TicketMaster-bation

OK, what’s the freakin’ deal with TicketMaster? Is there really no other alternative but to get show tickets through them? I can’t believe that in this capitalistic society there isn’t one other company out there that decided, “hey, why don’t we go up against this giant douche company that has a clear monopoly”. I don’t get it. The convenience fees, service charges and outrageous ticket prices should be enough for some legal action to be taken against them. I know they’re getting in trouble for their “Tickets Now” scam, and that’s great, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Aerosmith tickets went on sale today. I was so excited. However, I, like so many other concert goers, always have to jump through the same hoops. I’m on the website 5 minutes before tickets go on sale to make sure I don’t miss the “on sale”. During the last minute before tickets officially go on sale, I refresh the page over and over again until finally it connects me and I get to buy my seats. But guess what? Even though I got through right when the tickets went on sale the best I could do was section 119 in the 23^rd row.

WHAT HAPPENED TO ALL THE FLOOR SEATS?!?!?

Did they really sell all the floor seats and ½ the 100 level between noon and five-seconds-after-noon? Is there a governing body that regulates ticket sales? How do we know, as consumers, that we’re actually getting the opportunity to buy the tickets that we think are available to us? I have no idea how I could have been any faster when trying to get tickets and yet I still had very little choice with regards to seating options. So basically, I took a break from work, wasted a bunch of time hitting the refresh button and ended up spending over $200(per seat) on tickets that weren’t as good as the ones I should have been able to get.

I don’t really have answers to all these questions I’m asking . . . and that’s what really pisses me off most of all. I have no idea what governmental department is responsible for maintaining fairness with respect to ticket sales. I also have no idea who to talk to about how the tickets are assigned over the web when people are all, at once, trying to buy seats. Do they have blocks of tickets set aside for different areas? If so, they should assign my area a larger block of floor seats! But seriously, this has been a problem for a long time. I can’t tell you how many different times I have logged onto TicketMaster, done everything according to their rules and been there the moment tickets went on sale and NOT ONCE have I ever got the seats I wanted.

Let’s take a look at some of the events that I tried to get seats for right when tickets went on sale and what I ended up getting:

Aerosmith – Section 119, Row 23

AC/DC – No tickets available (how was that possible????)

Kings of Leon – Section 109, Row 23

Slipknot – General Admission (bought them directly from TicketMaster at the SkyDome)

Bob Dylan – Section 121

Paul McCartney - Section 123 (I think, it was 12_something)

Ok, ok. I won’t go on with anymore. But suffice to say that since I started buying tickets online (first time was for AC/DC’s Ballbreaker tour) I have never, ever got the seats that I was aiming for.

So, really, this instalment of shveatybawles isn’t meant to clarify any theory about the world that I may have. Really, I’m hoping that many of you know where I’m coming from, have the same questions and frustrations regarding this issue that I do AND hopefully someone can shed some insight into what we can do to try and stop TicketMaster from being unbelievably a-moral with their business model and hold them accountable for the crap they put their customers through. Quite honestly, I’m tired of it. And you should be too.

Sitcom here a minute

We all watch sitcoms. We started when we were kids. We’d sit on the sofa with our parents after dinner and watch TGIF together. Family Matters. That’s the show that we watched on TGIF. I HATED IT!!! Urkel drove me crazy. Not to mention the fact that it was so sappy, like they decided to make Full House all over again. Or Growing Pains. Remember how schmaltzy that show was? It actually got me thinking that there are actually different levels of schmaltz in the sitcom world and they illustrate this rating in a very interesting way... by the side of the set that the characters most often enter from.

Now this is just a theory, but bear with me, I think there’s something to it. We all know that sitcoms are all filmed in pretty much the same way: A standing set that is the main location for the show scenes and a three camera shooting set-up. What I’ve noticed recently is that there seems to be a correlation between the “edgy-ness” of a sitcom and the location of the “entrance-to-set” for the actors.

