Here are the ten worst summer jobs… which might just make bankruptcy look like the better option.

1.  Amusement Park Attendant
You make minimum wage to stand in the blazing heat all summer, get lobster-red sunburns, and keep little kids in check as they anxiously await their turn on the water slide you’d sell your soul to go down.  You deal with cranky parents demanding that you speed up the line (which you can’t, for everyone’s safety), and clean up puke when the little brats get sick off of the giant ice cream cone they inhaled right before getting in your line.  Oh, and you have to wear a doofy polo with the theme park’s logo.  PASS.

2.  Landscaping and Construction.
These jobs are grueling no matter what time of year.  But when it’s 90 degrees and there’s no shade in sight, you can really do some damage to your body.  Sure, it pays well, but you’re going to constantly battle UV rays, dehydration, and straight up muscle exhaustion.  If you’ve been relatively inactive sitting at your desk and studying all summer, taking on such a physically exhausting job will be brutal.

3.  Flyering.
I wouldn’t include this if I hadn’t done it before, since most of you probably have no clue what “flyering” is.  One summer, I took a one-day job hanging 1,000 door hangers advertising a new ice cream shop on residential doorknobs.  It paid $250 for the day, so I thought it would be cool.  However, that day was spent walking around on concrete for 9 hours (even in sneakers this gets painful), and being paranoid that residents would come out with a shotgun after I left shit on their doorknobs.  Oh, I tried to wear sunscreen, but missed two strips of skin and wore a racer-back tank top.  My sunburns left scars, which look like wings on my back.  No lie.

4.  Flyering- Part 2.
If you live in a big city, there are plenty of companies looking for promoters to hand out fliers advertising their product.  Again, one of the sh*ttier jobs I’ve done in my life.  You stand for hours in the blazing heat, trying to give people a deal… and they get MAD at you for it.  They could just walk away and say “No thank you,” but these people feel like you’re targeting them.  As a flyer-er, I’ve seen everything from people saying the product I’m promoting sucks (not my problem, just trying to make a deal), to strangers thinking that my handing them a piece of paper means they should immediately tell me their life story.

5.  Ice Cream Scooper.
One of two things will inevitably happen.  One – you build huge forearm muscles scooping ice cream for obnoxious tourists in plaid shorts and fanny packs.  It’s crazy hot and the ice cream melts down your arms, so you retreat in a sticky mess every night.  Plus, you can’t even eat any of the goods.  Two – you CAN eat as much ice cream as you like, but you’re sedentary for the whole summer and can’t fit into your bathing suit two weeks after starting the gig.  Oh, and after a shower, you have SPRINKLES clogging the drain.

6.  Theme Park Mascot.
We’ve all heard the Disney horror stories, right? About the theme park characters who aren’t allowed to take their “heads” off, even if they get so overheated they puke on themselves? Need I say more…

7.  Any office work that is totally unrelated to your future career plan.
Let’s face it: you need the money so you do secretarial work all summer and miss all of the beautiful summer pool parties and beach outings, yet get no career experience out of it.  Settling for a desk job simply blows.

8.  Babysitting.
Like the office gig, you’re going to miss out on a lot of fun outings this summer.  Babysitting as a part-time job isn’t so bad, but if you’ve somehow committed to wrangling the neighborhood brats every day for the summer, when you say “NO” to your BFF’s beach party road trip, it will feel like a dagger through the heart.

9.  Housekeeping.
You live in a summer tourist mecca where jobs just sprout over the summer.  EVERYONE’S taking their holiday there, and the restaurant and hotel jobs are flourishing.  Yet, you get stuck as a housekeeper.  Remember that scene from Blue Crush when the surfer girl freaks out over cleaning some drunk football player’s shit out of the bathroom? Yeah, picture that before you agree to be a housekeeper.

10.  Lifeguarding at a Senior’s Center.
You’re not going to have the opp to do mouth-to-mouth on anyone remotely attractive.  And you’re going to get depressed about the inevitable future when you see the wrinkled doing “water sports” in the pool each day.  Yeah… need I even explain that one?

Hey, CC’ers, what jobs are you looking forward to (or NOT looking forward to) this summer? And what are the gigs you passed up on because all the money in the world couldn’t persuade you to punch in every day for three months?

But we just might reconsider our devotion if reports like this keep coming out.

According to PrettyBoring, our precious Piven was “doing his best” to mack on 19-year-old Hayden Panettiere at some post-Emmy party a few weeks back. Although there’s no source linked out to the report, if this is true, we will be pissed because A) Hayen in 19 years old. We’re in our mid-twenties, Piven can totally make us his May-December, but he should really stay away from a girl who is still two years too young to legally drink, and B) she’s already in a relationship with that weird looking guy from Heroes. Everyone knows that.

Lots of people who write blogs seem to think J. Piv is a prime assh*le. We’re going to hold out until there’s actual taped proof (you know how some people won’t believe in God until they see his face in a grilled cheese sandwich?), and until that day…we’ll love every possibly smarmy inch of him.

