I also darkened the background of the site because I didn’t really care for the bright off-white color any more. It’s boring, you know?

Plus, you’ll notice the stagnant “JerseySmarts.com” 468×80 banner has been moved from right above the first blog entry to the bottom of the main page. That site (which is essentially this blog in a different format) is ranked higher than this blog by some rankings! What total BS! I think that Joe’s Journal is hurt by not having a specific “.com” name, but since joesjournal.com appears to be owned by a marketing company, I think purchasing that domain is out of the question. Anyway, the Google ad above is an adequate replacement and what’s better – it pays!

For those of you who are tech-heads out there, Joe’s Journal is still operated on the WordPress 2.3.3 database system. JerseySmarts.com is operating on the new 2.5.1 system and the internal Control Panel is a complete disaster. The engineers at WordPress ruined the posting page so that you have to scroll all the way to the bottom to find certain options. Garbage. I have no intention of changing the Joe’s Journal internal structure until WordPress fixes the debacle that is 2.5.1.

The only other change that I made was to make one of the stock text advertisements at the very bottom of this page a little bit smaller. Truthfully, it looks better with smaller text. I might set it off in it’s own box, too.

I hope you enjoy.

All this financial stress comes at a time when most Americans have the thinnest savings cushion to fall back on. They have been loading up on debt in recent years, drawing on the equity in their homes, in particular. The percentage of their disposable income that goes toward debt payments is at 14.3%, near the all-time high.

Good grief! More than 14% of the average American’s disposable income is going towards debt payments. Ugh – what a disaster. Let’s do some math…

Assuming that the average American family $120,000 per year in a two-income household, that means that take home pay after taxes would be something like $90,000 (possibly less). Now, if we believe CNN’s statistic above, then almost $13,000 of that take home income is directed towards debt payments annually. Gross!

Sure, I pay a bucket load of student loan debt, but that’s to be expected from someone who only stopped going to school two years ago. Imagine the typical American family with 2 or 3 kids who not only has to pay this much towards consumer and housing debt, but also has to put food on the table and clothes on the kids!

It’s rough out there. Now more than ever people should be socking money away into a savings account (after paying off as much consumer debt – credit card debt – as possible).

It’s a joke. This phone is a damned joke.

So I called Verizon Wireless a little while ago and to make a long story short, there’s nothing they can do to help me with this phone. After some discussion with two folks who, by the way, were very pleasant I asked this question: “I have a phone that I can’t use, I can’t replace, I can’t return, and I can’t fix. So are you telling me that I have a $500 paperweight here?” And God bless the Supervisor I was talking to because without actually saying, “Yes,” she said, “Yes.” That’s skill right there!

She made a point about what other business allows you to return a device months, even years, after you bought it? A clever ploy on her part which I’m sure confounds many people, but I came back with the fact that there are lemon laws in place where if your purchase is faulty you can return it. After reminded her that this would be the FOURTH replacement for this phone in an 18 month time frame, she dropped that argument. But she still saved Verizon Wireless some money because in the end – and without actually saying so – she suggested that I dump this device in the garbage. And there you have it, folks. I have a $500 paperweight sitting on my desk. If you’re interested, I’ll let it go for a mere $400…

At this point, I’m not sure whether or not I’ll stay with Verizon. It’s extremely insulting to have them come back at me with, “There’s nothing we can do. Sorry.” I’ve been a loyal customer who pays his bill EARLY for almost a decade and these bums can’t do anything for me? That’s not right. It used to be that the customer was always right – within reason. I believe that I am far within reason on this issue and that Verizon is trying to save themselves from having to give back a few bucks (or even from replacing this phone) from the consumer. It’s a shame, really.

Apparently my business isn’t worth much to this company. But of course, everyone I know has Verizon so if I go to a different carrier my bill will undoubtedly go up due to the fact that I’m on a new network.

I’m incarcerated by my mobile company!

And now I put this out to you folks – what do I do with my phone? Do I bag it up and demolish it with a hammer? Do I box it up and send it over Verizon Wireless and tell them to keep it? Do I donate it to some group when I know that it doesn’t work? Let me know what you think!

I’m being held hostage by Verizon Wireless.

The problem this time around is that my touchscreen seems to work on all parts of the screen, except the middle. So this means that any time I put the stylus on the center of the page, the phone doesn’t recognize it. And what’s so bad about that? Well, the obvious – I can’t get this thing to work the right way and I spent over $600 on the package when I purchased it.

But through some no-good online help, I’ve managed to reset my phone and gotten it stalled out where it asks me to “Use stylus to tape center of target one last time.” And where does this target appear? That’s right – the exact middle of the touchscreen!

So I have a stalled out, piece of garbage phone. Not only is this the worst phone that I’ve ever purchased, but I am going out of my way to dissuade other people from buying this piece of shit. I’ve already gotten two people to stay away from this phone (and the now-tarnished Palm brand) – here’s hoping that this post gets more people to stay away from this brand.