How not to go to the Apple WWDC for seven years in a row.

I’ve been going to the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference for years. The last few years the ticket sales have been a bit quirky and many of us even had alerts that texted and emailed us when the announcement page changed. This year the page changed and announced that they’d start selling tickets at a predetermined time, 10AM PDT on 4/25.

Everyone knew the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference would sell out quickly, but for me it was under a minute. Here’s how not to get tickets to go.

  1. Log into the site before the official sales start at 10AM PDT. This will serve to confuse things later
  2. Start hitting Command-R as it reaches 10AM PDT.
  3. Keep hitting Command-R for a minute because nothing is happening.
  4. SEE THE PAGE THAT SAYS BUY A TICKET! CLICK THE BUTTON!
  5. GET A LOGIN PAGE AND LOG IN!
  6. Get an error page that tells you to retry or to click on a link to report the issue.
    1. Reporting the issue could take more time, and may not get a response.
    2. Refreshing will let you try something quicker!
  7. HIT REFRESH!
  8. SEE THE PAGE THAT SAYS BUY A TICKET! CLICK THE BUTTON!
  9. Get the error page again.
  10. Refresh again because we’ve determined it’s quicker, right?
  11. SEE THE PAGE THAT SAYS BUY A TICKET! CLICK THE BUTTON!
  12. Get the error page again.
  13. OK, it’s time to try something new. Quit the browser and reopen.
  14. Go to the WWDC ticket page.
  15. GET A LOGIN PAGE AND LOG IN!
  16. Get a page that says SOLD OUT.

OK, at this point, have a shitty rest of the day. This part isn’t necessary if you’re not me, but unavoidable if you are. I also added a nice trip with my mom to her doctor who made us wait an hour after the appointment time. He’s a super nice guy so I couldn’t stay mad, but it didn’t help my overall mood.

My sister attributed my problems to something stupid that actually did cheer me up. She said it was probably Megan’s doing, from wherever she is now, because she thought I didn’t need to visit San Francisco if she’s not there. We both laughed about it. It probably would be something she’d do and it’s nice to think that Megan’s still around somewhere, messing with us.

Farewell Joe’s Cellar

Yet another reminder of how I’m getting old. It’s my birthday weekend and it’s not really the greatest confluence of events. I’ve mentioned several of the other events and today I found out that Joe’s Cellar, one of the last neighborhood dive bars, is closing tonight. The building was deemed unsafe and was condemned. I was told by the manager at Portland Brewing that this was my last chance to go and it was packed full of people. I guess the weekend there has been nuts, or so said the bartender who might just have been the closest thing to a zombie that I’m ever going to see. Most of the patrons were probably not born when I first went to Joe’s Cellar with my buddy Greg, his dad, and his dad’s co-workers.

I just realized that there’s a couple of other close dive bars and I think I better give them some of my (not huge) business before they close as well. Crackerjack, here I come!

P.S. I just got two emails from two different people on two different dating sites. One from a fake person, and another from someone who is fifteen years older than me. Nice, eh?

Exciting birthday!

Well, it is my birthday and I should’ve made a list of the things I wanted to do. I suppose I did make a short list and I nailed it:

  1. Take the day off work.

I meant to do a couple more things, but whatever. I sat on my ass and went out to lunch with a buddy from work at a place that is run by an old grade-school classmate. The only things I did today were lame, like answering all the birthday wishes I got on Facebook (which weren’t that many) and trying to undo whatever my computer is doing to scramble the music in iTunes.

But it is my birthday and it is an off year. I started out the day trying to listen to Marc Maron’s interview with Johnathan Winters and quit just in time to find out that he passed away today. Closer to home, my sister’s goofy old basenji Dede had a seizure at 4AM and had to be put to sleep early this morning. And as my mom predicted, my sister didn’t cry when my dad died, but cried when her dog died.

Hooray. One year closer to my AARP card. I suppose it beats the alternative.