End of an era

A polite request:

From: Stacey Xxxxxxxx
To: Rob Huck
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2008 9:40 AM
Subject: Flames game pack- PLEASE RESPOND

Hello,

My name is Stacey Xxxxxxx and I am your personal Calgary Flames Account Manager. I am contacting you regarding your Flame playoff tickets and next season’s game pack. The due date for the renewal was March 14th and our records indicate we haven’t heard back from you. We want you to be a part of it!

If you would like to pick up your playoff tickets and your 2008-2009 game pack(s) please call me directly at 777-XXXX or email me at xxxxxxx@calgaryflames.com. I hope that you can understand that with the demand for playoff tickets, we would like to hear from you as soon as possible.

Respectfully,

Stacey Xxxxxx
Account Manager, Customer Service
Calgary Flames Hockey Club
Ph: 777-XXXX Fax: 777-XXXX
xxxxxx@calgaryflames.com

And my reply:

From: Rob Huck
To: Stacey Xxxxxx
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2008 11:25 AM
Subject: Re: Flames game pack- PLEASE RESPOND

Stacey

Thanks for your persistence.

My friends and I have been game pack holders since 2004, and we’re faithful followers of the team. Unfortunately, the Flames have priced us out of the picture. We cannot afford the playoffs, and the game pack prices for next season are far too high as well.

When we first got our packages, we had terrific seats throughout the 2004 post-season, but then our seats got progressively worse for exceedingly higher prices. Couple this with the fact that we are only guaranteed one post-season game during the past two playoffs, and those seats are high up in the nosebleeds, and you can understand why we are less than willing to dig deeper in our pockets for live hockey action.

We understand the principles of supply-and-demand, and we are not bitter about the steep rise in ticket prices over the past few years. However, we are somewhat disappointed in the lack of loyalty displayed by the team for those fans who have been customers for several years. When we pay more and more, we could hope to have at least seats of the same value, if not better. Alas, this is not the case.

As such, we regretfully have to decline our seats and will now spend our money in the pubs who show the same game with a better view for the price of a few beers (which cost less and taste better than the heroin lagers we’re forced to sip at the Dome), or else stay at home and cheer on the good guys.

In any case, the only way we’ll be seeing any hockey at the Saddledome in the next few seasons is if some corporate seats fall our way, or else to see the Hitmen. Then again, the Calgary Royals and Canucks offer far better value for our hockey dollars and we might just offer our loyalty to those amateur teams who would appreciate some new fans.

Thanks again for your concern.

Go Flames Go.

Rob Huck

Sigh.

Brain-dead no longer

Sage words from one of the few genius talents in the entertainment industry:

I’d observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving the world a good run for its money, but that nonetheless, people in general seem to get from day to day; and that we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances—that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired—in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.

For the Constitution, rather than suggesting that all behave in a godlike manner, recognizes that, to the contrary, people are swine and will take any opportunity to subvert any agreement in order to pursue what they consider to be their proper interests.

To that end, the Constitution separates the power of the state into those three branches which are for most of us (I include myself) the only thing we remember from 12 years of schooling.

The Constitution, written by men with some experience of actual government, assumes that the chief executive will work to be king, the Parliament will scheme to sell off the silverware, and the judiciary will consider itself Olympian and do everything it can to much improve (destroy) the work of the other two branches. So the Constitution pits them against each other, in the attempt not to achieve stasis, but rather to allow for the constant corrections necessary to prevent one branch from getting too much power for too long.

Rather brilliant.

Sorry

I was helping out a candidate during the provincial election, then I got a cold and didn’t feel like doing anything. Thus, no blogging.

More on the election to come.

In the meantime, try this on for size. (I scored 98.)