For the time being, let’s break down sitcoms into 2 categories: The first being shows that are 100% family friendly while the second is reserved for sitcoms geared towards a slightly more mature audience. For example, The Cosby Show would be an example of the first group while Two and a Half Men would be an example of the second. It’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with Two and a Half Men (it’s actually one of my favourites) but I think we can all agree that there are many parents out there that wouldn’t feel comfortable with their pre-teen child watching that program (I know I wouldn’t).

Basically, there are sitcoms that are geared for family viewing; those shows that deal with family issues and whatnot as well as sitcoms that are more about adult life and the trials and tribulations therein. What I find amazing is that, seemingly unintentionally, the people who make these shows do something to illustrate the distinction as to whether their sitcom is family friendly or more adult-oriented – they use the side of the set that the actors enter from most regularly to distinguish which type of show you’re watching. The Cosby Show, for example, uses the living room as the main set. The entrance to this set is the front door of the house located on the right side of the set. Thus, the majority of the time, the characters enter from the right. I am aware that they come down the stairs or enter from the kitchen as well. The point I am trying to illustrate though is related to the main entrance. It’s really quite an interesting coincidence. Just sit and think for a minute and let some shows pop into your head, you’ll see what I mean:

Brady Bunch – Enter from right

Cosby Show – Enter from right

Family Matters – The living room entrance was on the left, but I would argue that the kitchen was used more often and the cast would always enter via the back door on the right.

Growing Pains – The living room entrance was on the left, but I would argue that the kitchen was used more often and the cast would always enter via the back door on the right.

Fresh Prince – Enter from right

Everybody Loves Raymond – Enter from the right

Two and a Half Men – Enter from left

Friends – Enter from left

Seinfeld – Generally family friendly, but definitely more adult oriented than most, entered from the back and to the right.

Frasier – Enter from left

Cheers – Enter from left

Married with Children – Initially, it seems to be the exception to the rule as they entered from the right. However, the show’s original title was Not the Cosby’s. It was meant to be the antithesis of The Cosby Show, which is why it would stand to reason that the layout of the house would be reminiscent to that of the Cosby’s and thus, doesn't break the rule, but illustrates that even the entrance side was mimicked when making the show.

So, I’m gonna stop here. I think the point has been made and I have clarified it as best as I can. It would be interesting to hear back from people to see if more scrutinizing investigations will corroborate or negate what I feel is a neat little coincidence in the sitcom world.

Hit and Run

So for about a month or so I've been workin' at my friend’s shop (he’s a coach builder) helping him out. I do about 2 days a week with him, I work in the front and basically do any work that’s overflow. It’s actually an interesting place to be. It gives me the extra work hours that many of us need these days, as well as allowing me to meet the very quirky characters that come through on a pretty regular basis and, every now and then, we get a real piece-of-work that we have to deal with…

About 2 weeks ago, toward the end of the workday, a delivery truck comes to drop off a shipment to the company that rents next door. As the delivery tuck was pulling out of the driveway, the truck clips the side of my car and destroys my side-view mirror. Rather than stopping, the truck just continues out of the driveway towards a dreary, cloudy sunset. Very upset, I thought that I’d just have to deal with repairing the car myself. Good thing I’m spending 2 days a week at a car shop. Then I find out that, even with my friends help, I’m still looking at $400+ in parts, paint and labour.

Fast-forward to the following Friday. I’m sitting at my desk doing some work when one of the shop-guys comes running into the office. “Mr. Zach, the man who has hit your car is doing a delivery right now. Go get him!”

So I went out to the loading dock to confront the man who hit and ran on me, but suffice to say that the driver of the truck was refusing to admit that he was the one that caused the damage to my car. So, knowing that I am now going to have to report it to the police if I am to get any justice whatsoever, I go outside with a digital camera to get some shots of his plates, the company name on the side of the truck and the driver himself. While I am taking the pictures, the man gets extremely hostile and even threatens to hit me! I'm about to snap a shot when he lunges at me with a closed fist and my picture gets ruined. However, as you can all see, I did end up capturing quite an image.

