It should be obvious by the post title what I did today.
In the morning I worked on some comics, and also my lesson plan for the older kids’ ethics class on Privacy. But at midday I went out with my wife and we dropped Scully off at doggie daycare and went to watch a movie at the cinema for the first time since before COVID.
I’m a big Indiana Jones fan (as evidenced by Irregular Webcomic!), and I couldn’t miss seeing the new film on the big screen. Usually a Wednesday at lunchtime would be a great time to see a film, with the cinemas not full. But it’s currently school holidays here, so there are lots of kids around and parents desperate to find something to occupy them. So rather than turn up and risk the movie being sold out, I decided to buy tickets online. Simple enough.
I went to the cinema site, selected the session time, got to choose what seats we wanted (middle of the second back row). And then it gave me options to pay by card or PayPal. Since I have some cash in PayPal, I chose that. Okay, good. The cinema sent me an email with a barcode, which I could add into Apple Wallet on my phone, so it could be scanned at the cinema. The instructions in the email said to scan the barcode at the ticket office to collect my tickets. It also said I had to bring with me the credit card I’d used to pay for the tickets, and photo ID. The implication was that if I didn’t bring the credit card, I wouldn’t be able to collect the tickets. But… I’d paid by PayPal…
Well, I didn’t actually think this was a serious problem, but it was slightly annoying that their user interface had given such a useless instruction. As it turned out, I didn’t even have to collect tickets. I went to the ticket office, expecting an automated scanning station that issued the tickets, but I couldn’t find one, and had to ask a staff member, who said that I didn’t need tickets at all. Just show the barcode to the attendant at the door and they’d scan it and let us in. So that’s a second instruction in the email that was completely incorrect.
Anyway, it wasn’t a drama getting in to see the movie – just annoying that the email info was so wrong. We had good seats and saw the movie and had a great time.
Look, I even liked Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, despite the obvious flaws, just because it was Indy, so of course I was going to like this. But it was definitely a better film than that one. I’m very happy I saw it on the big screen.
Tonight: three more ethics classes, and finishing off that lesson on Privacy, ready for 08:00 tomorrow morning.
New content today: