Ticket Scam - Part Two

Do you remember my last blog? Where I complained about how difficult it was to get baseball tickets? Well, here's an interesting follow up.

Over the weekend I was checking my email, as people are known to do, when I got that seemed a little strange to me. The subject line was: Thank You For Purchasing Yankees Tickets...only the email hadn't come from Stub Hub - the "3rd party" outlet I'd been forced to buy my tickets from. It came from Yankees.com ticketing. And when I opened it up, there were all the Yankees graphics and the Yankees disclaimers and links and all that lovely crap. (Of course, this really originates from MLB.com)

The real kicker here...was not only did the official Yankees site apparently know I had purchased tickets from STUB HUB (no mention of that website in the email, by the way) but it knew the EXACT GAME I had purchased the tickets for. Then it tried to pimp out tickets to another series - a series of the Yankees vs. The Mets. Yeah, because those tickets are still available.

Are they kidding me with that email? Just shove it in my face some more that you know exactly what's going on, and you could care less about it. It's not right, and it's not fair, but that's business in the society we're living in. You're getting screwed, and we don't give a shit. Thanks for the money.

Well, I won't be buying tickets to any more Yankees games or any other game where I can't purchase them directly from the box office or the official website. And yeah, there will be someone else happy to spend their money in my place. But I don't care. Because it's not mine. And it makes me feel better.

Getting Baseball Tickets Sucks

So, as I've previously mentioned, I'm a Yankees fan. And I haven't been to the new stadium yet. This is not cool. I also have many family members who are fans, so for various relatives as Christmas/Birthday gifts, I told them I would buy us all tickets to a game.

Well, single game tickets went on sale on Friday. I needed to get six. Do you know how many I managed to get via the official website? ZERO.

I was pissed off. You know why? This whole ticket thing is a SCAM. They pimp their season ticket plans all damn winter long. And then, roughly two weeks before the season starts, they put the single tickets on sale. And there are none? I was trying RIGHT when they went on sale at noon. Oh, and I have to point one thing out - there were tickets available. Oh, there were. If I was willing to pay $150 or even $300 a damn ticket. Are you kidding me? I guess someone's gotta pay Arod, but you know what? It ain't gonna be me.

So the reasonably priced tickets are gone. Can't get any. Not for any weekend game anyway. And that's the only time we can go, since we live kind of far from the stadium now. We can't just jet down after work like we used to. What to do now?

Why there's StubHub of course! Get tickets for any game from people who have tickets they want to get rid of! How convenient! I need tickets, and these people just HAPPEN to have EXTRA tickets they don't need!

Hi, people who bought season ticket plans JUST FOR RESALE BECAUSE THEY KNEW THEY COULD MAKE A PROFIT. It's disgusting. Yes, I'm sure there are people selling tickets on StubHub who are season ticket holders and do need to get rid of tickets to a game or two they can't make. This is understandable. But you know most of these jerks bought tickets during the winter long season ticket pimpfest, intending to list them on StubHub to make a profit. Because it's so easy to scalp these days. Thanks, internet. Who cares if people who actually want tickets to go to an actual game. Just give us our money. It's so frustrating, and it's really not fair. StubHub has built their business around this, obviously. And do you think the Yankees or Ticketmaster give a crap? Of course not! Either way, they're getting their money.

This practice disgusts me. And I didn't want to use StubHub, just out of protest. Because I shouldn't have to pay more than face value of a ticket I was willing to buy as soon as tickets went on sale. And it's not like this is a 2 or 3 day concert event - there's at least 20 weekend games this year. But unfortunately, I had promised other people tickets. So I had no choice. But you know what? In the future, I'm keeping in my money in my pocket. Sorry, Yankees. I'm still a fan. But unless the ticket situation improves, I'll just watch from the cheapness of my living room. Somebody else can shill out for Arod's paycheck.

Review ~ Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth

Saddest sentence ever.

I'm a big fan of the Ace Attorney series - I've played all three Phoenix Wright games as well as the Apollo Justice title. Miles Edgeworth has always been my favorite character, so when I heard they were making a game all about him, I knew I was going to be all over it. Who else can pull off a fuchsia suit and a caveat and still be awesome?

This game is not like the other games in the series - you are never actually in court. Instead, Edgeworth, Gumshoe, and a cast of new and familiar characters cracks cases by investigating and taking testimony out in the field.

