Oh, Dell customer service, how I love thee.  After giving me a requested update on Thursday, my customer service called from Mumbai or wherever it is that she’s located yesterday to give me an “update.”  I put that in quotes because she started the call by asking me if I had received the computer yet. Uh, no.  And shouldn’t that be in your system?  Why, yes, she did have that information.  She hadn’t actually checked the system yet.  On checking, she told me that there was no update.  Frankly, I hadn’t expected there to be one on a Sunday only one and a half business days after my last check.   That said, why did Dell call to tell me they had nothing to say?

I had been hopeful that I’d get my computer back shortly after Labor Day, but if that’s representative of Dell’s labor force, I am starting to wonder.  Oy.

Because it’s Monday, and it’s the last day of August, and everybody goes back to school/work/real life this week or next week … let’s kill 30 minutes or so with some more brainless entertainment.  Yeah.

I don’t what it is about San Francisco, but that fair city by the bay appears to be almost as troublesome, dating-wise, as New York.   A few weeks ago we had the Why There Are No Girls in San Francisco blog (worth another look, some entertaining new entries in here!) and today we have this story of the SF-based Linx professional matchmaking service and one of its (let hope atypical) clients, Peter Kuperman, a University of Pennsylvania grad and self-described Olympic hopeful runner/hedge fund manager/loft-owner who appears to have derived his dating and romantic philosophies from repeated viewings of Love Actually and The Bachelor (and the Penn alumni magazine).

Whatever your view, it’s a good accompaniment to your morning coffee.  Enjoy!

Seriously.

As you all know, I am STILL without home computer access and thus desperately casting around for things to do.  (Have I complained about that yet today?)  Among other things, I’ve seen a hell of a lot of HGTV and the Food Network. And during my fiftieth Good Eats rerun, what did I see?  An ad for the Food Network’s new show “What Would Brian Boitano Make?”

No, seriously.  Could I make something like this up?  Apparently the show just debuted (Sundays at 1 pm Eastern) and is an actual cooking show centering around a champion figure skater.  Those who are not South Park fans may be thinking that this is the most random idea ever.  Well, frankly, it’s pretty random regardless, but Google the fine South Park musical number “What Would Brian Boitano Do?”

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Sinful Colors' Courtney Orange

I’m thinking of making this an ongoing series.  Still computerless, I find that my frustration with not being able to get anything done at home is reaching critical levels.  The things I have ended up doing have on occasion left me with a splitting headache and covered with spider bites, but have also made my closet look a hell of a lot better organized.  This is the drawback of the extended warranty: yes, your computer repairs are free, but you have to wait for Dell to get around to doing them.  I suspect Dell’s service depot is on Easter Island and that is why this is all taking so long.  Those big stone heads are not the world’s most efficient computer technicians.

Today’s fun with total boredom?  Mixing my own nail polish!  I am a girl for a good pedicure at all times of year, but during the summer when sandals are a must, my habit becomes a fetish.  What better guilt-free fashion statement is there in a slow economy than giving yourself a sassy polish color? I’ve been alternating blues and oranges since mid-July, slowly ramping up the intensity.  I started off with a shimmery baby blue from Essie and the easy-going light coral of OPI’s Royal Flush Blush, and have been getting more hard core ever since.  I’m currently rocking a discontinued MAC polish in a steely urban blue with gold overtones, and I see OPI’s Yoga-Ta Get This Blue (a gorgeous midnight blue from their India collection) in my future.

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It’s a personal post, so it’s all after the jump.

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So after watching yet another friend and colleague get laid off this morning, I need to say once again how much I hate this recession.  (Or maybe it’s the twisted mentality of corporate layoffs that I despise so much – but can we all agree that one leads to another?)

I will admit that a small, curmudgeonly side of me was (and still is) secretly relieved to have a reprieve from the Age of Excess that characterized much of this last decade.   Manhattan is as good a place as any to see this kind of thing in action. I’m talking gold martinis, 4-hour waits at overrated restaurants, insufferably rude sales staff and laughably high prices for just about everything, from a bottle of Poland Spring ($3) to, of course, real estate (the sky’s the limit!).   Nowadays, you can get a dinner reservation anywhere you like (as long as you can afford it), salespeople are actually nice, real estate prices have come down somewhat and the hottest food trend in town is to eat from street carts.

