Pilpul, People Who Need Pilpul

Here I am, like every good rockshow-attending citizen, banging away at Ticketmaster’s site, trying to score Guns n’ Roses tickets.  Again and again, I dutifully enter the presale password – “Democracy” in action, har – and stare at the psychedelic gobbledygook the system spits back at me.

The “Word Verification.”  To make sure I’m not some scalper’s robot.

The best scalpers, of course, have connections that’ll get them their tickets from pre-sale allotments.  But it’s important to limit the activity of the poorly-connected scalpers, and that’s why I’m sitting here squinting at a series of letters that may or may not spell “oomiac.”  Hard to tell.  The symbols themselves appear to have scoliosis; behind them is a distracting splash of wavy gravy, in front a grid that looks like a screen door someone tried to punch through, once.  It’s a mystery behind an enigma blahblah conundrum.

Perhaps if I held the screen up to a mirror...

There’s really no need to worry this much:  Offer an incorrect response and the system just coughs up another graphic.  But it feels like a test.  My brain wants to recognize that thing.  A self-delusional psychological reward system is at work:  If I knew the word, those tickets would be mineminemine.

As if “oomiac” is a word.  It says “Word Verification,” but these could very well be a random series of letters some stoned T’master intern toked up.  Phooey.

“Oomiac” does get me through, but there aren’t any tickets.  I keep trying, hoping for some kickbacks.  More verification nonsense:  Gabeler.  Aliform.  Extatic, and Extatic again.  Pilpul, Smiddy, Grysbok, Adunc.

Senator.

Well, crap, that’s a word.  I hit the dictionary.  Turns out a “gabeler” is a tax collector, “aliform” means “shaped like a wing,” and “extatic” is just an alternate spelling for “ecstatic.”  A “pilpul” is a “penetrating investigation, disputation, and drawing of conclusions, esp. in Talmudic study.”

Clearly I have not gotten Guns n’ Roses tickets because my vocabulary is lacking.

Don’t worry.  I have a plan.  By combining the impenetrability of our least-revered online ticket broker with a common circadian institution I means to learn me some of them ten-dollar words.  It’ll take a while, but by the end of next year I’ll be guaranteed* a spot in front of any over-the-hill act that decides to shamelessly bilk its fans in 2008.

And you could be**, too:

Introducing The (Un)Official Ticketbastard Word-Verification-a-Day calendar.  365 pages, almost every one*** featuring a scrawly-crawly image from Ticketmaster’s site supplemented with a pronunciation guide and definition.  Just look how easy it is!

All this for the low-low price of $19.99 (plus a 30-cent-per-page Binding Fee and a one-time five-dollar Processing Fee; expedited shipping available for an additional charge)!  Act now!

By the way:  An “Oomiac” is a long, broad boat used by Eskimos.  So if you see some Inuit pumping his harpoon in the air during “Welcome to the Jungle,” let the fucker know he’s got my ticket.

* No guarantees

** Again, no guarantees.

*** To throw off hackers, some pages contain slightly-altered reprints of “Get Fuzzy.”

*

Quick American Idol thoughts:

• Thought the judges were unfairly harsh on McPhee.  She brought it.  And by “it” I mean “them.”


• Even a blind man can tell Pickler’s blonde.  Hope she doesn’t get voted off – every week there’s a new Picklerism to treasure (“I don’t have anybody to play pottery with”) – but if she does, I hope she winds up on that Flavor Flav show.


• Always shocked when, during Taylor’s performances, there are “friends” or “family” in the audience.

*

Isn’t it a bit soon to remake Cast Away?

tags: guns n roses  goal  kelly pickler  ticketmaster  american idol  katherine mcphee  taylor hicks  fun with ms paint  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    reddit