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As you’re all probably aware of by now, German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has been elected as the 265th Pope of the Catholic church (as little as I care, from what I understand they couldn’t have elected a less progressive pontiff if their afterlives depended on it). After being elected, he named himself Pope Benedict XVI. Seeing as how John Paul II was Pope from the time I was born until he just died, I wasn’t aware that a Pope could just assign himself a new name.

I wonder if this guy, in the days leading up to his election, sat around thinking about how sweet it would be if he won and what bitchin’ Pope name he was planning on using. The whole thing just seems very comical to me, like a bunch of teenage kids sitting in a garage trying to come up with a cool name for their band. Maybe he had a handful of names that were just too sweet to decide on, so he put them in the giant Pope hat and picked one out and got Benedict XVI. Rock on, new Pope. Rock on.

Friday night I went to a Pacers game with Brad, as he wanted to go to Reggie Miller’s last regular season home game. Turns out that’s on a Tue night this week or something, so he settled for second-to-last. We stopped at BW3 for dinner beforehand, then made our way to the game about 30 minutes before tipoff. We got the gate where they scan your ticket to let you in, and after Brad went in, I gave the guy my ticket and he said, “That’s a receipt.”

At this point I’d like to interject my belief that tickets and receipts for said tickets should not BOTH be printed on the same ticket paper. You’re just asking for trouble.

I told Brad to get the envelope out that the tickets were in, and Brad tells me that he threw them away in the garbage can by the bus stop across the street. After getting assured by the ticket guy that Brad would be able to get back in if we went thru the same gate (there are no passes out at the games), we were off to the bus stop.

In what was easily the funniest moment of the evening, Brad proceeded to stick his hand in the garbage can to retrieve the envelope. I don’t know what made it so funny, but I was cracking up. The envelope was retrieved, but it was suddenly empty. Brad began dissecting the contents of his wallet, and repeatedly looking back into the small brown envelope (not sure if he was expecting it to re-appear or what, but it was funny), but there was no sign of the missing ticket. Back to the Fieldhouse to talk to someone at the ticket window!

We eventually got a hand-written replacement ticket after they checked the credit card Brad used to buy the tickets and confirmed his ID. Unfortunately, the Pacers lost, but it was a good game and I had a good time hanging out.

In light of recent developments, the previously mentioned “scientific” post has been delayed since I haven’t really felt like doing everything necessary to get it done. It’s still in the hopper, though.