The Misadventures of Jenny and John: The Money - er - Wolf Trap
Here's the deal: Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring, in high definition. At a semi-outdoor theater at the Wolf Trap park in Virginia. With a live orchestra and choir playing the music. The US premier of such a showing of the film. Sounds pretty awesome, doesn't it?
In fact, it sounded so awesome that John shelled out the $55 a ticket for two good seats. Except it ended up being over 60 bucks per ticket because Ticket Master hit him with over 15 bucks in fees and service charges for buying the tickets online.
And the good seats, it turned out, were of that high school auditorium plastic quality, each plastered with a fair dose of bird shit that, despite the fact that the seating area was kept strictly empty until half an hour before the show thus providing plenty of time for even last minute clean up on plastic chairs that should be easy to clean, was still there in all its disgusting glory when it was time to sit down.
As people living in the environ of the east coast will know, the weather of late has been chilly and rainy, and especially chilly in the evenings. So there we were in our hard plastic seats open to the wind, when John, willing to brave the horrendous prices at the concession stands, went to procure warm food and beverages for us. He thereupon discovered that neither food NOR beverages besides water were allowed in the seating area. The seating area that consisted of concrete floors and hard plastic seats.
Just to be sure I got up and asked one of the many ushers (who were all VOLUNTEERS) about the no beverage rule, especially as it pertained to the forbidding of nice, hot coffee, and she confirmed that only water was allowed. "You could heat it up, and have some warm water to help keep you warm," she suggested. I "laughed" in a way to show exactly how not fucking funny at all that statement was. I walked away before I started swearing at her, because I REALLY wanted to say, "Oh. So you leave the bird shit all over the fucking seats but you're worried about us spilling coffee on those hard plastic pieces of crap. Yea. Right."
Ultimately, we left at intermission. The evening got colder and colder, and even though John shelled out yet more money to buy a ridiculously over-priced fleece blanket, and managed to smuggle a coffee down to our seats (which he spilled on himself in the process of transporting it under his jacket, and which we drank furtively under the cover of our blanket), the cold combined with the uncomfortable seats and the inability to partake in warm foodstuffs made us decide it was time to go home. Besides, it was hard to appreciate the live music. The musicians played into microphones and the sound was then blasted out through giant speakers, such that it didn't feel much different from listening to a recording.
To top it all off, when we got home, we found out that our xbox is fried. The video chip is busted and when you turn it on it just flickers in these awful neon colors. It was so wacky that for a minute, we were afraid it broke the bulb on our projector because it suddenly went dark. And those bulbs cost several hundred dollars to replace. Fortunately, after a reboot the projector still worked, it just probably got confused and overloaded by the messed up signals the xbox was sending it.
And, John said he doesn't want to get another one until the fall, when the new version comes out. You know what that means? That means for the forseeable future, Ingrid and I will not be able to play Rock Band or Guitar Hero together again. Ingo and Inga are dead! T_T
In fact, it sounded so awesome that John shelled out the $55 a ticket for two good seats. Except it ended up being over 60 bucks per ticket because Ticket Master hit him with over 15 bucks in fees and service charges for buying the tickets online.
And the good seats, it turned out, were of that high school auditorium plastic quality, each plastered with a fair dose of bird shit that, despite the fact that the seating area was kept strictly empty until half an hour before the show thus providing plenty of time for even last minute clean up on plastic chairs that should be easy to clean, was still there in all its disgusting glory when it was time to sit down.
As people living in the environ of the east coast will know, the weather of late has been chilly and rainy, and especially chilly in the evenings. So there we were in our hard plastic seats open to the wind, when John, willing to brave the horrendous prices at the concession stands, went to procure warm food and beverages for us. He thereupon discovered that neither food NOR beverages besides water were allowed in the seating area. The seating area that consisted of concrete floors and hard plastic seats.
Just to be sure I got up and asked one of the many ushers (who were all VOLUNTEERS) about the no beverage rule, especially as it pertained to the forbidding of nice, hot coffee, and she confirmed that only water was allowed. "You could heat it up, and have some warm water to help keep you warm," she suggested. I "laughed" in a way to show exactly how not fucking funny at all that statement was. I walked away before I started swearing at her, because I REALLY wanted to say, "Oh. So you leave the bird shit all over the fucking seats but you're worried about us spilling coffee on those hard plastic pieces of crap. Yea. Right."
Ultimately, we left at intermission. The evening got colder and colder, and even though John shelled out yet more money to buy a ridiculously over-priced fleece blanket, and managed to smuggle a coffee down to our seats (which he spilled on himself in the process of transporting it under his jacket, and which we drank furtively under the cover of our blanket), the cold combined with the uncomfortable seats and the inability to partake in warm foodstuffs made us decide it was time to go home. Besides, it was hard to appreciate the live music. The musicians played into microphones and the sound was then blasted out through giant speakers, such that it didn't feel much different from listening to a recording.
To top it all off, when we got home, we found out that our xbox is fried. The video chip is busted and when you turn it on it just flickers in these awful neon colors. It was so wacky that for a minute, we were afraid it broke the bulb on our projector because it suddenly went dark. And those bulbs cost several hundred dollars to replace. Fortunately, after a reboot the projector still worked, it just probably got confused and overloaded by the messed up signals the xbox was sending it.
And, John said he doesn't want to get another one until the fall, when the new version comes out. You know what that means? That means for the forseeable future, Ingrid and I will not be able to play Rock Band or Guitar Hero together again. Ingo and Inga are dead! T_T