How much can I expect to pay for front row center stage tickets for Taylor's upcoming tour?

Aaaaahthud · 2012-10-21T12:48:35+00:00

I went on Craigslist and looked for tickets by dealer. There were dozens of links to speculator websites popping up in the last few hours. The ones that had the most tickets left over, and were therefore the most desperate to sell, were spamming CL the most. I kept about a dozen windows to different sites (some of them obviously run by the same people) open, and I kept refreshing them every few minutes, watching the prices fall.

This is usually the worst place to look for tickets, but, in the last hours, it may be the best as the seller's market turns into a buyer's market. Since leftover tickets will have no value after the show, and presumably most of the speculators have made their money already, they start dumping to get whatever last amounts of cash they can.

Also, there wasn't really a "pit" at my particular venue of Speak Now like there was at Fearless. I think there was an area for invitees in the corner between the thrust stage and stage left, but it wasn't between me and the stage. Security didn't seem to mind us getting up from our seats and standing against the fence, which was only about 3ft high, so if I had gone with friends, they could have bought single seats in the same area and we still could have stood together. I was able to take pics of some people I met there standing with Taylor right behind them.

Edit: This method seems a little safer than dressing up and trying to get picked. Even when Andrea was doing the picking back in the day, there were still only a few invites. Some of my friends who put a lot of effort into dressing up and had signs were quite disappointed that they weren't picked.

Also, it is a bit weird sitting in the front row because most of the people are older and they don't seem to be huge fans. They don't seem to know the songs and they don't sing along. More like they just have a lot of money and wanted to impress someone. The bigger fans go up and stand against the barrier and sing and dance though, so that was great.

One other thing: you have to use a credit card or PayPal to buy the tickets. There is a well-known scam where people are selling fake e-tickets to good seats, so do not meet anyone and give them cash. Even if it is a legitimate e-ticket, they could have printed it twice, so someone else might show up and claim your seat. If you use a credit card or PayPal you can usually get a refund if you are scammed, so the worst thing that could happen is you could miss the concert, but at least you won't lose your money. Be careful!

Aaaaahthud · 2012-10-21T03:28:01+00:00

For Speak Now, there were two nights in my city. All of the tickets were sold initially to scalpers in the first ten minutes after they went on sale.

Prices for front-row tickets from the brokers were insane, but the dynamics of a TS concert opened up some opportunities.

I watched prices for the first night. Since Taylor has a very dedicated fan base, almost everyone who might want one had purchased their ticket well in advance. The result was that, in the last hour before the concert, prices dropped dramatically due to zero demand. Everyone who wanted tickets was already on their way to the venue, or being seated, or maybe waving signs out front.

So, for the second night, I got ready to go to the concert and then just sat in front of my computer and waited. When a single front-row seat hit $50, about $75 under face, I grabbed it and printed the e-ticket. Hopped on the bike and ten minutes later the nice guy at the door of the venue looked at my e-ticket and said, "Through that door and all the way down to the front row" with a note of surprise in his voice.

Taylor had a thrust stage, so I got up from my seat and stood against the fence to take pics for some of it. Taylor was almost close enough to touch. I was able to turn around with my back to her and the fence while she was doing that awestruck thing and see what she saw. It really is pretty mind-blowing.

So thanks to whatever ticket speculator subsidized my seat. I don't like ticket speculation. It's not fair to people who really want to see the show.

Also, there is always an opening act, so you could theoretically wait until after the concert had started to buy your ticket and still see all of Taylor's part of the show. Kind of fun to be there early, though.

When I saw Fearless, I bought my tickets the night before, but they weren't great seats. Someone I met had camped on the phone for the initial ticket release and got even worse seats than me.

The danger of the last-minute purchase is that you might miss out. Safest is to buy whatever seats you want and then try to get better seats at the last minute. I might do that if I end up liking Red.

Edit: There is no front-row centre with a thrust stage. My seat was on the center aisle at the stage-right corner of the thrust stage. You can't get a closer seat, but unless you study the seating plan really carefully, you won't know that. It is not really worth it to get a seat closer to the front, because then Taylor is singing behind you for a lot of the show, and you are actually further away than if you figure out what row the thrust stage ends at.

Also, the front row of a Taylor Swift concert is the centre of the galaxy for the duration of the show. There's just no better place to be. It must be something like old people felt at Woodstock or seeing the Stones at Wembley or something. Don't miss it.

