As a professional blogger, I feel a certain obligation to fight the stigma associated with that word by maintaining two very simple principles:
1) When I go to concerts, I don't take any pictures with my phone, I just watch the concert;
2) I do not use this blogspace to complain about things that make me
soooo angry!!!! in my day-to-day life. That being said, I will now tell you the story of how I almost got into a fight ten minutes before
The Dark Knight last night, and why this made me
soooo angry!!!! My friends and I arrived at the 6:00 IMAX show at 4:30, heeding the "get there NINE HOURS EARLY" warnings from people who went on Friday and Saturday, got into the theater, and grabbed a block of seven seats without a problem. Over the course of the next hour, we took turns going to the concession stand, hitting the bathroom, etc, all the while casually turning away the latecomers asking about our couple vacant seats.
Two of my friends left around 5:30 to grab one last round of snacks, and while they were still in line, at 5:50, the woman from the theater suddenly announced
"It is now ten minutes to the start of the movie. There will be no more saving seats -- everyone please move to the center of their rows. All open seats are now fair game." (Ed note: this was spoken in boldface) Bear in mind, this unprecedented movie rule came with no prior warning, they literally just announced out of nowhere that anyone that didn't happen to be in their seats at that exact moment were S.O.L., triggering an immediate rush towards even the slightest bit of open red space in every direction at once. Immediately after the announcement, a dude and his girlfriend quickly shuffled past my group of friends to our two now-vacated seats and prepared to sit down. I immedately told them that the seats were taken, to which the dude, in true "A-Hole in
Adam Sandler movie who promptly gets beaten to hell by Adam Sandler" form, replied "that's not my problem."
I responded, "Please -- my friends are right over there getting food, I'm sure they got stuck in line, they'll be back in two seconds, and they've been here for literally ninety minutes. PLEASE do not sit in these seats." He answered, "You heard what the lady said, it's not my policy" and turned around, preparing to take the seats. At this point, I faced a decision oddly prescient of the film I was about to see -- Should I flip out and hurl my massive array of sportswatching-perfected obscenities at the douchebag who showed up to the theater ten minutes before the most highly anticipated movie in history and felt an immediate sense of entitlement because the hapless Lowes crew declared an unwarned, instantaneous state of movie theater mob rule? Or should I swallow my pride and do my best wounded puppy impersonation in the midst of unprecedented theater anarchy? I responded, "I'm not asking you because of the policy, I'm not asking you because of what she said, I'm asking you out of genuine human decency -- please do not take my friends' seats. They've been here for ninety minutes and they'll be right back.
PLEASE." Did I just say that sentence? Yes, yes I did. And nary an F-word to be found. Hmm. He responded, with an encouraging 10% reduction in douchebaggery, "I don't know what to tell you." They still had not sat down. I quickly got out my phone and redialed my friend, and before the first ring (and way before he could have possibly picked up, I realize in retrospect), I just shouted "Mike, get back here NOW, people are gonna take your seat!!!" The couple, having undergone a short-story-esque change of character in one turbulent minute, appeared to grasp the depth of my desperation, looked at each other, whispered back and forth, and vacated the row with an admirable lack of "fine, f*ck you" body language. Not five seconds later, the same woman who had just unleashed the unprecedented "every man for himself" rule upon the theater immediately noticed the two vacant seats and yelled "There's two seats right there, someone can go sit there!" I immediately shouted back, "These are taken, my friends are literally right there" [pointing to the concession stand]. She shot back "Too late, they're up for grabs," turned to the door and yelled "I have two seats right there--" and in the very last second before I could shout back at the Loews employee and surely get myself kicked out of the theater, my friend Jill popped back in like a movie character you thought was dead but later turned out not to be and shouted
"Noooooooo, they're miiiiiiiiiinnnnneeeeeee!!!!" 
My two friends returned from their fun 25 minute concession stand jamboree and reclaimed the seats they'd been sitting in for over an hour, and all of us attempted to breathe a sigh of relief, though it came out as the words "What. The f*ck. Just happened." The people in the seats around us, all of whom had also been there since 4:30, immediately showed audience solidarity, agreeing "Man, that's bullsh*t, I've never seen anything like that before." Even as the
Watchmen IMAX trailer kicked up, we couldn't help but continue our telepathic conversation, "Why didn't they just say at 5:30 to be in your seats ten minutes early??? Were they not prepared for crowds at the f*cking
Dark Knight opening weekend??? Have they been doing this for three days and NOT had a fight break out??? Who runs a movie theater like this??? What is the deal with movie theaters??? Why do they charge so much for candy??? I mean my God am I right people???" Oh also, the movie was awesome.