Well, I don’t know what you’re listening to on Saturdays, but around here, the radio is tuned to NPR. We love “Car Talk,” “This American Life,” “A Prairie Home Companion,” and more. You may remember that for my birthday, Matt bought tickets for us to attend the taping of one of our favorites, “Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” The show was last night, and as I write this, my face still hurts from laughing. We loved it.
Before I tell you why I love this show so much, let me just say a word about audience. These types of events are prime for people-watching. The last time we were part of a large audience was several months ago, when we were forced to attend (it was a work function) a Brad Paisley/Carrie Underwood concert. We are not country music fans, and felt a little out of place at that particular event, owing to our lack of cowboy hats, boots, tobacco cans, or muddy four-wheeler. Last night, it was a slightly different crowd. There were young people with mod haircuts and funky eyeglasses. There were middle-aged people with Birkenstocks who needed haircuts. Flip-flops, not high heels, were the order of the night. A glamorous crowd it wasn’t, but I felt my I.Q. rising, just by osmosis.
If you’ve never heard of this show, please go here to find out when it airs in your area, or to download a podcast. I hope you’ll find it as delightful as we do. It is a news quiz with a “celebrity” panel (don’t worry, we’ve never heard of the panelists either). If you try to keep up with current events, you’ll love their hilarious spin on everything. The call-in contestants are playing to win Carl Kasell’s voice on their answering machine (he’s an NPR news guy with a very cool distinctive voice). They also have a couple of well-known call-in guests each week — last night, it was Brian Williams from NBC, and Donny Osmond, who was surprisingly funny. This show is just fun, fun, fun, unless you have very tender feelings about President Bush, in which case, you might not enjoy it. Please tune in to this week’s broadcast and see if you can hear Matt hooting and clapping — we were clear in the back of the balcony, but we were doing our best to be caught on tape.
liz 
Hey liz, I looked up their website and saw that they are going to be in Portland in less than 2 weeks. I’m thinking about getting tickets for my Dad for Fathers Day. Is is worth a 4 hour drive? My dad would love something like this.
Traci, this is a hard question. Have your parents ever listened to the show? I think for me it would be worth a trip to Portland, especially since Portland is a fun place to go anyway. I’d be sure they’d love it before buying tickets, though — would the liberal politics bug them?
sounds like you guys had a blast…you guys do fun stuff. I like it!
My Dad is a HUGE fan of this type of show and I cheated and told him about it already. I didn’t buy the tickets but I told him I wanted him to go and he was really excited. He said he would even miss his golfing league night for it! Now that is excited. Thanks for the info and I will let you know if he in fact goes.
We listen to that show sometimes at night while getting ready for bed. Trav gets it on a podcast (It’s free). Its funny because I always feel like we are the only people who listen to that kind of thing. Trav is a pretty dedicated NPR and AM radio listenier though. Sounds like fun.