TicketMaster of puppets

It seems that these days I never have tickets for most of the gigs I want to go to. Again this morning I missed the Placebo ones (but the gig sold out in 5 minutes, so…)
I was thinking I was getting old, too lazy to actually chase the bands I am interested in.

But the truth is elsewhere.

And the truth is, ticket-selling websites, such as TicketMaster, GigsandTours, Ticketweb or SeeTickets, are totally incompetent.
The latest example: I had bought tickets for Nine Inch Nails in November. Since then, no news, nothing. And yesterday, I received a text message saying that the tickets will be delivered today, between 8am and 6pm! I mean, what kind of service is that? Like, hello, I have a job… Even the plumber gives a narrower time frame, and with a longer notice!

Fortunately my girlfriend was home when they came by so I now have the tickets in hand, but really this is silly. I wonder why there are no shops where I can go and get the tickets printed, like there used to be: either the Tower Records in Camden or the Virgin in Picadilly, in the old days...