Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Another Dumb Criminal, + How Ticket Sites Could Work

I read this bizarre story on the train this morning, and am convinced now more than ever that the intelligent criminal is the rarest of species. This guy accuses a recently-fired employee of having an affair with his fiancee, and fires a few shots at him with his shotgun. But the defendant claims that it was an accident, he was going to offer the shotgun (and a big-ass knife) as a parting gift to the ex-employee, who he considered "a real woodsman", when he tripped and the gun went off. Riiiight! Maybe he meant to say that he was going to offer the shotgun slugs to the guy's chest, and the knife to his back? To top it all off, the defendant runs an nonprofit organic farm that provides food for soup kitchens. Apparently even the most charitable among us aren't immune to crimes of passion. Once again, I'm sure glad I live in the City and not the County - those County people are nuts!

As I continue the saga of trying to obtain Police tour tickets, I came upon mention of Scarlet Mist, one of several UK-based ticket sales and exchange sites, upon which users can only buy and sell tickets at face value. What a fantastic idea, and it seems to work too! Granted, for most of the listed events no tickets were currently on sale, but there was some availability for big names like Ricky Gervais and Justin Timberlake. I couldn't find a U.S. equivalent; can we get one of these sites over here?

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