So I see that there's a show with the National and Grizzly Bear, and hosted by the guys from Stella: not a bad lineup. Perhaps I will purchase tickets, I say to myself. I click over to a page at New York Magazine's site, and try to select 2 tickets, but I can only select either 0 or 1. What the? Oh, there's some fine print:

Limit: One ticket per person. Why? Because, each transaction includes a one-year (46-issues) subscription to New York magazine, a $9.97 value.

The truth slowly dawns on me. Oh dear god. I have no choice but to go through the whole purchase process twice, filling in the same information, so that Maya and I can receive two copies of New York until we get around to canceling the subscriptions. And it could be even worse; imagine if we already subscribed.

This is transparent enough as a desperate ploy by New York to slightly boost their circulation numbers, and kind of sad really. But kudos to them for coming up with a creative new way to force me to ask myself if I really want to go to this show that badly.

Also, a $9.97 value?