Gameplay - You're investigating crime scenes now, and you actually get to move around. No more just pointing to stuff on the touch screen, unless Edgeworth decides to go in for a closer look. As you can see from my above screencap, you still get the sprites and all their amusing quirks. You can still shout objection if you so choose. And you're still presenting evidence and pressing people when their testimony doesn't quite add up. What's new is the "logic" feature. As you investigate, Edgeworth will occasionally come to a conclusion that will be added to the "logic" section you can access in the upper left hand corner of the screen. You can then put two together and come to a conclusion that pulls you further into the investigation. The new features in the game aren't much of a departure from past titles, and I feel it's much better then that perception crap you had to do in Apollo Justice where you basically got up in someone's face to see if they were slightly sweating on one word. Ugh. Hated that. Logic is an easy system, both to use and figure out. There's not too much mystery when you're trying to put two and two together.

Characters - Edgeworth, obviously, is the focus of this game. You're accompanied most of the time by your old pal Gumshoe, who I always enjoy seeing. There are a bunch of new characters in the game but there are also a lot of familiar faces as well. I was happy to see what characters came back for a spin in this new game. But if you're expecting to see Phoenix...don't get your hopes up.

Story - I would have to say this is probably the weakest part of the game. That isn't to say it's bad by any stretch, but compared to past games, it's a little lacking. There are five cases in the game, and they're all tied together. You kind of jump around taking on the cases out of order, which can make your mind spin a bit. The storyline is clear and enjoyable, but not particularly engaging like in past games, even though all the cases are related in this case. I found many of the cases were pretty short, except for the last one. In the true tradition of an Ace Attorney title, the last case goes on and on and on with no end in sight. And by the end you're screaming at your DS. Fun times.

Graphics and Touch Screen - The graphics are the same as they've been for the other titles. Touch screen use is pretty much the same too. You can use it to advance dialogue or move (or you can use the control pad) and you use it to access your evidence and sometimes make a response or too. You can also interact with specific pieces of evidence by zooming in and turning them around - but we've seen this in past games already too. There's really nothing new to report. Unfortunately there's no cool luminol or other crime scene tests like we've enjoyed sporadically in the past.

I really enjoyed this game - but I think I enjoyed it more because I'm such a huge Edgeworth fan. If you're a fan of the Ace Attorney series though, regardless of whether you're an Edgeworth fan or not, I think you'll enjoy it. Yes, it's a little different and I did miss being in court a little bit, but overall it's more of the same enjoyable experience with a few new twists.

8 out of 10 (The fact that Edgeworth was the main character jumped the score about half a point)

Why I'm breaking up with American Idol

I'll admit it - I've watched American Idol since season one. I didn't catch the whole thing, but by the time I started tuning in, there were about six or seven contestants left. And I've watched most of every season since. I say "most" because I tended to lose interest in most of them, and stopped watching by the time there were only a few contestants left. You gotta admit, the show is basically the same every week. People sing. A good chunk will butcher their chosen song. A few others will be good, and one, two or maybe even three if you're lucky will be amazing. This is one of the reasons why TiVo was invented. So you could fastforward through all the crap in American Idol.

This season began for me like all the others. I started watching. Even with Paula gone and Simon leaving, I went back to it like an old familiar friend. The auditions rounds were pretty standard. Hollywood week is my favorite, and it was pretty enjoyable. But once the top 24 were chosen, my already waning interest in the show pretty much died completely.

Why? Well, there are several reasons.

1. I'm not digging Ellen as the new judge. Don't get me wrong - I really like Ellen. I just don't like her on the show. I don't think she makes a good judge and I really miss the unpredictable antics of Paula Abdul. Nothing could replace that.

2. The talent this season mostly sucks. Every year they put a bunch of people through who clearly are getting pushed ahead by the producers. And America is stupid and will vote for these people because they are voting with their hearts instead of their ears. But this year, after hearing Randy proclaim "Most talent ever" like 40 times like he does every year, I quickly realized he was clearly lying. Big time. I haven't watched any of the top 24 performances. I haven't had time, so I've been reading the recaps and I was planning to go back and watch them from my DVR later. Well the recaps proclaimed pretty much every performance bad, and not only bad, but terrible. So why would I waste my time? And I'm not going to fast forward through 45 of bad singing just to see one good performance. Not worth it.

3. Which brings me to something that has never happened before. Probably the biggest reason I stopped watching American Idol is that I just don't care about any of the contestants. Not enough. Every year there's always a contestant or two that I really like and want to root for. And I'll tune in faithfully at least until they get eliminated. But this year...I was drawn to no one. And the repeated reports of subpar performances is maybe a good indicator as to why. So if I don't care, and most people aren't delivering anything worth watching, why is it worth my time?

