I spend a lot of money on theatre and concert tickets, since I find those activities particularly enjoyable.

By far, the best $104 I have ever spent on the arts transpired as follows:

1. I bought two tickets to the Boston Pops concert titled A Little Night Music, featuring the score from the Sondheim musical by the same name.  I selected tickets in the very best section of Symphony Hall: first balcony left, row A, between seats 4 and 23*.
2. Today, June 15th, I reviewed the tickets and discovered the concert was two days ago on the 13th, despite what I put on my calendar.
3. I carefully shredded and recycled the tickets.

Were this any other event I might have employed some Synthetic Happiness.  “I’m glad I missed that rotten concert,” I would have said.  “The music was probably terrible, and it would have wasted my time.”

This being the Boston Pops I can hardly convince myself there was so much as a mediocre musician on the stage.  Instead, I’ll settle for declaring that I enjoy giving away money.  Hence, tomorrow I will be throwing $100 bills off the roof of my apartment.  Linger on the sidewalk all day for a chance to get rich.

Blërg.

* The orchestra seats are too low to see the whole stage.  While I agree music is meant primarily to be heard and not seen, I find enjoyment in watching great musicians at their work.  The first balcony is much better, affording a view of the entire stage. 

Sitting in Row A eliminates the chance a tall man in a hat will sit in front of you.  The first three seats are in an awkward corner, but seats 4 – 23 (the first two sections) are all excellent choices.

The left side of the balcony is marginally better than the right – partly because we all know the brass and string sections are all more interesting than the percussionists (silly percussionists!) but also because Keith Lockhart (or whoever the conductor might be) will enter the stage in your view.  People on the right side of the balcony have to infer his arrival from the applause of others, thus making them feel left out.

When I first moved in here I received (regularly) about two dozen catalogs in the previous resident’s name. These covered varied interests, but with a particular concentration in the field of “fluffy things.” I swear I got an entire catalog of pillows once – every page, nothing but pillows.

I of course dropped these subscriptions as the catalogs continued streaming in. This yielded conversations like the following (which I swear I am not making up):

Woman, Answering Phone: Women’s lingerie department, how can I help you?
Me: I’d like to unsubscribe from your catalog
Her: (beat) Err.. are you sure you’re not looking for the men’s department?
Me: (deadpanned) Nope.

This afternoon a new Dell catalog streamed in, so I pulled up Dell’s website to unsubscribe. Here are their procedures:

“To add, remove or update your mailing address from the catalog mailing list, you need to be registered on our e-mail subscription list. If you are not already registered, you can do so on the following webpage.” (emphasis mine)

That’s right. To remove your mailing address from their catalog list, you must first subscribe to their e-mail list. You can then unsubscribe from that too, but you have to be on it first.

Fortunately for all of us, they don’t do challenge-response validation of e-mail addresses, so I registered Mr. Not Gonna Happen (first name “Not,” last name “Gonna Happen,” no middle name) with his example.com address. He’ll probably enjoy the catalogs more than I.

Oh, and Dell? I did it all from a shiny 24-inch iMac. How do you like them Apples?

Netflix is currently recommending the following movie categories to me, in this order:

1. TV Sitcoms
2. British TV Comedies
3. Movies for 11-12 Year Olds
4. Romantic Dramas
5. Romantic Comedies

Can we just pause for a moment to reflect on number 3?

I’m not sure which bothered me more:

1. The kids behind me during Indiana Jones spent the whole movie speculating about what was going to happen next
2. Half the time they correctly predicted things I hadn’t thought of

First, a truck exploded. Then, a train derailed and caught fire.

This morning, the student lab downstairs flooded, sending a swarm of students upstairs to share offices, borrow computers, spread disease (wait… no, that’s “rats” – not “students”), and rearrange virtually every piece of furniture in the building (if I round up).

So we have fires and floods already.  There really isn’t a lot of room to spiral downward from here.

“Are you feeling okay?  Your eye is really red.”