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jermscentral
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read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: Jeremy
Country: United States
State: Tennessee
Metro: Nashville
Birthday: 5/3/1983
Gender: Male
Interests: racquetball, Pi Mega T-Rex (Ankylosaurus), Cheerwine, Sanctuary, God, Jesus, guns (though the previous three are not related), photography (digital or film), Phil Collins, Michael Bolton
Expertise: wireless technology, spelling and grammar, sarcasm, photography, trial by combat, invading and infiltrating the ranks of smaller universities (because there aren't many smaller than ours)
Occupation: Computer related
Industry: Education
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  jeremykhoward
MSN: littlehowie@hotmail.com
Yahoo:  jermscentral
Member Since:
7/5/2003
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| Since I absolutely love the site, I figured I'd show it to others so they could sign up and take part.
Jellyfish.com runs a reverse auction-style website that starts a product at a price that includes tax and shipping and drops every second. If you want the item, click the Buy button, and you'll get it for the price it's listed, which could be all the way up to 100% off (it's only happened on two or three items, but it IS possible). The only caveat is that you don't know how many of the items there are, so you don't know if you're getting the best deal or not. However, if you wait too long for the price to drop, and someone else beats you to it, you're out of luck.
So far, I've only bought one of the items (a 580EX-II camera flash), but I got it for $150 off retail! All items are brand new (no refurbs) and come from reputable dealers. Their customer service is awesome and fast to respond to any questions you have.
I do get a referral point for anyone that signs up, but it's not cash, so it's not like I'm making money off anyone that uses my link to sign up. Either way, check it out; the shows run 24/7 and last until items sell out for each category, and there are games and group chat to keep you occupied if you don't want to buy the current item.
http://www.jellyfish.com/users/signup/jermscentral
If you don't like the reverse-auction style buying and prefer to just shop online, check out the regular stores through Jellyfish.com -- they give you cash back on your purchases! They work through referral links with online stores, and they split the commission with you. So, if you were to buy an item from a store that offered a 10% commission to the referrer (Jellyfish), they keep 5% and give you 5%, so it's like getting a discount on whatever you're purchasing anyway.
Check it out; I'm addicted.
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| The word "ask" is pronounced exactly as it is spelled. There is no letter "x" in the word, nor are the letters "k" and "s" reversed in any form or fashion. Please learn to properly say this word.
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| After seeing a group on Facebook called "Petition to Improve Lipscomb Dining Services / Food Court," I decided that it was high-time some of the Lipscombites learned why things are the way they are. This is from my own experience in my four years at Lipscomb, culminating with a high honor my senior year.
As a former SGA President of Lipscomb, I can tell you
there is a lot that students do not know or realize about the Lipscomb
Dining Services (LDS). Every President and Presidential candidate has
mentioned improving the quality of LDS, but very few have been able to
actually do anything about it. I remember coming in to office,
bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about all the changes I would make, and
food service was one of the first areas we tackled. A meeting with
Rick Graham, Ken Corwin, and Peter Fox soon showed us what it's really
like. It also showed us how approachable our staff really are at
Lipscomb, if you get over the hurdle of complaining without acting. I
can remember going through a plan to implement a Chick-Fil-A, and it
actually began carving itself out last year. There were issues with
quality that seemed to be resolved with a little communication, so I
decided to compile a list. This is a list of common grievances I
received, as well as the remedies and suggestions of the staff of LDS:
1. Price. Students everywhere complained about how much they
were paying for a meal (which, when I graduated, was right at $7.00 for
dinner). The vast conspiracy theory is that LDS hordes all this money
and rolls around in it all day while we eat miserably. In reality, it
is the opposite-- LDS keeps between $2 and $3 for every meal
purchased. If you didn't feel nickel-and-dimed enough already, get
this: the remaining $4-5 goes to the Lipscomb University general fund.