So right now this season is a total wash for me. Oh, I'm sure I'll keep tabs on it. It's American Idol - I always do. I can't help myself. It's habit. But as far as actually watching it again... I'm sorry. It's over. And since Simon will be gone next season, I'm done.

I'm sorry, American Idol. I appreciate the entertainment you've given me over the years. But I just don't feel that spark anymore.

Oh, and it's totally you. Not me.

Trip Report - Day Three ~ Part Two

Well, I have absolutely no pictures for this segment (there really wasn't much that was photo worthy) but at least I have some video.

So when I left off, we were enroute to get our rental car in a taxi. We rented the car from Alamo, which was located near Union Square. It was the best price I could find for a one way rental, and I actually booked it online through Orbitz.

So the taxi dropped us off, and I dragged all our luggage inside and waited while Brian signed all the paperwork and got the GPS I had also rented. I thought about bringing ours from home, but across the country and a two week vacation seemed like too much trouble for one day. So decided it was worth $11. There was a little confusion as to where our car was, but we got pointed in the right direction. We had to go into another garage and find our red Chevy Aveo. (Yes, of course I had reserved the cheapest type of car!) The trunk was small, but we had all the backseat, and so we loaded everything into the car and I started to try and get the GPS to find us.

I don't know what it is with GPS', but they always seem to take forever to locate us! We knew we had to leave the garage in order to get a signal, so into the roads of San Francisco we went. Of course the roads around Union Square are pretty congested, unlike the rest of the city we had seen. It was kind of stressful, driving in one direction waiting for the GPS to catch up with us! (I had TOTALLY forgotten that I had written directions in my phone. Yeah. Way to fail.) Anyway, the GPS finally got with the program and we got on the highway and headed out of San Francisco to San Jose. The drive was rainy but fine and the roads weren't very crowded because it was before rush hour. I found a decent station on the radio and enjoyed the lovely CA scenery. Despite the rain.




We arrived at the DoubleTree San Jose about an hour later. It was still raining. We went to check in and our room was ready. We were also given two delicious chocolate chip cookies. I love those! Brian had a little confusion with the parking situation, but we got to our room and brought our stuff in. It was very nice! Big, and we had a small balcony, even if the view was of the parking lot and it was raining.

We just relaxed for awhile and discussed what we wanted to do next. We both wanted to see a movie - sherlock Holmes - so I researched where the nearest theater was and we decided to head over there (with the help of our GPS) to see the movie.

I forget what time the movie was, or what time we left, but it was dark when we got there. We didn't have any trouble finding the mall (Thank you, GPS) but the parking lot was crowded and it was still raining. We weren't really sure where we were going, so we just parked where we found a spot and went into the mall. This mall was technically in Milpitas and it was called Great Mall. I swear, that's what it was called. Anyway, this mall was one level and it was HUGE and full of great stores. There was actually outlet stores in the mall! Man, I wish our malls were that awesome out here. I saw some stores I wanted to stop in, but there wasn't a ton of time before the movie and we still had to find the theater, so we kept moving.

The theater ended up being at the total opposite end of where we were - and it was outside. And still raining. There was a bit of a line, so we hopped on it, and gawked at the prices. And we thought NY was expensive! It was almost $11 a ticket. But more than that, I was perplexed why they felt the need to post a sign stating that firearms were not allowed in the theater. We weren't in a bad area or anything! Very strange. But luckily we just made it in time to get the matinee price, which I think lasted until before 6.

Anyway, we grabbed some snacks and saw the movie, which we both enjoyed. I just love Robert Downey Jr. He's a very good actor. Afterwards there wasn't too much time before the mall closed. Brian wanted dinner, but I had eaten popcorn and I was good, so I went shopping while he headed to the food court and had a hot dog or something. I ended up buying this really cute dress. I don't remember the name of the store, but it wasn't a store we have out here. It was kind of like Forever 21, because the clothes were cute and inexpensive. It was called Love Culture actually. Afterwards we found our car, went back to the hotel, showered and went to bed. We had a big day ahead of us!

Here's a look at the weird street lights in San Jose and a brief review of the our night:

NEXT...

Winchester House...of Mystery!
An important lesson about rental cars
San Diego delays

Following Team USA

Well, I'd love to make a long post detailing all the medals that Team USA has won in the past week and a half, but as it stands right now we're up to 26 medals (as of the time I'm writing this) and that would take awhile.

26 medals! That's insane! We only won 25 in Torino. We only won 6 (6!) in Calgary - the last time the games were in Canada. And the games ain't over yet!

Right now the medal count looks something like this:

Alpine Skiing: 2 Golds (Lindsay Vonn and Bode Miller), 2 Silvers and 2 Bronze.

