I have lovely friends. Last night I had my final birthday surprise- tickets and very good (albeit tall) seats to the Seattle taping of this week's "Wait, Wait, ...Don't tell me."

The Paramount theater was filled to capacity with NPR geeks- the most elderly and benign group I've ever seen at that venue.

And it was fun. Amazing and fun. I haven't laughed that hard in ages, and eagerly await the broadcast on Saturday to see what they did with the raw material.

I gotta say, I expect that they will cut the 15 minute riff on "Clippy" the evil MS Office Assistant (who has been dispatched in Vista, for those of you who haven't either heard the news or adopted the new software platform- i.e. most of you). Hasta la vista Clippy, you little fucker.

Anyway, gotta run. Bit of a work day ahead, I fear.

Postscript- I realized today that between the lot of us, we four were the ruffians at the Paramount, and could have probably kicked anyone in the place's ass. But being NPR geeks ourselves, wouldn't think of it. Until later.