Tech Talk
Last night I discovered my technical skills had begun to disappear.
I was playing Zuma online and listening to some music on my computer, when “Love Goes Home to Paris” by The Magnetic Fields came on. I decided to check out their website and found out that they’re touring!
I haven’t seen them for a few years now, but they’re one of my favorite bands to see live. The last time I’d gone, I dragged my younger sister and our friend Dave to the show. The club was tiny, smoky, and packed with people, and Dave and Alice soon escaped to wait outside for me. I left the show a little bit early because I felt bad that I’d made them come with me, and the smoke really was awful.
But now The Magnetic Fields were coming to Boston May 22 and at a real concert hall. With seats and no smoking, and a start time before midnight!
I called up my friend Craig in Seattle. I knew he’d love them in concert, and I knew he’d mentioned possibly visiting the East Coast in May. Chris would come with me, of course, but I knew it would be out of love for me, and not for the band. And I’d probably have to see a few martial arts movies in the near future to make up for dragging him to the concert.
I got Craig on the phone, but found out that he was going to be in the area in early May. I begged and pleaded, but Craig said, “I hate airplanes” and decided that even though his mother would be in NYC at the end of May, he didn’t want to come back again. And he couldn’t change his trip schedule because it involved a work conference in DC.
While I talked, I started getting tickets for myself and Chris online at the Ticketmaster website. The tickets had been on sale since the beginning of this month, but being me, I felt that a delay of a few minutes now while I talked to Craig would make all the difference between getting good seats for the show and it becoming sold out.
I entered “2″ for the number of seats requested, and hit submit.
The Ticketmaster site informed me I had less than a minute to wait. Then it said, “Enter the word you see here to continue.”
I typed in the word, and clicked OK.
The next screen that appeared announced, “YOU HAVE TWO MINUTES TO COMPLETE THIS TRANSACTION OR THE SEATS WILL BE GONE!”
Yipes! Did I want these seats? I clicked on “seating plan” and tried to figure out where my seats were. But first I had to pick the seating plan. I had a choice between “generic” and, well, apparently generic was my only choice, but I still had to choose it. I selected “generic” and waited.
The seating plan opened up. It had no row or seat numbers on it. That wasn’t useful at all. I hurriedly filled out my email address and name information, and clicked okay. “You sure you don’t want to go?” I asked Craig.
“Yes, I’m sure, but check when the Raveonettes are playing, because I know they’re going on tour.”
I opened up another browser window and typed in the website address for the Raveonettes. Meanwhile, back on my original window, Ticketmaster had opened up another screen and was demanding that I fill out my credit card information in LESS THAN THREE MINUTES OR MY SEATS WOULD BE GONE.
The Raveonettes, it turned out, would be hitting Boston 3 days before Craig.
“No!” he said. He was obviously very upset, and as close to swearing as I’d ever seen him. “I’m just–no!”
I searched for a submit button on my screen. Time was ticking, and I didn’t know how much of my 3 minutes were up. There was another link to “seating plan” on this screen, and I pressed it, hoping it would yield a more useful plan than the previous page. Nope, it was the same “generic” plan. Where the hell was the submit button? There were too many buttons on this screen!
I hit submit once I’d found it, and breathed a sigh of relief. Surely I was - “YOU HAVE LESS THAN ONE MINUTE TO FILL OUT THIS PAGE OR YOUR SEATS WILL BE GONE!”
Damn!
Quickly, I tried to figure out my options for having my tickets delivered. It was confusing because there were prices next to each option, and it looked like the prices were for the tickets, not for shipping. Who would pay $19.90 for shipping? Ridiculous.
I scanned the prices until I got to “No standard charge applied–” and immediately I stopped reading. No charge, that was me. Who cared if it took a couple of months to get to me? As long as it was free and got to me before the day of the concert. I clicked the button next to the text, and looked again for the submit button. Click it, click it, and hurry!
“YOUR PURCHASE IS COMPLETE,” the page announced. Whew. I almost expected it to tell me sternly, “YOU HAVE LESS THAN TWO MINUTES TO STEP AWAY FROM THE SCREEN, BEFORE THIS MESSAGE SELF-DESTRUCTS.”
Posted by: ssjane | March 16, 2004 | 9:38 am
Posted in: This Life