Monday, December 19, 2011

Jean Brandau's About.com Blog is USELESS

I wouldn't normally attack someone's blog directly, no matter how badly written or how vehemently I disagreed with the content. But, this is not a simple matter of opinion or taste or difference of viewpoints. This is a matter of someone putting out incorrect and apparently unvalidated information.

Jean Brandau writes a blog on About.com which presumes to include a calendar of events for the Huntsville, AL area. To my detriment, I consulted her calendar of events twice this holiday season, once regarding a skating event at the local ice-plex and again (my mistake) to find out when the Messiah Sing-along would take place.

On both counts Jean's calendar was WRONG. Her dates for both events were off by a week.

I was smart enough to call about the skating event before we drove all the way across town to the rink. The kid who answered the phone had no idea what I was talking about at first. After several hints and clues, he realized that I was referring to an event that had taken place a week before I called. And, while Jeans' blog made the event out to be a public skating session with carols being sung by the Huntsville Chorus, the actual event (which had taken place a week earlier) was in fact a figure skating show with the Huntsville Chorus providing musical accompaniment. So, she was not only wrong about the date, she misrepresented the entire nature of the event.

Which sort of makes me the idiot for trusting Jean's website to provide accurate, correct information regarding the premier event on my holiday calendar - the Messiah Sing-Along. According to Jean's bogus blog (a blogus?), tonight was the big night. The night I await for a year at a time. The night I get dressed up for and make the kids dress up for. The night I pull out my complete Messiah score and set out to enjoy one of my very favorite musical compositions of all time.

It was over before we ever left the house. It was 6 nights ago. I figured this out after we drove 18 miles across town - and 18 miles back - wasting an hour of one of our last evenings before Christmas, when we arrived at the designated location to find one guy in a pick-up truck waiting for a buddy to play basketball in the adjacent gym. Not sure why I waited until tonight to check the website at the actual church where the event was to take place. (At least Jean got that part right.) But, that's how I found the correct date. I signed up for that church's e-mail newsletter just to be sure I don't miss out next year. Because I damn sure won't be checking out Jean Brandau's blog for ANY other events. Ever.

Jean Brandau, you suck. Your blog sucks. And, you owe me four round-trip airfares to Washington, D.C. to catch one of the very last Messiah Sing-Alongs scheduled this year - the one at the Kennedy Center. If there's an admission charge, you owe me four of those, too. And, a hotel room.

2 comments:

  1. I had a similar situation - she doesn't date her blog so you were probably looking at a schedule from a previous year. Ha - our snafu was years ago. I wonder how many family outings she's ruined over the years!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am pleased to announce that I not only got the correct date for the 2015 event by consulting the church's website directly, I was selected to conduct the Hallelujah Chorus finale this past year.

    ReplyDelete