Exactly how long does it take to port a cell phone number from one carrier to another?

After two and a half years, I finally decided to get a new cell phone, the Motorola 815 from Verizon. I ordered it from Amazon and it arrived on Tuesday night. Now it’s Friday afternoon and my old number, from a Cingular phone, still hasn’t ported. The guy on the customer service line said it would take one to five days, perhaps as many as 10 days. And it’s only been 2.5 days. But I’m impatient.

Actually, the first person I spoke to at Verizon customer service – who sounded like a young overweight southern woman with marshmallows in her mouth – put me on hold five times. Five times she’d come back on the line. “Sir?” she’d say. “Yes?” I’d say expectantly. “I apologize, I’m still working on the transfer,” she’d say. “Okay,” I’d say politely, feeling just the tiniest bit more annoyed each time.

The fifth time she told me they were having a problem, and that they would have to send me a letter which I would have to sign and mail back to them before my number could be ported. After some assertive skepticism on my part, I asked if there was someone else I could talk to. There was a short delay and the aforementioned guy came on the line. He told me that they’d sorted things out on their end but that I had to wait to get permission from Cingular, which would take one to five-or-ten days. I asked if I still had to sign a letter. He told me probably not, but that if I got one in the mail I should probably sign it and send it back anyway.

So for the time being, I’m carrying around two cell phones. Annoying.

At least I finally have a camera phone.

The Fellowship of the Ring: The Complete Recordings arrived last night. I think I’m in love.

I’ve only listened to the first disc of three so far, but it’s like experiencing the movie – the Extended Edition – scene by scene. The first disc is one hour long and they’re only just arriving at Weathertop. The disc includes the entire two and a half minutes of the mournful choral elf song, “A Elbereth Gilthoniel,” that we hear in the Extended Edition when Frodo and Sam spot a procession of elves in the woods near the Shire. So hauntingly beautiful.

An accompanying 44-page booklet includes musical notation of various themes used in the score, with analysis as to how various themes are related.

As a bonus, anyone can download the “annotated score,” which is not really an annotated score but rather a track-by-track description of the three-disc set. It’s a beautiful-looking document with stills from the movie.

I may need to finally get an iPod just so I can have my own “portable Fellowship.” Once the other two complete recordings come out, I could listen to all nine-plus hours in one big Lord of the Rings audio marathon.

A Happy Hipster Hanukkah. I love it.

“HELLOOOOOOOO Jews!” the M.C. shouted to the 1,000 or so people sipping drinks and jostling elbows in the hazy purple light of Crobar, the Chelsea club, on Sunday evening….

Christmas has gotten out of hand, said Jackie Hoffman, who is starring in “Chanukah at Joe’s Pub,” a one-woman show. “No one does ‘The Sukkot Revue,’ ” she said, referring to the autumnal Jewish holiday, “because then we’re not being badgered.”…

Hanukkah is a minor, generally child-centered holiday that celebrates the victory of the Jews over the Syrian Greeks around 165 B.C. No classic Hanukkah films or ballets were inspired by it… Adam Sandler’s 1995 “Hanukkah Song,” in which he enumerates Jewish (and semi-Jewish) celebrities, is the closest thing to a mainstream Hanukkah tune.

“I think Sandler was the catalyst for a lot of this,” said Robert Smigel, the voice (and hand) behind Triumph, after his performance on Sunday. “A lot of that was him asserting himself as a Jew.”…

“Like most other trends,” Mr. Tannenbaum said, “the Jewish holiday hipster started in New York and has spread outward.”

The movement is likely to only go so far, said Rabbi Marc Gellman, part of “The God Squad,” an interfaith cable television show, and a Newsweek.com columnist. “This revival is primarily a New York-L.A. thing, and it’s the result of the fact that the only geographical region that has a majority of Jews outside Israel is Manhattan,” he said. “If you live in Wichita, the new hip Jewish movement will never reach you.”