I won’t bore you with too many of the details afterward, but, suffice to say that the entire cost of repair to my car is now being taken care of . . .
And yes, I am happy that I’m not on the hook for the bill, but what really gets me going is the steps that I had to take to get someone to do the right thing.

The moral of the story? I’d say that there are two:

1 – It pays to be persistent with people. The world will not balance itself out. Sometimes you have to take initiative and balance out the cosmos yourself.

2 – People don’t like taking responsibility. We should, as a people, really make an effort to not wrong others while we go about our lives. But when we do, we should take steps to make sure to set right that which we made wrong.

If we're only good to ourselves then we will end up alone, in need and without help.

Virtual Friends, Online Etiquette and Moving On

OK, so what’s the etiquette for dealing with online friends? I mean, we all have friends on Facebook that are only there so that when people view our profile it shows that we have more than 6 friends. C’mon, let’s be realistic, I have over 200 friends on Facebook and I probably talk online to about 20 of them and only deal with about 6 of them in real life. So, what is one supposed to do when you get a Facebook notification that it’s a Facebook friend’s birthday? The birthday of a person who you have not seen or spoken to since 1996. Even when we added each other as friends no messages were exchanged . . . nothing.

The whole online friend thing is a little odd to me. I mean, it’s great that we are able to stay in touch so easily with the people that we care about and vice versa but, y’know, if you haven’t seen someone since grade 6, chances are that you no longer have the same things in common that you once did. I mean, once you stopped going to school together and you finished your “Transformers rule!” phase, you two probably have nothing really to say to each other.

People seem to have issues with relationships being finite. I, on the other hand, have no problem with the fact that there were people in grade school who I, at the time, considered very dear friends who I no longer talk to. The fact that I no longer stay in touch with them doesn’t de-value the time that I did have with them. A friend doesn’t have to remain constant for him/her to be important. Some of my most valued friends are people who I no longer am in touch with. And all this technology doesn’t really make me want to reach out and re-connect with any of them.

But now I’m in a weird predicament. Because of Facebook I have a bunch of “friends” that I rarely/never talk to. Originally, I was not going to accept a friend request from anyone whom I was not currently friends with . . . but that can’t work. There’s an etiquette about this. If I don’t accept someone as a friend and then a real friend of mine finds out, then I can get into trouble. Hecklers, who are supposed to be my friends, saying things like, “it’s just Facebook. Accept him as your friend and just don’t talk to him if you don’t want to.” That’s what I hear all the time. But my question is: If I’m not going to talk to him (and he probably won’t talk to me) why have him as a friend at all? If this were the real world we would have nothing to do with each other. But for some reason the rules in cyber space are different.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this . . . in fact, I can extend this all the way into the blog world (which I’ve already done previously). People who I don’t talk to on the phone follow me on twitter and my blog . . . what’s up with that? I MEAN . . . * ahem * Thanks to all of you for your interest in what I write!!!!!

So that’s about it for me. I was hoping to work through this a little bit so I could: a) discover why we, as 21st century internet saavy people, care more about our virtual statistics more than what’s happening to the real us and the ones we love in the real world as well as, b) decide whether or not to wish a happy birthday to a person I haven’t seen since summer camp, 1996.

So, I'm supposed to write about what now?

Angel on the left:

Okay, so I'm thinking that maybe a blog is a good idea. I can use it to rant, vent, share and just keep people in the loop. Or, I can just use it to bitch about everything and everyone that bothers me . . .

Devil on the right:

Okay, so I'm thinking that maybe a blog is a bad idea. If I use it to rant, vent, share and keep people in the loop I may end up just bitching about everything and everyone that bothers me . . .

Alright! Welcome to my blog. I'm just trying it on for now. Not sure that it fits right. But we will see. Still trying to think of a subject for my first entry . . .

Why do people think their opinions are so important that they need their own blog to share their thoughts with a world of people that are so selfish and self-interested that the only reason that they read your blog is to see if their name is in it? Now how many other blogs have said that same thing? Exactly! Tonnes. So, I guess you'll never read anything new here . . .

. . . . but maybe you'll see your name.

Hope you all enjoy this! More coming soon.