If you’ve ever been both enthralled and repelled by something (like Lifetime movies), this blog is for you.  It manages to be horrifying (someone conceptualized these shots?!  And someone else PAID for them?!!), awesome (in a train wreck way) and completely funny.

Check out Awesomely Bady Engagement Photos, and thank your lucky stars that you haven’t drunk enough of the bridal Kool Aid to think these are a good idea.

Now that autumn is here (well, almost) and a moderate level of swine-flu panic is starting to set in, we should point out just how cute microbes can actually be when, uh, magnified one million times and fashioned out of plush.  (What?)  I refer of course to ThinkGeek’s collection of Giant Plush Microbes … if fuzzy pink swine flu isn’t for you, maybe the aquatic-looking clap/gonorrhea critter, the lavender blob of  mono-kissing disease or perhaps the e coli virus.

Dell has finally broken my spirits.  I’m not sure I have the strength to go into the ridiculousness that has occurred since my last post.  Suffice it to say that it involved representations that my computer would be overnighted to me by tomorrow (not gonna happen) and a circus of different people telling me conflicting information about what was wrong with the computer, sometimes several times a day.   Finally, Dell has achieved an indefinite delay to replace a part that was in perfectly good condition when I sent it to them and that the service depot apparently broke.  Is it just me, or should I not have an additional month’s delay because DELL broke something?

They now claim I’ll have a refurbished system in two weeks, but I’m not holding my breath.  It seems like it’s just about time for me to start looking for a new computer, and I sure as hell won’t be buying another Dell.  Of course, I can’t shop for it online, but I guess there are always computer magazines.  Anyone have recommendations?

It is like the Keystone Kops over there, folks.  After posting Wednesday, I got an email telling me that the computer (which I’d been told Monday had been fixed, remember) had been shipped out.  I replied to the email asking again if a tracking number was available.  Well, yesterday I got a call telling me that there had been an update that morning saying that not only had it not been shipped, it had not been fixed, and was waiting for a part on backorder so that it could be fixed.  ”I am going to ask you to wait another five to seven business days.”  Right.  When asked, he had no idea why I’d been told it had been fixed, what was wrong with it, what part was missing, or why I’d been told it had shipped, despite the fact that he’d been the one who sent the email saying it had shipped.

Come on, people.  I realize that repairs can take time, but what kind of part could my computer need that could possibly take the manufacturer over three weeks to get?  I would be okay being patient if I was getting the impression that they knew what they are doing over there, but after the it’s fixed-it’s shipped-it’s not shipped OR fixed debacle, I am starting to get the impression that my computer is caught in a vortex of incompetence that may not even be aware that there’s a computer in there.   And for more than a month.  Good God.  I was originally happy my computer was still on warranty, but I’m starting to wonder if I wouldn’t have been better off buying a new computer from someone else.  This level of confusion from a company the size of Dell is pretty impressive…

I love the Lifetime Movie Network – it’s truly a guilty pleasure.

So it’s with great regret that I have to report that they’ve dropped the ball on this one. And – of all people – JIMMY KIMMEL came up with the greatest Lifetime Movie concept ever: Kate Is Enough: The Kate Gosselin Story, starring Kathy Griffin and George Takei.

With luck, the long saga of my dry spell should be over soon.  Supposedly my computer is now fixed, some two weeks after the Dell service depot received it and a week and a half after they obtained the part they needed for it.  About time, too.  I think I have watched the entire TV oeuvre of David Bromstad, and I suspect I’m going to start running out of Divine Design soon too.  That said, I am going to share with you my latest call from Dell’s customer service folks because, well, people who make calls this dumb deserve to have it posted about on the internet.

The genius responsible for my last call from Dell (“Have you received your computer yet?  Oh, no, we haven’t fixed it yet.  And I have no update for you.”) said during that call that she’d call me in a few days with an update.  That didn’t happen.  Fine, no big.  I finally emailed Dell again on Saturday afternoon asking for an update on whether it had been shipped or whether it was going to ship soon, in the hopes they’d send me a tracking number.  In response to this email, someone called me on Labor Day.  He opened by asking if I had my computer yet.  Uh, no, I just emailed to ask if it had been shipped.  Oh, he knew that, that’s why he was calling.  And it hadn’t shipped yet.  So WHY was he asking if I’d received it?  Who knows.  (Clearly not because he thought it had been delivered Labor Day weekend.)  He then told me it’d been fixed but not shipped.  Since it took their carrier over a week to bring the prepacked box they sent me from me to them, I asked him if they could send it overnight or two-day air to avoid a repeat of that lag, being as my original warranty call to Dell was over a month ago.  He responded that it shouldn’t take that long.  I repeated my question about expediting it.  He repeated his nonanswer several times.  Dude, I realize that.  I am so with you on how it should not take more than a week for a computer to get from here to Houston.  What you are not saying is that you will take steps to prevent it from taking that long again.

I left this call unclear on whether he was going to do anything but rely on usual procedures to assume that my laptop would get shipped.  That’s okay.  I have email on my cell phone and leftover instincts from being a lawyer.  They have had my damn computer for three full weeks now.  If I don’t get a tracking number by the end of the day…

I, for one, am beside myself with anticipation over the upcoming film version of the beloved classic Where The Wild Things Are.

I understand the trepidation many are experiencing – this is a beloved children’s classic, one of the very few books almost everyone has read (and have cherished memories of).  In a world where Bridget Jones’ Diary qualifies as literature, WTWTA is truly a masterpiece – a book where art, story telling and imagination collide.

So how will that translate on screen?  Only time will tell, but the trailer gives me hope (and, frankly, goosebumps).

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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