Well, that was a waste of a day.
My wristband number was more than 4,500 numbers away from the one drawn this morning, so I figured it'd be till the end of today at best, before my number was called. I finally drove over to the Yard about 4:30, learned that the number going in at that time was still about 2000 from getting to me, that they were definitely cutting off wristband sales at 6 pm CT, so I gave up and went home -- but not before handing out some flyers promoting this very website, so if you are one of the people I gave a Bleed Cubbie Blue handout to, welcome!
I'm starting at the end of the day, of course.
I blame Fox News Chicago for part of the Internet debacle today. Yesterday, Fox decided to tell of the "secrets" that some of us have known for quite a long time, about how to use multiple browser windows, etc. to increase our chances of getting through the dreaded Virtual Waiting Room.
Well, if everyone knows about this, it's not much of a secret, is it?
I put about 100 VWR's out there first thing this morning -- too many, as it turned out. At 10:20 my computer crashed and I had to start over. It crashed again at 11:50, during which time I was continually dialing the phone number (that crashed my phone number for a time -- I dialed the number from my cellphone and it said it was being "checked for trouble").
No luck on any of these fronts.
Fortunately, I had a small army of friends and friends of friends helping out. By 3:00 or so, various people had gotten me about 46 tickets for a number of games, and at 5:30 I finally got through on the phone and was able to order one game myself.
UPDATE [2005-2-25 18:30:06 by Al]: Since 6:00 CT I have gotten through on the phone several more times to order other games.
The Cubs had put the one-game-per-call limit on their website long ago, but apparently some early phone-order people actually got multiple games, due to phone operators not understanding the rules. These people will be disappointed (and perhaps angry) to learn that they will have all their orders cancelled except the first game they ordered.
As of now, 6:10 pm CT, the following games are sold out or have only scattered single seats:
Apr 8 vs. Brewers
May 20 vs. White Sox
May 21 vs. White Sox
May 22 vs. White Sox
May 28 vs. Rockies
June 10 vs. Red Sox
June 11 vs. Red Sox
June 12 vs. Red Sox
July 16 vs. Pirates
Aug 12 vs. Cardinals
Aug 13 vs. Cardinals
Aug 14 vs. Cardinals
Aug 27 vs. Marlins
Aug 28 vs. Marlins
Sep 17 vs. Cardinals
Sep 18 vs. Cardinals