But the cold hard facts are that the city’s unemployment rate is somewhere around 10%.   The majority of my unemployed friends are fortunate enough to have some savings, some job prospects, and a strong support network, but what about everyone else?  It’s tough to make ends meet anyway, but when you’re supporting children, spouses, or perhaps a parent or two -  and you lose health benefits in addition to your paycheck … it’s enough to put many families  over the brink.   And the sad fact of the matter is that people who are just barely making it are so often the ones who lose out first, and most painfully.  Which brings me to the sheer irrationality of corporate layoffs.  Why do companies eliminate dozens of low-level employees making < $50k a year, in order to save the equivalent of a few first-class plane tickets?

It seems like the people who don’t have safety nets are the ones who most often need them, be it a retirement account or advanced education or even just a rainy day account and good health habits.   And I know I’m not writing anything  new here; all this ground has been covered many times, and much more eloquently, by columnists and social observers of every stripe.

It just sucks, that’s all.   To all of you with safety nets, be thankful!  And to those of you who are job-hunting, best of luck.  I hope some good opportunities come your way very soon.

Fans of Vogue magazine may be aware that ‘The September Issue’ comes out this week.  This documentary follows Anna Wintour as she supervises the assembly of Vogue’s renowned September issue, traditionally the biggest of the year.  Are the Femmeinistes going to see it?  Of course.  (Does the devil in fact wear Prada? Stay tuned!)

Aside from the voyeuristic pleasure of seeing whether Anna Wintour, arguably the most powerful figure in fashion today, is really as difficult as reputed, I am looking forward to seeing what light, if any, the movie sheds on Vogue’s position in today’s increasingly shaky publishing industry.  We all know it’s been a hell of a year for publishing – Domino magazine folded, newspapers seem to be fleeing to the online world right and left.  Vogue may be the bible of American fashion, but I have trouble believing it’s entirely immune, especially given its extremely high end focus.  With all the hand wringing going on about how luxury fashion is going to weather the new economy, Ms Wintour must be thinking about it.

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You may have noticed that I have been AWOL quite a bit lately.  There’s a reason for that.  I have been without a computer at home for almost TWO WEEKS now.  This post? Typed out on my LG Rumor’s tiny keyboard, which is just sad.  Such is my desperation.

You would think that a mere two weeks without internet access wouldn’t reduce me to a whimpering, quivering jelly composed of three parts boredom to two parts pissiness to one part blind panic.  You’d be wrong.  Despite the fact that I was one of the last anti- cell phone holdouts I know and despite the fact that I am old enough to remember a perfectly good life without the internet, I cannot take my motherboard’s defection.  Technology has won.  I’m totally dependent. I’m pretty sure there have been major world events since my motherboard fried, and I’ve even heard tantalizing scraps about some of them, but can I look up more? No.  I have been having all kinds of good ideas about how to spruce up my apartment, but I can’t get online to investigate the options.  I have no idea what’s going on with most of my friends.  AND I CAN’T SEE THE PRE-FALL LINES COMING OUT!

I feel a little like one of the poor generation of computer dependent kids that the newspapers keep telling us America is raising.  Shouldn’t I have the resources to go play outdoors like a good girl?  Apparently not.  Perhaps if it weren’t August, going outdoors might be more attractive, but August in the city?  It doesn’t exactly beg for a nice game of kickball.  I’m pretty sure, though, that the more time I end up having in my apartment with no computer, the more dangerous it is for my worldly goods and everyone I know.

Pity me, beloved friends.  If I retain my sanity until Dell deigns to return my laptop, it will be a miracle. Perhaps a beach vacation is called for in the mean time?  Wish me luck, and if anyone has any calming mantras for the woman in withdrawal, please pass them along.

The, uh, "classic" leather mini?

Okay, it’s $600, and I suspect there’s an age limit on having an excuse to buy a leather miniskirt, but this is without a doubt the classiest hot little biker skirt I’ve ever seen.  I love the studded beltsl  If I thought I could get away with wearing it on a regular basis?  Maybe I should ask the boy…

A Wedding Dress, believe it or not.

Proving that reality TV participants do not have a monopoly on embarrassing ploys for celebrity, Reuters reports that a bride in northeastern China recently got married in a 1.2-mile-long wedding dress (with 9,999 silk red roses attached).  The idea apparently came from the groom’s wish to break the Guinness World Record for longest wedding dress (1.5km or 0.9 miles, held by a bride in Romania).

?????????

The dress took three hours for guests to roll out (now there’s a fun wedding activity) and cost $5,856, which – granted – is actually not completely out of range for certain American wedding dresses but GIVE ME A BREAK!!  Do people really not have anything better to do with their time and money?   And this is China, where $5,856 dollars could probably buy food for the entire wedding party, their guests, and their families for a year.

All of which makes me want to call up CCTV and suggest that they launch a Chinese version of Bridezillas.