Were you curious as to whether Ticketmaster is still an awful company? They are!

Tickets at Nationwide Arena are available exclusively through Ticketmaster. That should make it super easy to find tickets, and maybe even translate into reduced service charges for Nationwide events. It doesn’t.

For one, locating seats and figuring out what they’ll cost takes an elaborate hokey-pokey of clicking through calendars and lists. Is the game you’re interested in linked on the Jackets’ home page? I hope you didn’t expect that shiny red “Tickets” button to take you straight to a purchasing page for that game. No, it’s going to drop you on a screen listing all the games, with a separate link for each package deal. If you found a game next month on the Jackets’ site, you’ll have to find it again on Ticketmaster.com before you can search for tickets. If you want to compare prices for a package versus a block of individual seats, you’re going to click roughly 900 times.

And don’t forget! Ticketmaster’s website is so mind-bogglingly handy, they’re going to tack on a convenience charge – but only after you’ve completed the Seat Search Kabuki. Were you buying package seats because of their reasonable advertised price? Sorry, sucker!

When last I complained about the stupid fees Ticketmaster adds to the price of every ticket, it was $4 per ticket to order online. The “convenience” charge has since gone up 50% …in less than a year. Great way to keep people attending events during an economic slump! Charging nearly $200 for $150 worth of tickets is a perfect strategy for getting butts in seats.

The Jackets remain desperate for ticket sales, churning out new package deals – the “Ticket and Meal Deal,” “Guys Night Out,” various promotions around Christmas and New Year’s Eve – while the team stumbles and the organization tries to shake down the taxpayers. Would it make a huge difference if the cheapest tickets weren’t loaded up with a 24% convenience charge? Probably not… but it’d make me less annoyed, and it seems fair to guess I’m not the only one.

Good news for anyone thinking about watching President Obama’s first State of the Union address at 9:00pm – you can skip it. How have I reached this conclusion? Obama’s speech will be followed by a Thursday announcement of $8billion in ’stimulus’ funds being devoted to another idiotic liberal pet project:

President Obama is going to Florida on Thursday to reveal how his administration will divvy up $8 billion in high-speed rail funding, but the good news will whistle all the way up to the Buckeye State, say Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Rep Mary Jo Kilroy, D-Columbus.

Passenger rail is wonderful, because it gets citizens into government subsidized trains and out of those terrible, Gaia-killing automobiles. Amtrak has a proven, storied history and should be grown with taxpayer money at every opportunity… except that it doesn’t, and it shouldn’t:

According to a U.S. Department of Transporta­tion (USDOT) report in December 2004, Amtrak is by far the most heavily subsidized mode of travel in the U.S. Between its huge federal subsidies and its minuscule share of the intercity passenger market (less than 1 percent), Amtrak costs $210.31 per passenger per 1,000 miles, compared to $4.66 for intercity buses and $6.18 for commercial airlines in FY 2002.

Ok, so Amtrak makes a business of suckling at the public teat. But it’s for a good cause! Think of how many citizens will benefit from the several hundred million in pocket change our elected betters want to throw at this project!

An Amtrak study last fall said about 478,000 passengers would ride medium-speed trains connecting Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati. The line would require about $17 million a year in subsides.

Based on the Amtrak estimate, a number of people less than 5% of Ohio’s population would use the system. 478,000 / 11,485,910 = 4.16%. Senator Sherrod Brown could not be happier with his ability to bring home the bacon:

“This is some of the best news we have had in a long time,” Brown said. “If I put my ear down to the rail I think I hear a train coming.”

If I put my ear down to the rail I think I hear a senator giddy about blowing taxpayer funds on something 95% of Ohioans won’t use. I’m sure it will create enough jobs to be worth $17,000,000 a year in subsidies, because liberals always carefully justify every expenditure.

Brown contends the federal stimulus spending on rail is evidence that the Obama administration wants to spend more on the nation’s infrastructure needs and less on “tax cuts for the rich and the war in Iraq.”

This is extremely encouraging. Put photos of his posterior, a hole in the ground, and a viable business plan in front of the Senator, and he can’t identify a single thing. He can, however, puke up some liberal boilerplate about that horrible George W. Bush cutting taxes and killing terrorists.

Famous last words:

You always double down on an eleven.

And:

“The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office,” Obama said. “People are angry, and they’re frustrated. Not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years.“

Massachusetts elected a Republican senator for the first time in decades, after a year of backroom deals and hapless foreign policy from Democrats. Clearly it’s a sign that people still haven’t stopped fuming about that doggone George W. Bush! Of all the ways President Obama could have responded to Scott Brown’s victory, this is the dumbest.

But wait, there’s more! Obama, who has subjected all the galaxy to a nearly constant barrage of his face and voice, needs to communicate more so we understand the things he’s doing for us. To help with that effort, the White House is bringing on Obama ‘08 campaign manager David Plouffe. It’ll be just like old times! It’s not at all ridiculous for a leftist empty suit to renew his focus on marketing rather than shifting towards the electorate.

My favorite commentary on President Obama’s reaction to the loss of Ted Kennedy’s seat comes courtesy of Mark Steyn, for the Orange County Register:

Got it. People are so angry and frustrated at George W. Bush that they’re voting for Republicans. In Massachusetts. Boy, I can’t wait for that 159th interview.

Presumably, the president isn’t stupid enough actually to believe what he said. But it’s dispiriting to discover he’s stupid enough to think we’re stupid enough to believe it.

Maybe this touchy whining is a knee-jerk reaction, to be smoothed over by a sleek, centrist State of the Union address on Wednesday. Or maybe I’m a bigger lightweight than I realized, and I’m completely soused after the single High Life I had with dinner.