Out of the meager sum that LDS keeps, part of it goes to Sodexho as a
company, part to salaries and wages, and part to equipment and
maintenance of the facilities. These funds add up when a large student
population buys the meal plans, which is partly why so many students
have to remain as on-campus residents. Seniors are given an "out" by
getting to live off campus, though some choose to stay as dorm
dwellers, partaking in the feast (no pun intended). Students figure
that if they're paying that much for a meal plan, they should get their
money's worth, which brings up the topic of...
2.
Floating Meals. The dollar amount charged for a meal is not a random
price charged to gain the most profit for a dining services
organization. Here's how it works: Lipscomb takes the average number
of meals used per student, per semester. The average works out to
around 75%. So if little Johnny gets a meal plan of 150 meals, it is
expected that with eating out with friends, dining elsewhere, or eating
in his room, Johnny will consume approximately 113 of his 150 meals on
his plan. This number is estimated because some folks use their entire
plan while others barely use it at all. LDS then uses this number and
approximates the food cost per student per meal, multiplies that amount
times the number of students buying a meal plan, and submits it to the
university. The university tacks on their added "fees and expenses"
and sets the overall price for the meal plan. If every meal on a meal
plan were made a floater, more students would be likely to use all of
their meals, meaning LDS would actually lose money when it came time
for accounting. Converting all meals to floater meals would require an
addition of 25% to the cost of the meal plans, which would be even more
heavily revolted and profaned than the current system. Students
already have money problems, but maybe all they want is better...
3. Food selection. The menus are chosen for the upstairs
dining hall based on comments, suggestions, and a general plan set
forth by Michael Sullivan, the executive chef for LDS. If you don't
like what you see up there, let him know, and there stands a pretty
decent chance that the item will either be removed from the menu, or at
the very least, taken out of rotation as often. When I left, the menus
were on a 3-week rotation, so if you had spaghetti today, expect to see
it again in three weeks. This is altered every so often with popular
foods, which get rotated through lunch and dinner menus on a
less-than-3-week period. For instance, you may have fried cod for
lunch today and then again next Friday for dinner. Is there a type of
food that you would rather see offered? Let Michael know. He is
always open to suggestions from anyone who dines there. If you have a
recipe for something your mom makes, give him a copy and request it to
be on the menu-- you might see it for lunch the next day. More people
eat upstairs than downstairs. This could be because the quality of
food is better upstairs, or it could be caused by the...
4.
Food Court Follies. There is no denying that the level of service
upstairs is incomparable to that of the Food Court. The state of
employment of the hired help downstairs has a large part to do with the
student population. If management does not hear about a problem,
nothing will happen. Complaining to your friends that the perverted
old guy at the chicken place was checking you out will do nothing but
create unrest between you and your friends, as well as whomever else
you told. However, informing Ken, Rick, or David that the gross old
man was checking you out will often result in a new-hire being trained
as early as the next day, or the employee may be put on suspension or
heavily monitored after being moved to another position. I often heard
about employees that would tell me they were "out" of chicken when I
came at an off time (say, 30 minutes after peak dinner time). I
confronted Ken with this information and was told that it is often
caused by lazy employees that merely do not want to walk back to the
freezer to get out another bag of chicken. Ironically enough, there
was plenty of chicken the next night. Plenty of things can be
accomplished with good...
5. Communication. LDS strives to be a good place to eat, and
there are admittedly pitfalls in their handiwork. Think about it-- if
you are dining out at a restaurant, and your food is served cold,
undercooked, overcooked, or any other plethora of fallacies that can
befall a piece of food, you send it back and demand it be fixed because
you paid a healthy sum of money for said meal. However, with Lipscomb,
too many students assume the problem is non-fixable and that the staff
does not care about your well-being. The staff of Lipscomb Dining
Services is here to help you, make you comfortable, and to provide the
services for which you paid. If no one speaks up, the "problems" are
not seen as problems to those in charge. Speak your mind. Voice your
opinion. Let your thoughts be heard. Democracies are not run by
dictators, but rather they are formed from the voices of the common
people.
