I thought this year, I would like to go to Blizzcon. There hasn't been one for a while, and I'm pretty good with the finances at the moment, so it would be a fantastic family holiday.
I told Pel and she said she and Balinar/Xarek would go as well if we went, so we made a pact and tried to get tickets for each other. Hyad said he would go, and Lushnek was also keen to go.
So, on the first release, we were all poised with our mouse buttons to buy our tickets, and we all ended up above 8000 in the queue. Tickets were sold out by the first 3000 I think, so none of us got tickets. I was really sad. I had been looking forward to going, and even hyped up the kids about going to Disneyland. Probably explains why I was so down in the dumps and sensitive about my healing on Tortos on Thursday.
So the second round was today. There were a few hints by some people about how to get tickets - you don't have to select 4 on the dropdown menu, you can just leave the default as 1 and then hit purchase, which will shave at least half a second to a second off the time it takes to queue. Then, you can purchase a greater number of tickets at the checkout. Others talked about having your mouse poised over where the purchase button was going to be so as soon as it refreshed and the button appeared you were ready to click.
I was as quick as I could and I was just over 5000 in the queue, but Pel and Balinar were much better and were sub 4000, so they got our tickets for us. I was so excited, I could hardly sleep after that! Then I had to wait for hubby to get up so I could confirm the days to go.
Babysitting is the big thing - I can't take the kids to Blizzcon! So I need someone to look after them. I had played with a few options of how we were going to do it and I've decided that I would have to bring my own babysitter, someone I trust, with me. I would pay for their airline ticket and accommodation for the 2 days but the rest of the time they would babysit for free and then the rest of the days they sort out themselves. Sound fair? Or too harsh? Anyway, there is no shortage of people who want to do that for me, so the hard part now is choosing who to take - the nanny my kids had over the last two years, my sister-in-law or parents? Not an easy choice (nor a cheap one either!).
So, I see lots of twitter peeps and bloggers will be heading out to Blizzcon - perhaps I can Navispam them in real life! :) So for all you guys who got tickets - I'll see you there! I'll probably be wearing a T-shirt with my chibi Navimie avatar on it, if anyone is looking for me. For all those who didn't get tickets, I'm sorry, and hope you get a bargain on Ebay if you really want to go still and hopefully I will see you!