When the going gets tough, the inconvenienced write a blog!

Dating A Banker Anonymous (DABA) is a safe place where women can come together – free from the scrutiny of feminists– and share their tearful tales of how the mortgage meltdown has affected their relationships. DABA Girls was started by two best friends whose relationships tanked with the economy. Not knowing what else to do, we did what frustrated but articulate girls have done since the beginning of time – we started a blog. So if your monthly Bergdorf’s allowance has been halved and bottle service has all but disappeared from your life, lighten your heart with laughter and email your stories to dabagirls@gmail.com.

These girls are really funny … we hope.

Young ladies, not quite sure of the proper behavior post-deflowerment? Have we got the hilariously droll parody of an etiquette book for you! This 1965 jem by Mel Juffe and Edward Gorey (!) was recently rediscovered through the magic of the internets. Click the picture for its complete posting by Accordion Guy.

Everything is Terrible has been digging up some priceless videos recently. Here’s an ad for “Flirting With Magic” — a course in magic that promises to improve your pickup skills. There’s some solid advice in there somewhere — about building your confidence and easing the pressure of starting conversations with the opposite sex — but those Eighties production values undermine their attempts to look cool.

We here at breakupgirl.net are big fans of the Muppets. Consciously or unconsciously their particular brand of humor — innocent-yet-smart, never mean, and not afraid to be dorky — has influenced the adventures of Breakup Girl. Last night, after watching the newest Muppet Christmas special, Letters to Santa, on NBC, I watched the first Muppet Christmas special, on YouTube. The Great Santa Claus Switch was a special episode of the Ed Sullivan Show (putting it in legal limbo and unavailable on home video) produced in 1970 just as Sesame Street was taking off, and some jolly old soul has posted the hour show in six parts on YouTube.

Bonus! The music is by Joe Raposo; And look for the first appearance of Gonzo The Great (as Snarl the Frackle).

If you haven’t been paying attention, Current TV, Al Gore’s user-generated news channel (“cable access for wonks”), has begun interrupting its endless stream of QuickTime clips with something called “tv programs” — so last century! Not that we’re complaining; One such foray into less-new media is infoMania, a collection of satirical bits by regular contributors (Daily Show-meets-YouTube) which has given us the lovely Sarah Haskins. Her Target Women series skewers how the media reaches out to women, and her newest target is holiday Jewelry commercials:

There’s nothing that says “I love you” to a woman like a diamond. Nope, not even the words “I love you.”

Fer rills, yo, that’s what a booty-call buddy once said to me late at night when I was already in his bed and awaiting our usual pillow romp. In fact, he used that sexcuse (I just made up that word) for a good week and a half, until I finally decided this guy was either a) kinda gay, b) hellbent on annihilating my self-esteem, or c) a full-on, French royalty hemophiliac.

How do you think that one compares to these lame-o sex dodges guys use?

Are you discriminating, sophisticated, and looking for that special someone with whom to roam the earth until we finally succumb to maggots and rot?

If so, I just may be your zombie.

I like shambles down the beach, brains, and BRAAAAAIIIIINSSSS.

To brains me, just brains my BRRRAAAAIIIIINSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bravo — speaking of staying friends — is premiering a new dating show that sounds like it could be all about the awkward. Date My Ex: Jo and Slade stars the ex-couple from Real Housewives of the Orange County. Jo De La Rosa has moved from the OC to the L-to-the-A to get busy with her music career, but Slade Smiley has come along as her friendly “business manager.” Jo’s friends will be setting her up each week with a new guy they think’ll be good for her, but here’s where Slade really gets all up her business. Not only will he be grilling and testing the guys each week, he’ll be weighing in on how pure he thinks their intentions are. Oh, and he’ll be living with them. Could Slade possibly be interested in seeing Jo independent and happy, or does the very premise of the show prove he’s not ready to move on? Check out a sneak peek — especially if you missed Monday’s premiere — to see the first of many priceless (sad, shocked, or masochistic?) looks on Slade’s face.

It’s the clothes that make the man…brave enough to talk to a woman! Spotted on the blog at Wired.com: the CyranoSuit, which, as Wired describes it, “uses a series of sensors embedded in the arms and chest to detect physical interaction with a woman and then a hacked receipt printer delivers romantic lines [such as “I love your hair”] straight to the breast pocket of the shy would-be Lothario.”

Man, you know, if a nervous nerd made this much effort just to talk to me, I’d totally give him a shot. Sure, cutie, let’s hit Staples for another roll of paper, ’cause I could read you talking about me allllll night!

Mind Hacks recently featured a highly amusing husband and wife rating chart from the 1930s, invented by marriage counselor George W. Crane, MD, Ph.D. How it works: your spouse earns merit or demerit points based on his or her behaviors and characteristics. Some (“Snores”) are things we can still relate to, while the rest offer a curious peek into the norms and expectations of that era (demerits for a husband who “talks of efficiency of his stenographer or other women” or a wife who “fails to sew on buttons or darn socks regularly”).

Crane aimed to be “scientific” in the development of this test; true to form, according to the American Psychological Association, he started the Scientific Marriage Foundation, which took a “scientific” approach to marriage and claimed to have set up more than 5,000 marriages.

I wonder what a modern version of this questionnaire would look like. Demerits for “brings laptop to bed”?