Don't Get Your Tickets Here

Jason Aldean from the last row
at MetLife Stadium (c) PipPepPop

     Back in March, I lamented on the blog about how hard it is to get good concert tickets these days. Don't worry, getting tickets has not gotten any easier. You still probably don't have your pick of seats during pre-sales, let along the actual ticket on-sale. But, due to the recent Curt Schlesinger et al. v. Ticketmaster settlement, they may be a little cheaper to loyal concertgoers. Essentially, Ticketmaster was sued for their outrageous and "excessive" fees (finally). I cannot justify paying $75.00 for tickets in the very last row of MetLife stadium, but I paid it last summer to see Jason Aldean and Kenny Chesney.  Tickets on the floor were at least $300.00 and standing room only. Where is the benefit in that? But I digress...

     Ticket "processing" fees (which average from $15-$20 dollars on top of the seat price) were the brunt of the spoils in this case. There is also a second reward/class for the ridiculously  high fees for USPS delivery. As a whole, Ticketmaster has charged as high as $8.00 to ship regularly ordered tickets (not overnight or a week before the show kind of deals) via US mail, a service which used to be available for free. This led to the ride of free PDF print-at-home tickets, which are their own fun pain in the butt. I have also been to a concert where my friend left the tickets at home and we had to download an app for our phones to get into the concert, and keep the tickets up on our phones every time we left the area to get drinks or go to the bathroom. As much as the technology was supposed to make out lives better they're not making concerts easier, yet. Maybe in the future, we can get retinal scan tickets!

     Tickets purchased from October 1999 through February 2013 make you eligible to be part of the lawsuit's class and should guarantee you something back. On bright side in this whole deal,  Ticketmaster has done all of the work for us. I logged into my account the other day to check out my cut of the $45+ million dollar settlement. I have 11 pairs of general admission ticket vouchers (good through June 2020) and 11 sets of $2.25 credits to use toward ticket purchases. Before you plan to take 20 of your closest friends to the lawn seats, keep in mind there are restrictions, as suggested by Yahoo! News earlier this week. General admission vouchers are only allowed to be used for events at Live Nation venues. The tickets are redeemable for floor general admission or lawn GA tickets to these events, and up to two vouchers at a time (totaling 4 tickets). USPS shipping codes ($5.00 each, I had none of these because I wasn't  going to pay to ship tickets) can be used two at a time for USPS shipping, and these deals cannot be used with other tickets.

Live Nation site screenshot, 6/23 (c) PipPepPop

     The ticket site for Live Nation began posting events early Wednesday and as of Thursday night, all available vouchers through November are sold out (at venues across the country). I am curious to see how the next few months go, when the novelty wears off and people forget about the ticket vouchers they have sitting in their account. Maybe I can get some tickets then! In the meantime, I'm going to see how we can convince them to put pre-sale e-mailed codes directly into out accounts too. I have scrambling at the last minute to find phrases like SUNSHINE or DEEJAY and plugging them in to try to get tickets. I also hate clicking on the images of Trucks or waterfalls to prove I'm not a robot. Hmm.. maybe ticketing robots is the way to solve all of this frustration....
 For more information, visit the settlement website: http://www.ticketfeelitigation.com/

Sometimes It's A Grammar Fail Day...

     To be honest, I never want to be the person at a party mentally correcting the grammar of my friends. To be perfectly  honest, sometimes I can't stop myself. It's good to know my other fellow English major friends are still there for me! (Thanks!) It's not the everyday misuse of THEY'RE vs. THEIR or TWO and TOO that can get me, it's the plural possessives that keep me up at night. How many signs have to incorrectly refer to a group of co-workers as EMPLOYEES'?? HINT: I have seen more than one. Here are some of the grammar fails I've caught in the last few months. Let's get them off our chests and move on peacefully.


5. Supermarket Sunscreen Ad

(C) PipPepPop

I know these little ads have a premium on their space. I cannot understand why someone would use their full space and still not use the correct word on there.