Snowboarding: 2 Golds (Shaun White and Seth Westcott), 1 Silver, 2 Bronze.

Speed Skating: 1 Gold (Shani Davis), 1 Silver, 1 Bronze

Freestyle Skiing: 1 Gold (Hannah Kearney), 2 Bronze

Short Track: 1 Silver (Apolo Ohno), 2 Bronze

Figure Skating: 1 Gold (Evan Lysachek), 1 Silver

Nordic Combined: 2 Silvers (First medals EVER in this event!)

And I apologize for spelling any of the athlete's names wrong - those were off the top of my head.

So! With several events to go, how many medals can we rack up? I'm expecting some in bobsled, definitely at least 1 in hockey, and the short track speed skating isn't over yet either! There are so many great performances and so many great moments - this is what the Olympics is all about!

Trip Report - Day Three ~ Part One

It's our last day in San Francisco already? But we just got here!

We packed up our stuff (including the huge bag of chocolate I bought on our first day...and am still working on finishing over a month later) and headed down to the lobby where I enjoyed another delicious blueberry muffin. We had to leave our bags with bell services since we weren't picking up our rental car till that afternoon. We had to wait for a bit, but eventually someone showed up, we checked like 5 bags, and headed back outside into the 50 degree weather.

Finally no fog! Beautiful.

We'll be back here later - The Cannery.

Our goal? To ride the damn cable car finally!

The Powell/Hyde cable car started (or ended, depending on how you look at it) right near our hotel, so we took a ride over there. I wanted to go first thing in the morning because I had seen longer lines later in the day. It was nice and quiet over there. We bought our tickets, which amounted to $5 each way for each of us. Expensive, right? Well, you can get a pass for cheaper but there was no point in us doing that at this point. There was a car about to leave, and we could have gotten on if we wanted to stand, but we decided to wait for the next one. Standing on the cable car...not the safest looking thing to do. Those things pass very close to cars and other cable cars! But...we'll get to that later.

Took this video while we waited:





So we waited awhile for the next car, and we were the first ones on. The car filled up pretty quickly because a line had formed behind us and so before we knew it we were heading up the hill and riding the cable car!





I was filming as much as I could and enjoying the view until the second stop - that's when this guy got on and stood right in front of me. He couldn't stand in front of someone not clearly filming? Thanks a lot, buddy. Anyway, I tried my best to film around him. He got off at like the second to last stop.





Riding the cable car was really cool. I don't know how the brakemen control those things. Cars zoom around them, and they have to stop at traffic lights - it's pretty crazy. I think the video tells the story better than words could. But we rode the cable car all the way to the end, which was Union Square. And you have to get off at the end of the line.

The line to get back on the cable car? SUPER LONG.

And we were a long, long way from Fisherman's Wharf.

Oh well! Might as well make the best of it. We wandered around Union Square, and ended up in the huge, beautiful mall. This was probably the nicest mall I've ever seen. It had escalators that kind of curved around like spiral staircases. And it was packed full of high end stores, of course. There was also a really nice looking movie theater. And there was a gorgeous dome. It was pretty big, and we explored the whole thing but didn't go in any of the stores.

The beautiful dome.

Once we were sick of that, we started thinking about how we would get back. There was no way I was waiting on that long time. So we decided to walk a ways back up the cable car line, and just catch it at another one of the stops. We wanted to check out Lombard Street anyway, which is right along the cable car route.

So we started walking. In San Francisco. And have I mentioned how hilly it is in San Francisco?

A beautiful city it may be, but a walkable city it is not.





But we toughed it out. And we walked up about three or four stops. This British couple joined us in waiting for the cable car. One came along after a few minutes, but there wasn't a lot of room on it. We let the British couple go ahead of us since we saw another one was coming right behind it. So we got on that one instead. I got to sit, but Brian had to stand and hang on for dear life. He wasn't too thrilled with this, but it wasn't as bad as he thought it would be.





But there was a problem! We were on the Powell/Mason line! Oops! Wrong line! Brian discovered this - I had no idea. We came to a stop where we could transfer, so we hopped off and waited for the right cable car line. This car was crowded too, but we were able to stand inside - at least there was no hanging off the side this time! We listened to a family from San Francisco chat with a family from Canada. It was funny, because the San Francisco family were acting like such tourists - they had small children with them, I'm thinking maybe the kids had never been on a cable car before?

At no point did anyone ask to see those extra, expensive tickets we had paid for. What up, California? And this wasn't the last experience we had with that.


