i got Star Wars tickets! nyah!

that's right. you heard me correctly. thursday, may 20, at 5:25p i will be happily seated in a, hopefully, good seat, dead-center in the theater, waiting for the previews to start.

i couldn't believe i got tickets. when the dates were first announced, i had resigned to not be able to see the show until a month after opening day. i didn't exactly want to spend a good chunk of time waiting in line, not matter how big a fan i was. it just wasn't worth it to be "first". and i was perfectly happy to wait.

then they announced they were going to allow advanced sales of tickets. and i thought, "hey, i can do that. i have a phone. i have a computer. i can get tickets!" so wednesday at noon came, and i tried logging into MovieFone, 333Film and MovieLink (which are all, it turns out, the same website -- MovieFone), and i tried calling. busy. very busy. i spent most of my afternoon hitting redial. any spare moment i had, i was redialing. i started at noon and it took me until four-fifteen to get through.

i almost peed my pants when i did. the phone started to ring and i wasn't quite sure what to do. i had all but given up at that point. and when i heard, "Welcome to Movie Phone!" i was in heaven. and after a few minutes of key punching and one brief instant when i looked like my credit card wasn't going to go through, i had four tickets to see Star Wars the day after opening. who'da thunk it?

i said it before and i'll say it again, lucky me.

two things happened to spoil my fun and excitement, and one to regain them again. for starters, Julie suddenly realized she had a final that very Thursday and couldn't make it. Matt was dealing with a satellite launch and wouldn't be there. everyone else was elsewhere and elsehow. and there was no way i was going to the "cultural event of our generation" by myself.

so i went to the theater and asked nicely if i could instead have tickets for Friday. sure, they said. no problem, they replied. so great.

Friday, Julie and i walk up to the window and ask for our tickets. except that they seem to have no record of any ticket transaction, even though MovieFone charged my credit card. so bummer. but for some reason, maybe because it's the middle of nowhere Redwood City or maybe because it's three in the afternoon on a Friday, there are plenty of tickets. so we buy two and walk in.

and the movie was good. don't read the reviews, they'll only taint your experience. and try not to spend to much fretting over the horrible Jar Jar Binks character. just go, enjoy, be one with the Force.