Year: 2011

Archived Blog Post

Mo Rocca, The World’s Worst Obstetrician

During the second panelist round of Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! that aired the weekend of 2011-06-18, the discussion lead to Mo Rocca saying that having a Hula dancer in the same room as a mother giving birth would help the mother relax. This led to Luke Burbank asking if this would be blogged on “Mo Rocca, The World’s Worst Obstetrician dot net”. I didn’t get to listen to that segment until several days later and noticed that the MoRoccaTheWorldsWorstObstetrician.net domain had not been taken… yet. So, I decided to register the domain and set up the site to redirect to my Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! statistics page. Well, this week’s Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! show was all about listener favorite segments and requests. Many of the listeners wanted a lot of Mo Rocca moments, but Peter and Carl included Mo Rocca’s Hula dancer moment. …

Archived Blog Post

Wait Wait Stats Update: Page Loads

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I have made a significant change to how the Wait Wait Stats page is served up to visitors. Up until earlier this morning, each page view required the server to process and parse through all of the data, then serve up the results. Each time the page is processed takes about a second and requires the server to send out the contents out in its entirety, even if there hasn’t been any changes. That’s a waste of time and bandwidth (both mine and yours), along with processor cycles. With the new change, the server generates a static version of the page every Saturday at 13:00 (Pacific Time) and each request of the Wait Wait Stats page will go through a simple script that determines if the static file is newer than original dynamic script file. If it is, the server provides the last modified …

Archived Blog Post

Wait Wait Stats Update: 1998 Part Deux

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As noted in the original “Wait Wait Stats Update: 1998” post, my goal was to complete filling out the panelists, guests and descriptions for all of 1998 by the end of June. Well, it’s now 1 July 2011 and I still haven’t gotten all of the show descriptions filled out. At least I have the guests entered in (without scores). What I was able to do before the end of June was to add one of the features that I had been thinking about doing (and some have been asking for). If you visit the stats page, you will notice that all of the show dates are now links. When you click on the link, it will send you over to that show’s specific page on NPR.org. That way, you can view the transcripts for the newer shows, listen to a segment or the …

Archived Blog Post

The voice of Carl Kasell has arrived

 

When I got home tonight, I saw a package that was addressed from Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! and Chicago Public Radio in the pile of today’s mail. Within the package was a CD with an audio track containing the greeting that I requested Carl to record for me. Below is the picture of the CD that I received:   The following is the text of the greeting that I requested: Good day, I am Carl Kasell and you have reached the mailbox for Linh Pham. Linh is probably too busy geeking out or is out somewhere making a fool of himself. Just joking, okay maybe not. Please leave a message after the beep. Simple and reflects my quirky and ackward mannerisms :) Thank you, Carl, for recording the greeting!

Archived Blog Post

Wait Wait Stats Updates: 1998

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I just wanted to give all of you “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” fans an update on the statistics page. I am in the process of adding the panelist and guest information for 1998. Scores will be added once the panelists and guests have been entered in, along with show descriptions. Whether I can maintain a decent pace will have to depend on the amount of spare time I will have in the following four or five days. I hope to get a good portion of the 1999 data added during the month of June. I hope to complete a year of stats each month until I have caught up. During that time, I will try to work on a way to note where each show is recorded, be it in studio, at Chase Auditorium, or on the road. Here’s to hoping that I …

Archived Blog Post

Holy traffic spike, Wait Wait fans!

I want to say thanks for all of the Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! fans that have visited my statistics page and my home page. It is amazing to look at the traffic graph over the past week or so in Google Analytics and with WordPress Stats. Let’s just say that the previous days and weeks look like nothing compared to this weekend’s traffic numbers (click on the thumbnail to see the full graph).