For the record, I always SCREEN the sun away from my body.





4. Cleaning Reminder at My Office

(c) PipPepPop

     My personal favorite reminder from work is a photo of Alice from The Brady Bunch with an accompanying quote:
"Now we're all got to keep this place tidy, ya hear?"

     This was since replaced with a new reminder, typed up a few months ago in an extreme haste. First of all, the last line switches from lowercase to all caps during the sentence. Why not make it all caps to really send the message home?

     Secondly, there are two apostrophes listed in the word don't. Are we that concerned? Does this mean we DO NOT NOT with added emphasis?

     In conclusion, we are not supposed to put food in the drian. At first, I thought this was some new hip slang the teens were using. It is not. They simply mis-typed the word DRAIN.




3. Movie Ad

(c) PipPepPop

      If your movie has a long title, I expect it might be shortened on billboards and other promotional materials. this is exactly why the Twitter hashtag was invented. The part about this that mystifies me is that the movie is called GOOSEBUMPS, and they took one letter out of the title to shorten it to GOOSEBUMS, which sounds like a long-lost John Belushi movie from the 1970's.



2. Fancy Engagement Ring Ad Copy

     The copy for this engagement ring collection and fancy jewelry store is missing something. The KWIAT jewler calls out the "Lorem Ipsum Dolor Et AlCollection". That's not an actual collection. Yes, the typeset and wording are just some Latin mumbo jumbo and it's not even separated for the word collection. According to Wikipedia, "Loren Ipsum..." is filler text in the publishing world that translated to "Pain Itself." 

(Photos (c) Pippeppop)

1. Political Campaign Brochure
     This brochure was delivered to my house a few months ago. While I will not reveal the name of the candidate and humiliate the person, I will say the candidate does not have a shot at becoming president at this point.
     The brochure spells the very wordy unconscionable correctly, then goes on to say    "... full-time workers lives in poverty." It adds a singular verb with a plural noun. Why????

A Weirdly Offensive CD Title (BONUS)

(c) PipPepPop

I found this GEM in a record store in Memphis. Sadly, I didn't take it home with me to give it a listen. Instead, I submitted it to The Tonight Show Do Not Play List, (I'm still waiting, Jimmy Fallon!)There is technically nothing wrong with this title, it follows the rules of grammar. 

a) I'll is the correct contraction for I WILL. 

b) There is a comma before water and baby, indicating the speaker is talking directly to his baby, like the great Barry White. 

     Quite honestly, I found the title it to be very unsettling. This man is in the woman's bath, with a champagne glass that may be filled with her body-soiled water. No thank you! 

Nashville '16-'17: Where Are We Going?

From Change.org E-mail

     As much as I hate to see T.V. shows end, I hate it even more when they end without a valid wrap-up of their story lines, like The Mindy Project. This also was the case with ABC's Nashville. It came down to the last two cancellation-doomed episodes for fans to put out a public outcry to give the show a 5th season. In the last week, I joined almost 175,000 fans in signing a change.org petition to bring the show back. That's got to be at least a good chunk of their average viewership. Rest easy, Tennessee Titans, the show will be coming back for a season 5! The show's Lionsgate production company has cemented a deal with Country Music Television (CMT) for a new season. If you don't have CMT (like me), you can catch episodes the next day on Hulu, which is the new home of The Mindy Project (since FOX gave it the boot last season). The best news of all is that the show has been ordered for 22 full episodes for the season. Keep in mind, that's 22 episodes for a show that does not film in L.A. and it's gone from a network budget to a cable budget. I see big changes ahead!

