Big Names

Today, I learned that if any somewhat big name artist (musical that is) performs (in this case Girl Talk), or is planned to perform at a small enough college campus (a population of about 3000) somehow they can sell enough tickets to account for about half the population (1500 exactly). I find it hard to believe that there are 1500 people that want to go see the show, especially since the tickets, and entry to the event, are restricted to students and other members of the campus community (i.e. professors and administration). But the sale is easily possible, you see, because of the hype surrounding the event. The hype, and the limited number of tickets causes a gigantic rush to buy as many as possible (in this case 5 was the limit per person) because everyone believes that they will be able to sell them for much more than the original price. Of course, some people are going to lose out because they will be unable to sell their tickets for more than they paid, if they are even able to sell them at all.

In this case, the news that Girl Talk was performing came out last night and tickets came on sale this morning at, I'm guessing, 10 am. Within the first hour there were only 600 tickets left. By 1 pm they were sold out, all 1500 of them. When I arrived the line almost stretched out of the building, and considering I have never seen the line longer than 4 people, usually in the same group, this was incredible. I decided to go get lunch and wait for the line to die down but when I came back it was even longer.

So, the moral of the story is, up the hype, create demand, limit supply. Make people go so crazy that they don't even think logically (or logistically, I'm not sure).

I admit though, I'm one of those people who bought 5.

yay blogging!

so instead of doing my homework on a monday evening, i have been honored with an invitation to contribute fun facts of knowledge to michael's blog! i actually learned a lot of things today (surprise surprise) but i'll limit it to two things: something educational, and something random.

first. i went to a lecture given by dr. steve miller from harvard about the iraq war and the current war on terrorism... not exactly for kicks, but because it was "strongly strongly recommended" by my govt professor. anyhow, he split up his lecture into three parts. first, what were the original objectives in the iraq war? second, what have been the costs? finally, what is the situation now? the most interesting part was the conclusion, when he said that though we don't know what will happen in the future, it seems that the costs have greatly outweighed the benefits already - regardless of how the situation ends, it is impossible justify the huge cost (diplomatic, reputational, military) that america has already paid. also, i learned that obama plans to remove troops from iraq to put them in afghanistan. oh politics.

second. something more fun!
what is the second most common cause of death in birds? cats!
what is the primary cause of death in birds? buildings and other stationery objects!
fun fact that i learned from kara during intl politics last week.

another fun fact:
less than a month until winter break :)

aerogram

Here goes the first post!

So something I learned recently was that there existed this thing called an aerogram (somewhat still in existence but mostly out of date around these parts). Odd huh? I've never heard of it before, and weirder still, I learned it from my Chinese textbook, which requires me to learn how to write it in Chinese. Kind of ridiculous if you ask me. Anyhow, I looked it up (because even my Chinese teacher had no idea what it was) and apparently it's basically a letter (but with more durable paper) that you can send without an envelope. Sort of like a postcard I guess, except instead of being a card, it's more of a full sized paper. Oh, and apparently you fold it too, so all your love letters to your significant other won't be read by just any unwilling passerby, thereby saving them from its cheesiness (that would probably describe anything I wrote more than anything else, I'm sure your love letters are perfectly thoughtful). Anyone who actually wanted to read it however, such as your significant other's parents or whatnot.

Just in case anyone's curious these little deals started being used, essentially, during WWII when Lieutenant Colonel R. E. Evans, Royal Engineers, Assistant Director Army Postal Service Middle East Force (MEF) suggested their use for air mail purposes (Wikipedia). Just so you don't begin to doubt yourself over a lack of knowledge, aerograms are pretty out of date (at least in the U.S.) as evidenced by the fact that they have stopped printing them in this country and will stop using them once the current supply runs empty (also from the same article on Wikipedia).

So that's all for now,
until next time,
Michael Yu