Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me! Taping in Seattle

Note: I had written this post a few days after going to the Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! taping at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle back on September 18, 2014. Unfortunately, it got stuck in the blog submission queue and didn’t get published until today. When I heard that Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! was coming to the Paramount Theatre in Seattle, I knew that I had to find a way to get tickets to the show and go to the show. I decided to reach out to my Wait Wait contacts in Chicago and was able to pull the trigger on getting a pair of tickets as an insurance policy. Fortunately, my contacts came through with a pair of tickets, as tickets to the show sold out extremely quickly. Once I got confirmation, I promptly put in my request for a few days …

Just a Few Site Updates for Version 3.2.2

Over the past several weeks, I have been testing out a few minor updates to the panelist statistics presentation and adding a few additional statistics. When the latest version of the site was launched, each panelist had their lowest, highest and average score listed in their stats information box (as shown below).   The updated panelist stats information box not only uses more common statistical names (min, max and mean), I have now included the population standard deviation of the panelist’s scores and the sum of all of the panelists scores. The other minor addition to the site is the search page that allows you to search the site by way of a customized Google search. The link to the search page is found in the upper-left corner of the page and can also be reached via this link.

New Graphs Are Now Here on the Wait Wait Stats Page

In the previous Stats Page update blog post, I mentioned that the next version of the Stats Page will include changes to the panelist graphs to improve how they look and to make them more interactive. Below is a current example of the two graphs that are currently generated for each of the panelists, one showing the breakdown of the panelist’s scores and the other showing the panelist’s scores over time. The charting library used to generate the graphs have some serious limitations, including poor font rendering and the graphs are static (a scheduled job generates the graph image files on a regular basis). The other problem with the graph showing a panelist’s score over time is it becomes harder to read as more data points are added. To solve all of the problem with the current graphs, I went back to the drawing …

Host and Scorekeeper Updates on Wait Wait Stats Page

I have updated the Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! Stats Page with a couple of minor changes that correct how some of the hosts and scorekeepers are displayed. Originally, the code would highlight the listed host and/or scorekeeper if the host was not Peter Sagal and the scorekeeper was not Carl Kasell. That code needed to be changed to reflect that Dan Coffey was the original host of the show prior to its reboot, where Peter Sagal took over hosting duties. Also, with Bill Kurtis becoming the official judge and scorekeeper of the show after Carl Kasell becoming “Scorekeeper Emeritus,” the code also needed to reflect that change. The code also had to handle the fact that Bill Kurtis was a guest judge and scorekeeper for a period of time before becoming the official judge and scorekeeper. So, to handle some of those exceptions …

Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me! at the Warner Theatre

On Thursday, May 15th, NPR and WBEZ held a very special live taping of Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! at the Warner Theatre in Washington, DC. The live taping marks Carl Kasell’s final show as the the official judge and scorekeeper of Wait Wait. With huge thanks to Ian Chillag and the Wait Wait team, they had set aside two tickets to the show for me. Originally, a friend of mine that works for a certain automaker with US headquarters around Herndon, VA with a logo that contains a set of four rings, was going to go with me. Unfortunately, work beckoned and he was not able to attend. So, I put the call out to DC Tens fans (for those that don’t know: Tens are fans of a certain podcast called “Too Beautiful To Live”, hosted by a certain Wait Wait guest host …

Wait Wait Stats Page Version 3.1 is Now Live

I have been working on a couple of changes and new features for the Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! Stats Page over the past weeks and decided to publish the changes the weekend that Carl Kasell’s farewell show airs. Now that that day has arrived, I have finished making last minute changes and pushed out the new version. The first change to the Stats Page now includes Carl Kasell’s new title, SE for Scorekeeper Emeritus, included after his name on the Stats Page. Once an official announcement has been made on the long-term replacement for Carl, I will make the necessary code changes to reflect that. The new feature that I have added to the Stats Page is the addition of a new graph for each of the panelists. The existing graph displays a scoring breakdown for each panelist (if the panelist has any scoring …