 

Downtown Nashville (c)PipPepPop

   The 22 episodes will give us enough berth to get things in Nashville back to normal. But the new questions becomes, what is normal? With so many plots, actors, and guest stars, something may have to give. We left off season 4 with some major resolutions. Finally, Rayna and Deacon reunited with their angsty, emancipated teen daughter, Maddie. Then, the on-again, off-again band "The Exes", Gunnar and Scarlett shared a kiss while performing, and Will became a crusader for gay rights while patching things up with his ex, Kevin. Even Luke Wheeler, who has had a rough time these few years (his teen son joining the army, his daughter running off to boarding school, Rayna leaving him at the altar, and almost going bankrupt), managed to make a positive change in the country community and reach out to his ex-wife. Justly deserved, the wicked ingenue Layala was left all alone as her record exploded on the charts. Her desperate attempts to ruin Juliet's life blew up as Juliet opened up to the press about her struggles with suicide, depression, marriage troubles and her manege'rs resulting accidental death. Win for Juliet as she reconciled with her manager Glenn and rushed home to meet estranged husband Avery and their baby, Cadence. Where are we headed now? It's definitely a shocker!

     It's time to find out if Juliet's plane has crashed! The last scene showed Avery at the airstrip, receiving news that Juliet's jet lost contact with air traffic control. This plays heavily into the plans for season 5. Hayden Panettiere (Juliet) missed about 1/4 of the last season as she recovered from postpartum depression. The good news is that both Panettiere and Connie Britton (Rayna) have confirmed they will be back for the next season. With new showrunners moving into place, I'm hoping for a season that drags less. I felt that Luke didn't have much to go on this season, and at the same time Will was stuck in the same story lines over and over again. With tighter budgets looming, I hope to see some fresh stories. If there's one thign for sure, I can guarantee that all this hype will bring a 2017 Stars of Nashville tour. With Rayna and Juliet now longtime friends instead of  the warring divas they began the show as, I hope we can focus on the music again.

Maya and Marty Had a Party... And It Was Weird

     I am quite sure critics have not liked the first two episodes of Maya and Marty. It might have nothing to do with the two stars and just with the idea that nobody cares for variety shows anymore. Much like the bygone era of vaudeville, variety shows are a little odd. To quote The Atlantic,

"But at its best, it feels like a copy of a copy: Tuesday Night Live, if you will."

     That's precisely the problem. It's got the casts (Maya Rudolph and Martin Short both came from SNL a did their co-stars and special guests, Keenan Thompson, Tina Fey, Jimmy Fallon, and Steve Martin.

In honor of tonight's third episode, I'm reviewing last week's sketches.

- A Day With Anna Wintour 9/10
This PBS-style show followed Maya as Anna Wintour as she put together a new issue of VOGUE. This was actually pretty funny. She Devil Wears Prada's a few employees and showed us her favorite spot in New York, a grubby deli Karl Largerfeld frequents.

- Oprah Loves Bread 8/10
It was funny the first time when Maya played Oprah and yelled about how she are bread all day. After the third or so installment, she had statues of bread, then it got too much.

- Tina and Maya Sing 70's Love Songs 7/10
It was cute, but it went on for about 5 minutes too long.

- Kidnapping Video 6/10
Nathan lane tortured Marty with stage directions while being filmed for a kidnapping ransom. This also went along way too long.

- Birthday With the Parents 5/10
Maya and Marty played self-involved parents celebrating their 30-year old son's birthday. Guests Tina Fey and Shawn Hayes  played another couple.

- Martin and Steve's Duet 3/10
All of Marty's lines insulted himself and praised Steve.

- British Manners Instruction 2/10
This was downright terrible. Martin played a butler that yelled at one kid in particular for not following his manners instruction. This was like 1900's Gordon Ramsay in MasterChef Junior.

- Jimmny Glick Interviews Drake 1/10
I skipped through this. Watching him interview Larry David in the first episode took my last nerve.

Hello Nurse: GH Hosts the 2016 Nurses' Ball

     It's hard to top an event when it's been done for the better part of 20 years, but General Hospital piqued my interest for this year's Nurses' Ball. The show has had it's share of dramatic moments over the last 50+ years and it did not disappoint. All you need to know (outside from the very obvious intricate relationships between characters that are made very clear) is that the NB is an event to raise money for GH for the cause of fighting HIV/AIDS. There are disasters, lots of musical numbers (everyone in this tiny NY/Canada border town is a showboater), and hostess Lucy Coe (Lynn Herring) usually ends up with her clothes falling off (but not this year). Nobody thoguht last year's ball could be topped. We discovered Jake Doe was really Jason Morgan (see more below) and we saw this unravel Elizabeth (who knew the truth and kept Jason away from his family). Plus, Ric Lasing proposed to ex-wife Elizabeth and got turned down, humiliated and had all of his evil plans exposed.

