Well, that blew.

So my trip down to the city for the Kathy Griffin signing turned into an unmitigated disaster. After checking the Barnes and Noble website to make sure the event was on, I made my way down to Manhattan.

First stop was Lincoln Center to pick up my tickets for the New York Film Festival. I paid last Monday (8/31) and was told the tickets would be at the box office waiting for me. They weren't. Nobody had brought any of the tickets down for pickup. In the only nice thing that was to happen that evening, Rob, the point man for the tickets, personally came down with just my set to hand them to me and chat for a few seconds. That was incredibly nice of him, I was half expecting to be told just to come back another day.

I then hopped on the subway and made the 30 minute trek down to Warren Street and the B&N. Upon arriving, we were told the following. 1. We HAD to purchase a copy of the book prior to attending the event. 2. If we wanted a book signed, we had to have a colored wristband in order to stand in line. Well, neither of those stipulations were mentioned on the website. It turned out that people had been buying books and lining up since 6:00AM. There were nearly 1000 people in line, and the chances of a signature were almost nil. Undaunted, I hopped on line to get the book. With only 4 people left in front of me, the store announced that they had run out of copies of the book, but I could buy an audio copy if I wished. No thanks, I'll wait until I'm blind for audio books.

Ok, I figured I'd still stand by the crowd and watch the event, just not be able to get anything signed. Sigh. The line for the event snaked in and out of nearly every aisle of the store. Then it turned out that the event was being held in a small corner, one that was unviewable unless you were directly in front of it, which the people aced out of books could not get to. So I stood there and listened to Kathy talk for only 6 minutes before sitting down to sign.

Dejected, I made my way back uptown and went to the Barnes and Noble on 67th Street and bought a copy of the book there. I got home and went to look through it only to discover that a printing error covered a number of the pages in large ink blotches, rendering the book worthless. I'll need to exchange it.

So basically, I blew $50 on a trip to the city to listen to Kathy Griffin speak for 6 minutes without being able to see her. Not a pleasant evening.