Then high school hit, and you took your own initiative to blow your money on the perfect ensemble to make a statement on day one. Freshman year meant something eye-catching enough to grab the attention of a studly senior, whereas by senior year, your wardrobe had to scream, “I’m a senior. I own this school. And I’m f***ing graduating, bitch!”

Now that college is just around the corner, is it time to retire the tradition of back-to-school clothes, or do you simply need to step it up a notch?

On the first day of college, the campus will be filled with tens of thousands of students, frantically trying to change their schedules, pay their financial aid, and find the right classroom in the right building. It was easy to get noticed in high school, when you were one fashionista among only a few hundred, but in college, the people you meet on the first day are most likely to be a nameless, faceless blur who were kind enough to give you irections to the registrar’s office.

If you are thinking about going all out for a first day of school ensemble, ask yourself what your motivation is. Do you want to look professional to impress the teacher? Give yourself a little extra self-confidence to make it through the day? Find a nice college boy to walk you from one class to another? The following are some broad categories of BTS-wear that I have encountered year after year. You might fall into one of these groups, or you may notice a few hundred students who do on the first day of college.

The Kid Who Peaked in High School

You’ll recognize this student by their colorful t-shirt that boldly reads “Washington High School,” or “BHS Seniors 2007.” This person proudly displays their high school colors in college because, well, maybe it hasn’t sunk in yet that they are in college. High school memorabilia is great to keep for sentimental reasons, and your Grad Night t-shirt is probably great to sleep in, but in college it only pinpoints your age, your freshman naiveté, and not-legal-to-drink status.

The Kid Who is Way Too Excited to Be at College

This person made a beeline for the bookstore immediately after stepping foot on campus with parents and parents’ credit cards in tow. You’ll recognize this person by the ensemble completely embellished with the university insignia. You’re bound to see a plethora of t-shirts, sweatshirts, and hats from the college collection, but this person will be one foam finger short of an early tailgate party. I’m talking track pants, t-shirt, windbreaker, baseball hat, and official backpack. Everyone walks away from college with a few articles of alma mater apparel, but there’s no need to overdo it. On campus, everyone knows where you go to school because, um… you’re already there.

The Overachiever

It’s great to dress professionally for class, but on the first day, there are some students who feel the need to bring out the full business suit in hopes of making a good first impression on the professor. If school starts in August, however, you’re going to sweat through that blazer before you’ve even made the half-mile trek from your dorm to your first class. Besides, the first day is just as much a blur for teachers as it is for students. They are met with anywhere from twenty to a few hundred students, many of whom are new faces. Even in intimate classes of twenty, it takes the teacher a few class periods to get names straight. You have the whole semester to prove your worth to the professor, and they will be more interested in the work you produce than the diggs you don on Day 1.

The High-Maintenance Student Going for a Low-Maintenance Look

From afar, this girl looks comfortable in jeans, gauchos, or Juicy sweats and simple tanks or t-shirts, but upon closer inspection, you’ll see that she obviously spent hours trying to achieve the “natural” look with five pounds of makeup, and used more product to create “just-rolled-out-of-bed” hair than you used for your senior prom updo. If you’re going for comfy-casual, you negate the ease in which you dressed yourself by spending three hours putting on your face.

The Over-the-Top Trendster

This group is the biggest and most common, because apparently many college students do think the back-to-school tradition should be kept in effect well past the age of eighteen. Since college opens at the tail end of gorgeous summer weather, you’ll find hoards of girls in skimpy skirts, tank/halter/tube tops, and platform sandals or stilleto heels. You’ll also see students proudly showing off the best trends of the summer, no matter how impractical it may be. Case in point: one humid August day, I saw a girl hauling ass across campus in Ugg boots, and immediately patted myself on the back for choosing flip flops that morning. For the first few weeks of school, a large percentage of the student body will put a lot of effort into looking their best in class…until the chilly fall weather sets in, along with midterms, and everyone reverts to jeans, sneakers and hoodies.

By midterms, you’re barely going to have time to eat, sleep, shower, and get trashed, let alone spend hours styling your hair and choosing a cute outfit when you could be studying. By this time, your professors will be aware of your academic prowess, you’ll have an established group of friends, and you’ll realize that you’re far more likely to get hit on at a keg party than a biochem lab. You’ll also discover that books are heavy and campuses are large, so certain clothing is best saved for Saturday night.

Whatever you decide to wear for the first day of college, just remember that the real reason you’re there is to further your education, not turn the student union into a catwalk. So dress for yourself. Whether you want a chic look to boost your own self-confidence, or something practical to get you through a full day of classes in comfort, choose an outfit that is you.

• For 3 hours this Saturday there are going to be a lot of angry fat kids. We should probably be a little nervous. (MSNBC)

• Who needs a masculine jock-y boyfriend when you can just drink man-flavored sweat soda? Mmmm. (Business Week)

• Penn State is bullying little kids out of using their logo. Cause you know, using a dangerous looking animal as a mascot is an original PSU idea. (Fredericksburg.com)

• Going to attempt to cram 50 dressed-up classmates into your dorm this Halloween? Of course you are! Here, we did a little shopping for you! (NerdApproved.com)