Lucy Coe and Richard Simmons  at the Nurses' Ball of Yesteryear (GH Wiki)

Here are the 10 moments that topped 2015:

Image from General Hospital Wiki

10. MURDERER BEFRIENDS KID

     Someone let goofy (murdering) Franco Baldwin (Roger Howarth) near children for art therapy? This might have worked when James Franco played the character, because James Franco is soap opera hot, but let's think about this. This guy murdered multiple people for his "art" including the beloved Emily Quartermain. Elizabeth seems to be way too relenting about this whole arrangement of her kid hanging out with Franco, the guy who murdered her best friend!

9. A BUNCH OF OLD CHARACTERS GO TO THE BALL TOGETHER?

Image from Biography.com

     Laura Spencer has had quite the 30 year career on this show, and the first real "ship" couple, Luke and Laura. With Luke (Tony Geary) finally leaving the show last summer, Laura (Genie Francis) has been kicking around trying to save her dumb, adult children from completely ruining their lives. She has mostly been failing at this. They have a small brood of unruly children, and her son Lucky (Jonathan Jackson) bailed out on his wife. Son Nikolas's life fails are outline below. Even her daughter Lulu has made some stupid choices...

    I think we haven't seen the last of Luke yet, but in the meantime, Laura showed up with no ticket, and was able to score an armed escort with psychiatrist Dr. Kevin Collins (John Lindstorm). So hello 90's, what end of the hospital has he been working in all this time?




8. EVERYONE'S STILL TALKING ABOUT CARLOS RIVERA

Image from GeneralHospitalBlog.com

    What is the big deal with this guy? At last year's Nurses' Ball, Carlos was on the run for something bad Then he murdered Duke Lavery after the ball. Now, everyone is trying to figure out who shot Carlos. (It was... oh who cares?) Now Carlos is gone. There have been a lot of murders and deaths in this town that people have made less of a deal about.
   
As far as I'm concerned, he  can get his own spinoff entitled:
 Were In The World Is Carlos Rivera... And Does Anyone Really Want to Find Him?"

7. THE OLD CARLY IS BACK! (NOT LITERALLY) 

Image from Giphy

     Carly Too-Many-Last-Names* (Laura Wright) is finally back to her evil tricks. She cat fights in the bathroom moments before her brother is supposed to get married and she wins! Carly walks out with enough dirt on her husband's baby mama Ava to keep Ava's child away from her forever.

* Her Full name with marriages is something like:
Caroline Leigh Benson Roberts Quartermain Corinthos Alcazar Jacks Corthinos




6. NED ASHTON STILL THINKS HE IS A ROCK STAR
     One of Port Charles' favorite rock stars (there are two, and the other one is played by Rick Springfield) made a rare appearance to duet on Don't Go Breaking My Heart with his dead sister-in-law's cousin's kid. All hail Eddie Main!

5. ROBIN'S BACK AGAIN!

Image from GeneralHospitalBlog.com

     Fan favorite Kimberly McCullogh played Dr. Robin Scorpio Drake from 1985-2001 as a child/teen and has been on and off since 2004. She is the hart of the nurses' ball and is a character living with HIV. Long story short, Robin was presumed dead for a while (She was kidnapped on one of the Cassadine Islands, as most of the people on this list were), but she came back. Nobody is really surprised when she pops back into town at this point.