The stop for Lombard Street came, and we got off. Lombard Street is really cool. There are houses right there, and people literally have driveways right on the street. I wouldn't want that to be my driveway! The view from there was awesome, and there are stairs leading down, so we walked down the street. Lots of people were driving down at the snail pace of 5 mph. Lombard Street is part of the much advertised 40-something mile drive through San Francisco.

Check out that view!

Yeah, it's just a little windy.

Me taping, what a shock!

Lots of cars coming down!

After taking some pictures and video, we decided to head back down the hills towards the Bay and find somewhere to have lunch. Along the way, we saw a truck that had run into a pole (the truck was hardly damaged at all - it wasn't a bad accident or anything) and there were a couple of police and firetrucks around. So, I took a picture by the firetruck. One of two accidents we saw in California, and the only one I wish I saw.


The walk back was nice. The streets in San Francisco are so much quieter than any other city I've ever been to.

Do not do this in New York City unless you want to wind up in a hospital.

Once we were back in tourist land, we headed to this place called The Cannery. If you guessed that it used to be a cannery, you're right! Anyway, now it's a bunch of shops and restaurants, but there really isn't much there. It's kind of a shame, because the building is really cool. We went in a sock store, but didn't buy anything. According to the directory, there was supposed to be a hot dog place in there somewhere, but we didn't see it. Maybe it closed. We kind of just wanted to grab some hot dogs, but since that clearly wasn't going to happen, we decided to go to The Buena Vista, which had been recommended to us. It's the first place in the U.S. to serve Irish coffee.




It's right by the cable car stop, so we headed on over. I don't remember exactly what time it was - kind of early for lunch - maybe somewhere between 11 and 12? Anyway, the place was small and it was packed! We walked through the whole thing and there wasn't a seat to be had - even at the bar. It's kind of a casual place, and there's really no one there to seat you. It's really pretty inside though. We weren't sure what to do, and we were just kind of standing there when the bus boy found us a table - a table for six! But we sat down anyway. And I was cold! So I just ordered some hot tea and a grilled cheese. Brian had the Irish Coffee and I forgot what he ate - maybe a hamburger?

Anyway, we were sitting there for a few minutes when an older man and his grandson approached us and asked if they could share our table. Of course we said sure. We had a table for six, and we were only 2 people after all. Anyway, the man was very nice and his grandson was adorable. (I think he was about 4.) He was from CA - just outside San Francisco, and we started telling stories about New York and such. He was very emotional about 9/11, and talked about how much he admired the NY police and firefighters. Since his grandson was visiting and they were planning to ride the cable car, Brian gave him our tickets that no one had taken on our return trip.

Mmm...Irish Coffee.

We had a very nice meal. The little boy, Casey, was very well behaved. The older man got an Irish coffee too and he got crab cakes that he offered to share with us, but we don't eat crab. Anyway, when our check came, the older man grabbed it and insisted on paying! We tried to talk him out of it, but he was insistant. He told us in exchange we could just buy a drink for a cop or firefighter from the Hurley family. It was so nice of him! Needless to say we thanked him profusely and headed back out to kill some time before we picked up our rental car.

So we wandered down in the direction of Ghiradelli Square, but we stayed at sea level. No more hills for us! There was this historic bathhouse place, so we walked inside. There wasn't much in there - just a pretty mosaic on the wall and a nice view of the Bay outside.

Shot this out there:




I thought we could walk down these steps and head to the path that runs along the Bay, but there was like a senior center down there with a bunch of older people exercising. Um, nope! Can't go that way! So we went back outside and found our way to the path and just walked along the bay for awhile. It was really nice. I miss San Francisco! It's such a fantastic city - I can't wait to go back.

The Rock

After that we found our way to this free ship museum. I know it sounds boring as hell, but it actually wasn't that bad - and there were benches! They had an interesting section on shipwrecks (there have been plenty off the coast) that I spent time reading about. When it was nearly time to pick up our rental car, we headed back to the hotel, picked up our luggage, and had the valet call us a cab. (Using this interesting whistle... I had never seen anything like it. But then again I don't really ask valets to call me cabs in large cities.)

Just one more thing I want to say before I forget - at some point I decided I wanted to get the paper - you know, the San Francisco Chronicle. I decided I wanted the newspaper from every city I visited. Well, that dream died right in our first city. I could not find one! I tried a couple of drugstores (they carry the paper here in NY!) and even our hotel gift shop, but they did not have it. Unless I wanted USA Today I was out of luck. Very strange. Oh well.

Next!

Oh god, we really do have to drive here!
Another lovely mall...
The clothes here are better. They just are.