One of the first rules of running a business is that you gotta eat your own dog food. Despite my cofounder blogging about overcoming his own aesthetic objection to using an iPhone case and despite the fact that we carry three gorgeous leather cases from San Francisco-based Scabby Robot, I continued to navigate life with a naked iPhone. And this week I paid the price.

Cruel timing, what with Apple Kremlinologists triangulating September 21st as the release date for the iPhone 5. Adding insult to injury is a recent TechCrunch story on Apple's previous generation iPhone buyback program. For the next three weeks I'll be forced to soldier on with a pre-Crash Blackberry.

I wish I could say that living without a smartphone has made for a richer life, that I've discovered new beauty in the world around me, or become more contemplative. But I'm still fuming that yesterday I wasn't able to snap a picture of the car with a Lionel Hutz-themed vanity plate.