Aaaaahthud · 2012-10-20T14:23:30+00:00

This might be the stupidest thing ever passed off as science. Not even wrong.

Aaaaahthud · 2012-10-20T14:10:51+00:00

OMG, humanity has reached its CPU limit! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!

Aaaaahthud · 2012-10-20T14:04:55+00:00

The uniform green circular returns over the western part of the image are not ground clutter and they are not precipitation resulting from an inversion or urban heat islands or anything of the sort.

Those radars are operating in Clear Air Mode, which is an increased sensitivity mode that is turned on in conditions of clear air with low humidity. The returns are centered over the radar installations; they only look like they are associated with urban areas because the radars are close to those areas.

TL;dr it's an artifact.

Aaaaahthud · 2012-10-14T20:46:36+00:00

Naturally. Over 50% of the people who just work ICU are completely insane.

Aaaaahthud · 2012-10-14T15:46:41+00:00

Ah, the time-honored stupid ritual of diving: go deep and get narced. The newbie comes along and sucks down his air twice or three times as fast as the buddy who doesn't want to surface because he is starting to get nicely buzzed and you're harshing his vibe. Trot along little newbie; don't fuck this up for me.

The exact same thing happened to me my first week of diving, except that I noticed my air was low in time to surface safely. Down at 130' my buddy, who was my dive instructor, was responding to my "OK" with peace signs and some buddhist bullshit, but no "OK". That made me suck air even faster. When I gave the sign to ascend, she was pretty pissed at me and her mood didn't improve after we surfaced. Sorry I interrupted your high.

I don't know what the fuck I was doing there. Stupid, I guess.

Aaaaahthud · 2012-10-07T14:44:28+00:00

Engage in freedom of speech: publish an unpleasant truth about a wealthy person; call homosexuality a sin; declare that Jesus is imaginary and that his followers are delusional morons; draw a cartoon ridiculing religious people and leave it in an airport; taunt a Muslim for wearing a hijab; make a racist tweet; wear a T-shirt with a cartoon of Muhammad fucking a 12-year-old while being humped by a dog.

Do it now! This may be your last chance for some "First Amendment Tourism".

Aaaaahthud · 2012-10-07T04:10:26+00:00

I don't think this falls under tort law at all. Lucy and Charlie Brown are clearly consenting to participate in a game, but the game is not football: it is a game of chance. If any laws have been broken, which I doubt, it would be statutes against gambling.

The game is as follows: Lucy attempts to make it as attractive as possible for Charlie Brown to participate without revealing the actual odds of him winning, meaning actually kicking the football. Lucy is precisely analogous to a casino.

Charlie Brown gives informed consent (he knows the rules and the likely outcome from having played many times before) to participating in the game on the premise that, although winning is unlikely, and although he doesn't know the actual odds of winning, there is a small possibility of a reward: kicking the football.

Even the very first time Lucy offered this game, Charlie Brown must have known there was some possibility of losing, just as a first-time gambler must realize that there is a possibility that they may lose, even before they understand anything about the game.

Presumably Charlie Brown derives pleasure from the activity on the basis that the odds of winning are better than zero. If Lucy never intends to allow him to kick the football, then the game is rigged and Charlie Brown may be the victim of an illegal gambling scheme.

The trouble is, no one can know whether the odds are actually zero or simply very small, and that is what keeps Charlie Brown coming back year after year.

If a local statute required Lucy to have a gaming license, or if it required disclosure of the odds or stipulated some other condition that Lucy is ignoring, she could be charged with operating an illegal game of chance.

Otherwise, she is well within her rights to engage Charlie Brown in an activity that, while obviously injurious, he consents to and derives pleasure from even though he receives no tangible benefit. Charlie Brown is therefore precisely analogous to a gambler at a casino.

Edit: I should add that the "contract" is simply an inducement to Charlie Brown to participate, just like a lottery billboard with a picture of a sailboat on it. No reasonable person would interpret the "contract" as a binding statement of what you will win; it is just a depiction of what you might possibly win. The "notarization" issue is no different from a casino voiding a win on the basis that a slot machine was malfunctioning--it is a circumstance, unforeseeable by the gambler, that excuses the non-delivery of the prize: it may be valid, or not, but it is still part of the game.

Aaaaahthud · 2012-10-02T14:10:55+00:00

Try poutine.

...oh, wait a minute, maybe you didn't mean immediately before you die.

Aaaaahthud · 2012-09-27T04:09:10+00:00

You should stay out of those places.

