well be influencing the minds of younger fans, much like what's going on in the rap community. I'm no sociologist or pyschologist, but hey, a message like this repeated over and over is bound to stick eventually. Perhaps we should consider if this is the message we want to linger on.

But hey, maybe I should just forget about it, kick back with my posse and have some "Whiskey for my Men and Beer for my Horses". Right Toby Keith?

Response to "Society Fails Because Families Do"

In the Sunday, April 22, 2007 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer,
Michael Smerconish jumped on the a recent study showing that "homes
without both parents have a higher chance of being involved in
violence," in his article entitled "Society Fails Because Families Do.

While I agree with the concept that children raised in household without married parents are more likely to commit violent acts, there is a key missing ingredient that I think is even more vital to preventing violence and encouraging socially healthy living: love. Anecdotally, but quite
consistently, I find that households with loving parents produce
children that are much less likely to be violent and committing crimes. Love is an intangible yet powerful force in the lives of children and can make all the difference in the world.

Even from a media perspective, consider how many TV shows and movies portray families (based on fact or fiction), and then consider what those families are like. There are poor, urban families with only one parent who displays his or her love and raise great children. There are rich, cold suburban parents who are unloving and raise dangerous children. There are kids raised in households without any parents at all, perhaps an aunt or grandmother (Spider-Man, perhaps), but a loving figure no less, and the kids are equally as loving as their role model in life.

In short, I can certainly understand a connection between a two-parent household and the decreasing amount of violence in their children, as the study shows, but I think the more important factor here is love.

And I know it because my mom and dad taught me so.