I am some kind of pissed off about this whole White House Easter Egg Roll debacle. I am all for using technology, but sometimes the good ole fashioned, tried & true method is the way to go. If you are going to use online ticketing system, you would think that based on the demand level for the Inauguration that you would beef up your server capacity or add more. BUT NOOOOO! Here are the other things that the idjit who came up with this online ticketing didn't consider....* Isn't this supposed to be open and available to everybody and anybody? What about those people who don't have a computer, high speed Internet ect? They could have stood in line like everybody else (FOR YEARS - it wasn't broke, why fix it) to have a chance for tickets. A whole group of people eliminated from a chance at this event.
* Are the people in California who get tickets (or anywhere else out of state) really gonna get on a plane and come here for the Egg Roll? In this here economy? Really. Or do you think that some people will just scalp them on E.B.ay, Crai.gs.Lis.t or where ever to make a buck? And even if the powers that be made that impossible via requiring ID or something, do you think that will stop them from selling them anyway and suckering people out of the event & their money?
* That there are plenty of people looking for anything to hammer another nail into the alleged coffin of our President for the appearance of elitism to an excuse to say that if they can get something as simple as an Egg Roll ticket system right then what makes us think that they can fix something big...like the economy. WHY GIVE THE DETRACTORS ANY AMMUNITION?
And to really piss me off, every time I got back to try again, I am reminded to NOT forget to PURCHASE the souvenir White House Egg. GTFOOH!.
Here is the message I've been getting (or some version of it) for the past 4 hours:
Thank you for your patience. Ticket demand for the 2009 White House Egg Roll is exceptionally high. We apologize for any difficulty in reserving the tickets. If you did not receive a confirmation page then you were not able to successfully secure tickets at that time. Tickets are not available at this time. Tickets will be available at various times through the day ONLINE ONLY. If you were unable to order tickets, please check back later. Please note that only a limited number of tickets are available.
So, after 4 hours of refreshing and trying over and over, I get in around 2pm. ONLY TO GET EVEN MORE FRIGGIN PISSED THE EFF OFF! So you select a time, you select how many tickets you want and guess what you get: "We were not able to find that many tickets in that section." So you keep trying every different time slot for the tickets you want and each time you get the same message, or it times out on you, or your computer doesn't connect and your have to go back and start all over. Then I started trying the minimum ticket number (1 kid, 1 adult) for every available time slot (took 45 minutes of going back and forth) to be told AGAIN that they were not able to find that many tickets in that time section. WHY DON'T YOU JUST GIVE ME WHAT EVER THE EFF IS AVAILABLE FOR THE FRIGGIN TIME AVAILABLE AND LET ME LIVE WITH IT? Take a clue from Ticketmaster...BEST TICKETS AVAILABLE.
This whole system was BULLSHYT and I'm done.
That was the biggest cluster F*&K I have ever participated in. EVER. I'm so hot, you could fry an egg on my forehead. I need a drink. I hope it pours down rain on the White House Easter Bunny. Take your souvenir egg and shove it.