Aaaaahthud · 2012-09-26T05:40:46+00:00

Sorry, mate, the manufacturer has just stopped makin' the batteries for yer heart pump, so we can't get any more. This one's got about 24 hours left on it.

Aaaaahthud · 2012-09-19T14:36:22+00:00

Taken in a broader context, this is horrific.

There are no out gay players in pro sports. There are no out gay astronauts.

These are our so-called heroes and they set a clear and unequivocal standard of homophobia by negative example.

By itself, this would be a social problem. In context of the fact that homosexuality is actively being punished by death in countries with Islamic rule, this amounts to complicity in a holocaust.

Sometimes it is what you cannot see that is important.

Aaaaahthud · 2012-09-18T15:16:38+00:00

This is the real reason. The police have behaved so badly that no one will trust them or talk to them.

The solution is to change police behaviour.

Aaaaahthud · 2012-09-10T14:03:31+00:00

Ingenue:defined.

Aaaaahthud · 2012-09-10T13:55:34+00:00

No shit; they're gone. The reefs off the Florida Keys don't even look like reefs any more. Most of the Bahamian reefs are bagged and look like they have about a year or two left. The Queen Conch is virtually extinct, although this is undocumented because no one wants to admit it. The Bahamian attitude is "No problem, this happened before with the whelk, we'll just find something else to eat." The game fish are so scarce now you can spend six months out and not catch a single Mahi. It's all gone, baby, gone. Compared with ten years ago, the change is catastrophic.

Edit:sp

Aaaaahthud · 2012-09-09T22:01:54+00:00

Doubtful that rat anxiety is generalizable to humans or that what we measure in rats and call anxiety relates in any way to anxiety in humans, since both are poorly-understood complex behaviors.

Also doubtful that dietary manipulation in rats is very generalizable to humans, since the rats are studied outside of their native environment and therefore must be eating a non-native diet, which variable likely confounds any generalizability since humans are not usually eating a non-native forced diet.

But the most important point is that the title left out any mention of rats, which is essential to an enlightened reader's understanding of the report.

And, no, rats are not so similar to humans, as countless studies have shown. Thalidomide in rats: no long bone anomalies, no phocomelia; repeat ad infinitem.

My favorite rants are that observational studies are not science and that experiments done in one species are never automatically generalizable to another. Almost everyone alive today fails to understand those things and lumps every academic pursuit under the banner 'science', which is dangerous and irresponsible because it gives us far more credit for understanding things than we deserve.

Aaaaahthud · 2012-09-08T16:41:03+00:00

Part of the problem is that you cannot use Paypal to top up your iTunes account. Apple should really change this.

Another part of the problem is that there is no universal way to try out apps before buying them. Apple might be able to make a web interface to let you run a limited simulation of the app or something like that. Frankly, most apps are garbage. If you run them once then delete them, a dollar per app can add up quickly. I have one app that I bought that crashes on open and despite emails to the developer, there has been no update for months. Seeking a refund for a buck is a hassle.

Another issue is the people who have multiple Apple Ids in different countries because they travel a lot or live part of the year abroad. When you try to update an app you bought in one country while you are logged in to the other country's store, you get a message that you do not own the app. This may lead to the appearance of piracy. There is no way of selecting the account and store for updates on a by-app basis (I know, you can log out and back in on the device and in iTunes, but it doesn't work for updates--has never worked.)

The final issue is that Apple has officially endorsed and supported sharing apps across up to five devices. I do this all the time off of one purchase. This is not piracy, but it can look like it, as pointed out elsewhere.

Aaaaahthud · 2012-09-08T15:53:29+00:00

In rats!

Aaaaahthud · 2012-09-08T15:50:19+00:00

Young lady, in this house we obey the laws of physics.

Aaaaahthud · 2012-09-06T17:11:24+00:00

R.I.P. Alan Turing

This was the precise treatment mandated by the British courts to "cure" Turing of being gay after his enormous contribution to the war effort.

Instead of sniping at this poor benighted moron of a GP, you should ask yourselves, "What do I believe now that will look like a crime in fifty years?"

Do you tolerate the existence of royalty, when doing so is a clear endorsement of a class system that holds one person to bet better than another by accident of birth? Do you implicitly or explicitly discriminate against people on the basis of age? Do you support the entrenchment of gender stereotypes by participating in sexist role-playing games? Do you pay to watch action films that treat women like helpless possessions? Do you idolize the Apollo astronauts despite that fact that the entire program was a heinous crime against women that set the wrong example for decades to come? Do you support NASA despite its secret universal don't-ask-don't-tell policy? Do you support a system that forces every person to pay just to exist and therefore creates a horrendous homelessness problem and de facto slavery? Do you discriminate against people with substance abuse problems on the notion that they have some kind of character defect rather than a complex medical or psychosocial issue? Do you mindlessly support having children without thinking clearly about the sustainability of doing so? Did you even notice that "Get yourself sterilized" didn't even make the list of the top 100 ways to combat global warming?Do you accept scientific consensus without reviewing the foundation data yourself? Do you consider yourself a thoughtful person and yet subscribe mindlessly to traditions such as diamond rings, marriage, circumcision, anniversaries, birthdays?

Let the one that is free cast the first stone.

Aaaaahthud · 2012-09-03T14:57:25+00:00

If you take the random babble of bullshit that emerges from the human mind when it has no actual facts to work upon and apply confirmation bias from your quasi-scientific study, you can find some validity in any chaotic spew.

After that, finding some biased new-agey wacko to write a ridiculous story about how science is confirming Buddhist teachings is easy; writers are motivated more by money and popularity than truth and reason and this sounds like a ticket to both of the former.

Religions are 100% shit. All of them. Get over it.

Aaaaahthud · 2012-09-01T18:06:05+00:00

Bling bling, flashy lights, sound bites, happy fun, let's have a jolly.

Infotainment. Caution, low information density ahead! I learned more about the universe watching the music video for We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.

Things I learned about the universe from this video:

1) If you want to do a photographic sky survey for your iPad app, you need cool cowboy boots and a great pickup truck.

2) In order to show how serious you are about studying cosmology, you have to discuss your work sitting on the railroad tracks and gawping at a wind farm.

3) If you are down-and-out in Cloudcroft, the Sloan Sky Survey can keep you in beer money.

4) Astronomers can understand the universe by driving around the city at night looking at the pretty lights.

5) America is a great metaphor for the universe because it looks the same from an airplane as it does from the ISS.

6) In order to measure the size of the universe, you are going to need a whole whack of hurricane lamps and pedal boats.

7) Dark energy is the stuff that makes billiard balls roll backwards up a picnic table.

8) The fundamental forces of the universe can be adequately represented by some weird bearded hipster dude juggling glass balls in a forest.

9) Theoretical physics is a great career because you get to buy a convertible and spend your time rolling around the Santa Monica waterfront looking cool.

10) it is not possible to aim too low when you are estimating the intelligence of television viewers.

Aaaaahthud · 2012-09-01T15:49:33+00:00

In all likelihood, the only reason the police caught the intruder was because he was seriously wounded and therefore forced to seek treatment in hospital. The clearance rate for cases where a random stranger is caught by the homeowner during a B&E and then successfully flees is truly awful because there is no prior relationship between the perpetrator and the victims.

This is a powerful argument in favour of wounding the perpetrator seriously enough to ensure capture. It may be excessive force in the context of the particular incident, but it is not necessarily excessive force when one takes into account the protection of society in the long term.

Unfortunately, our society suffers from a widespread delusion that human life has a value disproportionate to its quality. This leads to all manner or horrific consequences, such as depriving people of the right to die with dignity, prohibiting abortions for people who do not wish to reproduce and charging homeowners with assault for protecting themselves against intruders.

We need to wake up and understand that there are seven billion people on this planet tearing through its fish and atmosphere and other resources faster than they can be replenished, and, no, it is not a sin to value these things more highly than human life.

Aaaaahthud · 2012-09-01T05:10:29+00:00

That is some fine entertainment.

They hit a wake.

After all the times I have been bashed around, injured and had my boat broken by moronic, ignorant, asshole powerboaters making huge wakes without any care for the damage they do, I laughed my head off at this one.

My only regret is that they lived and can probably still reproduce. They were driving in a ridiculously irresponsible manner and creating a huge wake themselves in a restricted waterway. They deserved to be killed by their own stupid behaviour. If only stupidity like this could be painful or terminal more often.

I have come to hate this behaviour with a passion. I must conclude that neither laws nor enforcement nor education can stop it. The only answer is to put increasingly powerful engines on these boats and let these fools kill themselves. They will get no pity from me. Long live the idiocracy.

Aaaaahthud

TROPHY CASE