Loose Ends

Apparently, the people at my local Verizon Wireless store are hooked up to the same unforgiving computer system as the one I access as a lowly customer. They're not budging on the $50 -- although my local Verizon guy told me to be sure to come back and he'd "work a deal" for me on the 12th, when I'm eligible for my discount. Exactly what sort of "deal" he intends to work (other than, you know, giving me my damn discount) was not made clear.

Still, I'll likely return to him (if I don't order the damn thing on the web). This because his store was virtually empty. Compare with the other Verizon store in Pasadena which had additional staff to deal with the crowds, and even set up a tent outside the store with sample phones so you could play with them. It's Droid-Mania over there. Seriously, Verizon has done a very nice job putting together a product and a campaign that makes people want to spend money -- not an easy thing to do at this point in time.

And since you're not all theatre geeks (Hi Lori!), I supply the Hamlet and A Steady Rain links. And I appear to be attending at an interesting time, as Broadway shows are engaged in a fundraising competition for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. The stars of A Steady Rain have a good shot at a new fundraising record -- the events reported here seem to be repeating nightly at similar prices. Now, I have, once or twice, spent what I would consider an insane amount of money on a piece of memorabilia -- said number has always had three digits in it. When I read about what's going down at A Steady Rain (eight times a week), I can't help but ask myself, exactly how much money would I have to be making in order to think, "Yeah, I'd dump five grand on that for charity."

It's a very large number indeed.