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| I got a response from 107.5. I even got a direct line in to the programming director, and we chatted about 20 minutes on why the station does what it does. Being a Top 40 station, it has a standard rotation of that number of songs plus about 40-50 that are randomly inserted throughout the week. Therefore, you WILL hear the same song (or artist) roughly every hour and a half by design. The station does sampling every week of a particular demographic to obtain its list of "popular" songs -- the 18-34 year old female. Yep, you read that right. The music for the station is designed with women in mind (probably because of the value of the advertising dollar). Songs from several weeks/months ago are randomly inserted into the survey to see if they should be played again, and some make the cut. Sir Mix-a-Lot has somehow survived the test every time, but other artists like Nelly are cut, never to return again.
We both agreed that "Back In the Day Sunday" is our favorite segment, but because of programming times, it can't be extended. :(
So in conclusion, the reason why the music at radio stations like 107.5 sucks: women pick it.
Ha!
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| I decided to write to 107.5 The River after getting tired of hearing Justin Timberlake being played more times than blackjack at Harrah's. Below is my letter to them -- I hope they respond.
Greetings:
I missed the opportunity to be on The River's Listener Advisory Panel, but I wanted to make sure my opinions were voiced. I have been a listener to 107.5 in Nashville since I was a kid, listening to Y107 and the Fat Five at 9 in middle school, even listening through the conversion into The River. Over the past few years, things have been getting worse as far as programming goes. I noticed a downturn as early as March of this year when I started paying attention to the frequent airtime of certain songs in a scheme that almost reeks of the days of payola. While at work on Friday, November 10, 2006, I tuned into 107.5 The River to start my day, and I decided to keep a running tally of all the songs played throughout the day. I kept a record from two sources -- listening to the radio while at my desk and keeping a tally of the songs on The River's website (http://www.1075theriver.com) in the "Last 10 Songs Played" window -- so I could get a total of the number of times a song or artist was played. I must say I was appalled at the lack of creativity in programming or even the variety of the programming. I have attached the list of songs that I made throughout the day with an attempt at entering the approximate time of the songs (within the hour) to show the frequency with which most of these songs are played.
I must say that after that work day, I will not be an avid listener of the station as I once was, regardless of what contests or promotions are run, until the variety is increased to allow more airtime for other artists. This seems like a blatant disrespect to the listener in a horrid attempt to play "all of today's best music." From looking at the list and listening to the station during the Friday work day, I can tell who The River's favorite artists are -- Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, and Nickelback (who each had two singles alternated several times through the day); Evanescence, Snow Patrol, Jojo, and Hinder. All of these artists were played almost exclusively with a few other songs thrown in for spice. I noticed that "Baby Got Back" was added in to the playlist and has been getting extensive airtime, but what about all the songs that make up this generation? Why can we not hear songs that came out, say, last year or the year before? As much as I can't stand him, Nelly has not even seen much airplay for a while now; nor has 50 Cent; nor has Green Day; nor have several other artists. After hearing Justin Timberlake twice in one hour on two separate occasions, with one of those being within a standard clock hour (11:00-12:00) at 11:00 and 11:42, I wasstarting to get sick. Two of the artists/songs -- Papa Roach's "Scars" and Staind's "Right Here" -- have been in constant play since March 9, 2006, when I started listening and paying attention to the airplay. Does anyone at the station actually check these things before they go live? A song such as Justin Timberlake's "Sexy Back," which sounds like a broken record every time the chorus plays, should not be played as often as it is; nor should a song such as Hinder's "Lips of An Angel," which seems to condone adultery and cheating. Is this the kind of music that makes up "All of Today's Best Music?"
"Back In The Day Sunday" is the only time I can actually hear songs that heard growing up, so it's a welcome change from the usual repetitive drivel of the station. I wish I could hear some of the songs I grew up with along with today's "Best" music, not "All of Today's Most Overplayed Music," without having to constantly change stations. Anytime one of these repeat songs comes on air, I feel forced to change the station, listen to a CD, or turn on an mp3 player to avoid hearing the same thing I heard an hour ago.
My main question is this: can we have more variety, please?
Thanks.
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