All Ticketed Up

So, Monday morning Police tickets went on sale. I stayed home so that I could get on the Ticketmaster website right at 10 a.m. I set up everything I could before-hand: created an account with them, filed my billing info. Then, at 10 a.m., things would go smoothly, right?

Wrong.

Patrick switched us over to Microsoft Vista and hasn't had time to reinstall Mozilla, so we've been using Internet Explorer. It's been a long time since we used it, and they've changed some stuff, and the computer kinda feels like a whole new thing - stuff works differently when you change your operating system, you know? So it's like 10:00:15, and I've finally gotten on and have put in my choices (give me two tickets for any price, anywhere, thank you), and it's time to enter the stupid security code, and I CAN'T READ IT. This is not IE's problem, this is my own inability to chill the fuck out and fill in the form, but I swear, it took multiple times. I know why they're doing it but why does it have to be so hard?

Anyway, I'm probably the only person in the whole world with that problem, so I'll just say, I finally got it. Now Ticketmaster is "searching" for my tickets, and coming up with nothing.

I figured everybody and their mother (is that my mother on the phone?) would be online trying to get tickets, so I stayed (relatively) calm and tried again.

And again.

The thing is, while it was searching, this stupid pop up window kept coming up, and I forget the exact message but the point was, in the midst of watching my search time (it usually started at 7 minutes and counted down, but one time it started adding time to my search time, which was, to say the least, disturbing), I had to hit "enter" to make the damn window go away so that the search would continue! So I'm sitting there, frantically hitting "enter" going, someone else is getting my seats!!! Freaking out.

Anyway, 20 minutes later, I got tickets. Crappy tickets, yes. But tickets.

Now, Dodger Stadium isn't a big place. But I think I might be able to see and hear the Police just as well from outside the stadium as from these seats. But... on the bright side, Stewart's head is so big and white I'm sure it won't be a problem. He's the only one I'm concerned with looking at.

But that's OK. I got 'em.

The concert isn't until June, but hello! I'm excited!

Also coming up for me is a trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico for the Flute Convention. I bought my ticket today: I'm going to be travelling on an Amtrak train, the Southwest Chief, with my friend and flute teacher, Patty. It's a 16-hour trip (!), but we figure we'll sleep for at least some of it. Also, my round trip ticket only cost $109 - which in itself is a steal. I mean, a plane ticket would cost at least twice that, and you wouldn't be able to see all the stuff there is to see. What is there to see between LA and Albuquerque, anyway? Desert?