There's A Party On The Rooftop Top Of The World

Here they are, the 6 coolest things I've done this month:

1) Bought, sold and bought tickets to the MLB All-Star game. Yes, you read that correctly. The All-Star game is down in Phoenix this year. (Side note, I never spell Phoenix right on the first try. I always wait for the red squiggly line to tell me "Hey, numbskull, switch the o and the e. You should know this. You temporarily lived just down the road.") So, a bunch of buddies and I started looking into getting tickets for it. They were going for a minimum of $200 a piece on the secondary market. Then I looked into how much they were face value and noticed there was a large gap between the two. The only catch was you had to be a season ticket holder to get the face value prices.

Did I become a season ticket holder? Yes, yes I did. A half-season ticket holder to be specific. The numbers told me that if I sold out the rest of the season at 80% of the current market prices for the section I was looking out, I could go to the All-Star game for only about $150 a ticket, and sit in the lower bowl. However, I also saw that the tickets in my section for the All-star game were going at 2x face value. So I listed them. Taking out fees and what-not, if they sold, I would turn about $300 profit. I like $300 profit.

I told my dad about this, who told me that he would like to go to the game. I let him know that I listed my tickets and if they sold for 2x what I paid, I'm going to take it and figure out what to do later. My dad, the businessman, said, "Of course you would. $300 profit is great." So that's what happened. Thing is, my dad already booked us airfare to go down for the game. And the tickets sold. So now I have $300 profit, plus my original costs, but no tickets. Not to worry.

I first went to the Diamondbacks directly to see if there was a chance I could get another pair at face value. Not surprisingly, they're sold out, so it was back to the secondary market. I reviewed some prices and realized that there were a set of four that were undervalued by about $100 at the minimum. I know this because they are in the section next to the one I used to hold tickets for, and were listed at $100 less than what mine sold. I only needed 2 to get in to the game, but I figured, "Why not buy all four and capitalize that $100 or so arbitrage?"

So I did. And now I've got two tickets in hand, and have re-listed the other two at the appropriate pricing. That's meals and a souvenir from the trip right there.

Hence, I bought, sold and bought (and hoping to sell) tickets to the All-Star game.

2) Became published. It's not as glamorous as you might think, but I found a way to get my entire blog, comments and all, printed, bound and shipped for under $5. Under $4 if you want to get technical. It took some wizardry and a couple different websites, but now I have this entire blog from the first post in January 2008, to the one right before this one in June 2011 in paperback form. It's 152 pages of awesomeness sitting on my living room table. Be jealous.

3) Shot a video where I danced like Napoleon Dynamite while wearing a Darth Vader mask. I guess I should have started that with a spoiler alert, but oh well. Same buddies I talked about going down to the All-Star game with decided to spoof a number of movie scenes with Star Wars characters. They're the ones that made "Primeday", the "Friday" spoof. If you haven't seen it on youtube, I would recommend. Pro-tip, the director's wife sung the lyrics on it. She's operatically trained, so she actually had to step-down her vocal talents a couple notches to get it as eerily similar as it is.

I'm still not sure how I got nominated to do this, given I physically look nothing like him. He's like 6'3" 160 pounds of flesh and bone. I'm 5'10" and about 180 pounds with occasional muscles lying under my skin (At one point they said to me "You need to look a little more defeated. You're a bit too built so try and look weaker." I already had the mask on, or they would have seen me blush and giggle). Either way, they asked me to do it. Let me tell you this: the choreography makes no sense. You watch it and it looks interesting. Then you try and mimic it, and you notice 2 things. First, no way he did this all in one shot. A couple times he magically transports across the stage. Second, no way someone actually defined the necessary steps for this routine. Not possible. Both of these are troubles for me, because I like to be exact. Needless to say, do not be expecting a mirror image of the actual dance. It didn't happen. I got the main, memorable moves, but the transitions and fillers are nothing like the originals. I have no clue when this will hit the internet, or if it will. I hope they'll let me know, and then I'll post the link here.

4) Won $70 at a golf course. Yep. Sure did. Last Saturday, Mike, his dad, and his brother joined me for a round at Sleepy Ridge. For those of you wondering, yes, I do live on the course, and yes, I did drive over to the clubhouse. I did, however, walk the round.

Back to the main point. They had a game on the 4th hole, a par 3. Wager up to $100. If you hit the green, you win even money. If you miss it, you get a gift certificate to the pro shop of the amount of your initial wager. I knew that the 10-round pass was $140, so I wagered $70 and drilled a 7-iron 165 yards onto the front of the green. Thank you very much for the 50% discount off my pass. Two-putted to make par. I should mention that this came on the heels of a chip in from the fringe for a birdie on the 3rd hole. Anytime I can write down consecutive 3's on my scorecard, things are going well for me. And anytime I can save $70, things are going really well for me.

5) Getting a free back pack. Ok, this one hasn't happened yet, but the gears have been put in motion. For about a month, I had noticed that some of my shirts were getting these red stains on their shoulders. At first I thought it was these dryer balls that I tried. So I threw them out, but was shocked to see the problem recurring. After that, I wasn't sure what the problem was. Then, one day I was walking back from the gym and had my hands under my shoulder straps. I felt something sticky. Turns out that the red plastic that they had used to create a cushion has degraded and melted through the strap cloth and onto about 8 of my dress shirts.

Now, I've had this backpack for at least 7 years now. Maybe longer. Not real sure. Either way, I sent an email to JanSport letting them know that their product has an issue that might need to get looked into. The next morning they sent me an email saying they would be happy to replace the backpack, as well as re-imburse for the damaged shirts. I dug up receipts from three years ago, put everything together, and shipped it all off on Saturday. Needless to say, that company has impressed me. If you're in the market for a backpack, please go with JanSport. They'll treat you right and replace your backpack even if breaks down a decade or so after the purchase.

6) Wrote this blog post.

Word.