So lemme tell you about the Troy experience. On Monday, I lined up to get Troy tickets for Thursday night. Got there at 10 for the 10:45 pass-out. The line reached from the Bearcade to the entrance of the Cesar Chavez Center. It eventually reached from there to the bus stops on Bancroft. The line finally moved, but getting tickets proved elusive as they ran out in about 10 minutes.

The next day, more tickets were given out and I was in a better spot to receive them.

Flash forward to today. Datman can't join me so Hai stepped in his place. Getting out of poli sci at around 3, I noticed there were already people in line, so I advised Hai we should go at 5. The line was at a pretty good length, probably 200 people ahead of us. So we waited around. Hai got some Thai food and I got some sodas. We had a blast. Little did we know that 300 people were cutting in line in front of us. I know, it shouldn't be hard to notice but we were powerless to stop them. It didn't help when the Superb folks told people to make a snake line. That just opened it up for the cutters.

Lemme stop here for an aside. The best way to handle long lines like this is to have somebody from Superb join the line really early, like at 3:00, to hand out numbers to everyone. That way, that selected person could be at the end of the line at all times to hand out numbers and tell them to get back at a certain time. This rewards the people who get there early and wouldn't have to subject us to waiting in line for a long time. Then, about 45 minutes before the show starts, call out the numbers and if they're not there, tough. The way it was tonite, they let people line up before giving out numbers, allowing people to contact friends and allow them to sneak in line, which is totally unfair.

So, their allotment of 500 numbers was gone and we were there about 20 people behind. Things were getting out of control. The usually calm Asian guy was yelling at people to stick to the line. Some white guy was telling everyone without a number to go home. People were rushing the line hoping to be the unofficial number 501. Eventually, after all the waiting, the crowd behind us dwindled and we were suddenly at the end of the line. Everyone around us was getting frustrated. Finally, after 3 hours, the line moved and let the 500 people in, leaving us in limbo. Finally, the lady in charge said 50 more people could get in, ensuring us of seats. We seat back, relax, and enjoy the show.

Or do we? Admittedly, the first 30 minutes of Troy is really cheesy, with long shots of Brad Pitt, overly dramatic lines, and a pretty unnecessary scene of Orlando Bloom and Diane Kruger naked. Once it starts getting interesting with the thousand ships headed toward Troy, flashing lights appear. Alarms go off. Somebody has pulled the fire alarm. The projector turns off. Everyone evacuates. We are suddenly in limbo again. Once the people in charge say it would take 60 more minutes on top of the 15-20 we had been out there to clear the building, we give up. Hai and I are outta there. We'll just go watch Troy next week.