I have many good reasons to be smiling.

I have a clean apartment, I hosted guests for dinner Friday and Saturday night, I took my first outdoor walk in forever this evening, and my acne is clearing up.

Only thing that would make it better would be if I didn't have to work ten hours tomorrow.

But the coolest thing that happened was getting this on Friday afternoon:



This is Blain. It's my brand-new Creative Zen Vision: M 30-Gig mp3 player, and I got him for free.

Why is it named Blain? I've named it after John Blain, the Dell guy who restored my faith in customer service.

But before I go into John Blain, I must first talk about Jeff Jarvis. That's this guy:



Like me, Jeff Jarvis is a journalist. He created Entertainment Weekly, was once a TV Critic for TV Guide and people, and has worked for the New York Daily News and the San Francisco Examiner.

Jeff also has a blog, and made it a point to go into an all-out war with Dell over shitty customer service in it. It made headlines, undoubtedly in geekland.



This is news I never knew about until just a few weeks ago.

See, Jeff began patting Dell on the back last month, when a Dell customer advocate named John Blain contacted him about an 11-month-old issue with his sucktastic computer. Jeff had already given up on Dell, but John didn't give up on Jeff.

On July 11, Jeff kindly rejected John's offer to make his life with Dell pleasurable, but with this message:

"So thanks for your offer, Mr. Blain. It may be too late for me. But it's never too late to listen to your customers. You can't solve every problem Dell has. But you can solve some. Give yourself and your boss a pat on the back."

About two weeks later, John found me through a blog in which I wrote that my Dell DJ was either "totally fucked" or "royally fucked." He sent me a MySpace e-mail. All he wanted was the service tag number. Still thinking he was full of shit, I gave it to him, he said, "I'll get you a new player," and he ordered me one on July 28.

A few days later, I got a box from Dell at work. An empty box.

I e-mailed John about it, but because I'm impatient, I used the Dell online chat. That began a hellish experience that basically involved talking to four different obviously-outsourced customer service folk who kept saying shit like, "We cannot give you a new mp3 player," "We understand your concern" and "Was the package damaged?"

AAAAUUUGH! My blood was boiling at this point. So I sent one last e-mail to John, telling him all the problems I had over this mp3 player. He apologized profusely and ordered me another player. And he wrote to me as if I was a person, not going by a script or any of that other bullshit.

Two days later, my mp3 player arrived and made me the happiest gal on Earth.

So, John Blain, whomever has sent you on this quest of finding unhappy Dell customers is a wonderful person. Now, please, for the love of all that's holy, see if you can't get them to do something about that horribly-paid, outsourced customer service department. They have absolutely no clue as to what is going on whatsoever.

I still am not in the "my next computer is going to be a Dell" club, but I'm not throwing away my invitation just yet.

Oh, and about my player: It is awesome. It plays avi files. It charges via USB. It holds a shitload of music. It grates cheese. It slices, dices and juliennes. I love it. LOVE IT.

I used it on my treadmill walk yesterday. It entertained my guests at the Elvis potluck last night. I took my first outdoor walk in a few weeks with it this evening and it didn't go craptastic on me. I LOVE IT.

Let's hope I'm saying the same thing in another six months.

And although it may work, the amazon feature isn't working again. I'm listening to E-Pro by Beck. Nah, nah, na-na-na-na-nah, nah...