… Saturday, May 21st and Wednesday, May 25th!  Woot!

Mark your calendars! Tickets for BlizzCon 2011 will go on sale at on Saturday, May 21 at 10 a.m. PDT and on Wednesday, May 25 at 7 p.m. PDT through the official BlizzCon website (www.blizzcon.com). In addition, a limited number of tickets to an exclusive pre-BlizzCon Benefit Dinner will go on sale Saturday, May 28 at 10 a.m. PDT. BlizzCon tickets will be available at $175 USD each, while tickets to the BlizzCon Benefit Dinner (which include admission to the show) will be priced at $500 each, with proceeds going to benefit Children’s Hospital of Orange County. Tickets to previous BlizzCon shows have sold out within minutes, so be sure to synchronize your hourglasses.

If you can’t make it to the show in person, the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket will once again allow you to watch the event live from the comfort of your own home. The Virtual Ticket will be available as multi-channel Internet stream around the world and also via DIRECTV in the United States.

See the full press release or visit the official BlizzCon website for more information, and we’ll see you at BlizzCon!

I’m a bit torn about the ticket price this year.  Last year, I was willing to pay $150 because it was my first Blizzcon and I wanted to experience it.  Now that I have, and now that I know what to expect, it’s a little harder to justify paying that price.  The big announcement is going to be Diablo 3, which doesn’t interest me at all.  The games they’ll have to play will be Diablo 3, perhaps the next milking expansion of Starcraft, and World of Warcraft.  The swag doesn’t do anything for me – I still have the unclaimed pet card on my desk.

Guess I’ve got a month to figure out what I want to do…

Tickets went on sale tonight at 9pm Central.  After an evening at the gym, followed by a few errands, I’d burned up enough time to be within striking distance of Ticket Time.

8:35 – I sit down at the computer and navigate to the screen where I will be buying tickets.  I go through my Battle.net account to make sure all my information is up to date.  I decide that I can’t stare at the computer for twenty-five minutes or I just may go mad.  Maybe a quick shower and shave would help pass the time.  At the very least, it’ll hose off the remaining gym grime.  Yuck.

8:51 – Having completed the face-shaving portion of my cleansing ritual, I poke my head out of the shower to make sure I have time to complete the head-shaving job.  With only nine minutes to go, and shaving cream running into my eyes (and you thought shampoo burned), I decide not to tempt Fate.  I hop out of the shower and wipe off the remaining foam.  My head looks like some kind of fraternity prank.

8:56 – I commence with the pressing of F5.

8:57 – F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5 F5

8:58 – I suspect that somewhere on my keyboard is a magic button that will get me to the front of the queue.  I cannot afford these sorts of distractions, and the message on the screen mocks me that the tickets are “not yet available”.

8:59 – I press F5 OMG SNUCK IN *click*

(Currently in Queue)

Wait, I was going to get two tickets!  I only ordered one!  Damn my spastic clicking habit!

(Position: 8337 –  Estimated time: 1 hour)

Well it’s better than last year.  Maybe that half-second that I saved by not clicking on the drop-down menu will get me to Blizzcon!

9:03 – Position: 7696, 86% of stock left.  Plenty of tickets yet.  I feel strongly about my chances of getting a ticket.

9:08 – Position: 6918,  71% of stock left.  Strength wavering slightly.  I decide to go watch the hockey game to pass the time.  Wonderful idea lasts all of two minutes before I get up, grab a beer, and return to the computer.

9:17 – Position: 5442, 36% of stock left.  What the Hell?  Everybody must be buying the max number of tickets per click to go down that quickly.  My strenght fades, and I hope for a fluke to get in this time around.

9:19 –  Position: 5157, 30% of stock left.  The feeling of dread has set in, and my odds are not looking so good.   Three thousand people bought tickets so far, and that was 70% of the tickets available.  Basic math is telling me the odds are not in my favor.  Still, I wait for the inevitable.

9:25 – At Position: 4494 in queue when the axe comes down.  Tickets are now Sold Out.

9:27 – Blizzcon 2010 tickets are on sale on Ebay.  The prices range from $350 to $618 per ticket.  I want to force-feed my monitor to these people, and not through their mouthes.

Even worse, I will be AFK on Saturday.  Therefore it looks like Blizzcon 2010 will be Herc-free this year.