4. THE GAY WEDDING GOT CALLED OFF DUE TO... NEEDLES?

Image from Soaps.sheknows.com

     First the mother of a groom, Bobbie Spencer (Jackie Zeman) collapses. She got injected with something backstage (and this is the least that has happened to Bobbie). When her son Dr. Lucas Jones (Ryan Carnes) arrives with her at the hospital, he was also stuck with a needle. Who's to blame, and is this a hate crime?  It looks like Dr. Liesl Obrecht is mad that nobody wants to see her perform. I'm not sure if this performance denial is her motivation for needling people, or something to do with Carlos Rivera being her grandkid's baby daddy. Can someone on this crack detective squad solve a crime correctly for once? Why hasn't Lisel tried to pick up said grandchild from the clutches of Tracey Quartermain while her daughter Sabrina is AWOL? Why did Sabrina leave her baby with the Quartermains, only to ditch her reunion with her kid to sing the last song of the ball? Please, PCPD, solve any one of these questions!

3. SAM MCCALL-MORGAN IS THIS TOWN'S DA VINCI

Image from Giphy

     Kelly Monaco's Sam came to town as a salvage boat captain after playing Dr. Collins' daughter Livie on Port Charles. She charmed Jasper Jax and ended up in the protection of Sonny and Jason. I honestly cannot pinpoint a job this woman has had since she became involved with the mob guys, but in this one ball, she danced in a salsa number and served as a best man to  a wedding that didn't happen. Plus, she is gaining back the trust of Jason.



2. JASON MORGAN'S ACCIDENT GOT HIS MEMORIES BACK

Image from General Hilarity Blog

     Jason (Morgan) Quartermain (currently played by Billy Miller)  used to be a rich prepster. He lost his memory in a car accident caused by his brother, A.J. Then Jason got amnesia and became the right hand of a "coffee importer", mob boss Sonny Corinthos.  A lot of other stuff happened! Jason's nephew Michael became sonny's stepson, and  everyone had some more kids. Plus, he lost his memory for about 6 months  and thought his name was Jake last year. A few weeks ago, Jason got in a car accident, saved one of Sonny's other sons, Dante, in the crash. Now Jason has old memories and new memories. He is now trying to reconcile with his wife, Sam, as Jason 2.0, Jason is stuck between a rock and a hard place. He has connections to his past and the ability to feel emotions again, which may make him a terrible mob enforcer, but it's all he's known for so many years.

1. NIKOLAS CASSADINE IS A BADDIE... AND POSSIBLY DEAD?

Image from HighlightHollywood.com

     I'm not sure I followed the whole Nikolas (Tyler Christopher) blackmailing and sham marriage to Hayden and stolen diamonds bit, but I know one thing for sure. Nikolas wanted Elizabeth (Rebecca Herbst) all to himself last year, and he let her unravel by revealing Jason's true identity and made her go all Fatal Attraction on Jason/Jake (see #2).  Also, his nutso grandmother (R.I.P Helena) was the one who kidnapped and sometime brainwashed half the town (usually when they're presumed dead). Nikolas always wanted to circumvent his wild Russian royal family and their blackmailing, murder and kidnapping. Way to parent this guy, Laura Spencer. But when Jason (who is Nik's cousin's husband) confronted him after the ball, it looks like Nik landed at the bottom of a cliff. Now, Nikolas is missing. Who is watching little Spencer? His Aunt Elizabeth is a hot mess, his Uncle Lucky split because he is a terrible father to a his brood of children from other daddies, his grandma Laura is out picking up anyone left at the hospital, and his Aunt Lulu is making dagger eyes at her stepbrother Dylan's new girlfriend and nursing her injured husband Dante back to health after the Jason accident. Yes, everyone in this town is over-related. It's really gross when you think about it, so don't. I don't even want to point out Spencer's mom Courtney used to be married to Jason, who then married Nikolas's cousin Sam, and they are suspects in Nik's disappearance.

     Which brings me to the most  important question. How do people get out to Nikolas' Wyndamere/Spoon Island so quickly? Is there a speedboat I'm unaware of? It's an island and these people are walking there minutes after announcing they are off to the island.

UPDATED JUNE 3rd