Wanting: Bali’s St. Regis Resort

I love my work, mostly because it involves sitting around in panties and Giuseppes nine to five, five to nine. Still, sometimes Monday needs to eff off. So bid on Bali. There are tons of choice deals on travel auction site LuxuryLink.com, including five nights at the Bali St. Regis Resort. Get limo’ed to a villa with a private pool, garden, and ocean view. The package includes packing and unpacking, a 24-hour butler, and “keepsake beach tote with his & her sun hats.”

Yeah, the his and her sun hats sold me, too…

Using: Bali’s Kupu Kupu Barong

For less than two grand you get seven nights in Bali, with a private pool, Balinese massages, and butlers. Good bye, Monday…

Hating: Bali’s Hotel Tugu

Hotel Togu is Bali’s first museum boutique hotel. You can dine in an 18th-century temple or sleep in a Balinese pavilion floating over a lotus pond. So why am I hating? LuxuryLink.com canceled this Bali bid…

Wanting.

A Frank Lloyd Wright home is on sale in Pasadena, CA, for $7.7 million…

Using.

Built in 1929, this Frank Lloyd Wright-styled, Arizonan Biltmore is known as the “Jewel of the Desert”…

Hating.

I’m hating that I won’t be visiting this Frank Lloyd Wright tour, due to the fact that hiking boots are strongly recommended. Ugh…

Wanting.

Tweezerman makes a travel set of a nail file, cuticle push, and cuticle trimmers.  Besides this being great for your morning-after bag, the Tweezerman travel kit is a good value…

Using.

I bought these travel Tweezerman tweezers less because their half the size of tweezers, and more because they were half the price…

Hating.

I don’t care if this Tweezerman tweezer kit would give me gorgeous eyebrows like a Korean soap opera star. Such a pukey, pink paisley…

Wanting.

Hope Springs is a midcentury modern spa in the Desert Hot Springs, the sister town to Palm Springs, CA. Their 10 rooms are filled with Jetson arm chairs, their three pools are filled with mineral water…

Using.

The only hotel in the area to be in Travel + Leisure‘s hotel issue and Taschen’s The Spa Book,  Sagewater Spa is simple: billion-count-thread sheets, home-baked coffee cake when you arrive, and a hot tub and pool gurgling mineral water from a nearby well. A steady 90° F, Sagewater Spa water is like walking into air, only better…

Hating.

Living Water Spa is a “European-style, clothing-optional mineral water spa.” Seeing that I barely enjoy the average person clothed, how is sharing a pool with naked strangers a getaway? If anything, that’s some nightmare version of public life…

Wanting.

I love that sapphire blue of this Alstermo Bruk attache. Only issue? It’s basically a box lined in linen, so I’m not sure how my MacBook would do in there…

Using.

I finally got my Alstermo Bruk cabin case. Alstermo Bruk began before Globe Trotter luxury luggage and it’s got the same vibe, for a third of the price: handcrafted, ultra-light elegance. Alstermo Bruk’s AMO-fiber^®, the patented material their luggage is made out of, is better than I thought: it’s got a subtle, snakeskinny texture…

Hating.

Cute briefcase, but Alstermo Bruk’s best work is in their AMO-fiber^®…

Wanting.

I love so elegant a bag roughed up and large. This Hermes travel bag is impractical, but sexy enough so I don’t care. Women, take note in terms of style. And your own personality…

Using.

I’ve been eying this Hermes travel bag for years, literally. I love that hidden-in-plain-sight jewelry box in the bottom…

Hating.

This Hermes travel bag is a caricature of a Birkin. There’s no sprezzatura: it’s not playful enough to be cheeky, not careless enough to be cool, not formed right for even function…

Wanting.

Alstermo Bruk handmakes luggage like luxury travel gear Globe Trotter — for less than half the price. Alstermo Bruk is hardly a knock-off, though: the Swedish company has been making their patented gear since 1804 (that’s 93 years pre-Globe Trotter, and 200+ years pre-Globe Trotter at J Crew)….

Using.

Perfect for stashing makeup on the bathroom counter…

Hating.

Alstermo Bruk’s appeal is in their function-meets-form elegance, not a nutty pattern…

Staying.

I’m hitting Vegas for CES trade show, so I’m checking out the new Encore.

For all of the Wynn’s obvious, overstated beauty, there’s something tongue in cheek about its decor that makes it elegant. I wonder if Encore has the same vibe…

Eating.

One of five restaurants in Encore, the walls of Switch float around so the ambience and layout change with your course.

Described as chef Marc Poidevin’s “French-inspired seafood and postmodern steakhouse,” the food so far looks like an ideal woman: equally beautiful and delicious…

Hating.

It’s actually colder in Vegas than in LA. So much for running around in Nippies and Lucite platforms; I brought a sweater coat.

Perfect cover for plane rides and casino’s ACs, for work and play, it’s also probably on sale at Vegas’s Intermix…