Coldplay Tickets Bought, but Not Without Stress

I'll be in Chicago with my brothers Derek and Ethan on July 23 to see Coldplay. Tickets went on sale at exactly 1:00 p.m. EDT on Saturday, and I was ready and waiting at my laptop.

When the clock struck 1:00 I immediately searched for three tickets in the highest price bracket -- we had agreed to indulge, realizing it may be a once-in-a-lifetime chance -- only to find a message from Ticketmaster explaining my search hadn't yielded any results. My mind was officially blown.

Crazy that tickets to any act can begin to sell out within mere seconds of going on sale. I'm happy to say that I ended up with tickets. They're no VIP seats, but I consider myself blessed to have them at all.

In other news, I'm toying with the idea of moving my blog to Wordpress. Seems like I could do a lot of cool stuff over there, but I don't want to make a rash decision.

What do you think? Pros? Cons?

Expect to Pay Out the Ear for Transatlantic Shipping

I don't buy a lot of imported British merchandise, so I never knew the cost of shipping for transatlantic purchases. Nor had I fully realized the exchange-rate between the British pound and the US dollar.

A couple weeks ago, my brother bought a Radiohead tee-shirt from the band's online store (based in England of course). That brought home the relative worthlessness of the USD, as the shirt's 15-pound British price tag translated to about 30 USD.

Last week, I pre-ordered the May 5 issue of British music magazine NME to get a free copy of Coldplay's new single "Violet Hill." The magazine itself cost only 1.87 British pounds -- roughly 5 USD -- but the total came out to 8.10 pounds. That's 6.23 -- more than 10 bucks -- in shipping costs!

It'll be worth it once I spin that "7 vinyl on my record player. But, like any self-respecting consumer, I still had to whine a little.