Same Story, Different Year

I thought this year would be different, what with my new computer and faster Internet connection and all. So I got up early (i.e.: at 9 am, which is early for me on a Saturday) and logged onto RedSox.com to do some recon work before the tickets went on sale at 10:00. And somewhere around 9:45 I clicked on the June 16 game vs the Giants, entered the “virtual waiting room,” and waited. And waited. And waited. I read the page a good handful of times, just for fun. You know, all that B.S. about how tickets are sold on a “first-come, first-served basis,” but patrons are selected from the waiting room “on a random basis.” And I watched the page refresh itself every 30 seconds, waiting on the edge of my seat as the numbers hit single digits, hoping the page would change to something — anything — different. And I waited for the ticket status at the bottom of the page to change and tell me everything was already sold out, but it only updated every hour, so I figured maybe, just maybe, I still had a chance of getting through. Hell, I even tried calling the ticketing phone numbers — both of them — and kept getting either a busy signal or the message that “all circuits are busy.”

Whatever. I’m generally a patient person, especially where stuff like this is concerned, but I waited for more than two hours in this stupid waiting room only to find out the game I wanted to see was sold out. I’m not trying again for another one; I’d rather go out and enjoy the day than sit by my computer waiting for Red Sox tickets. I’ll just have to watch Papi, Manny, Dice-K, J.V. and the boys on NESN like I did last year when I didn’t even bother trying to get tickets. That seems to be the smarter choice. Did anyone get through today? I mean, really — aside from connections and scalpers, how does anyone get Sox tickets in this city?