It has been a while since I've checked out how well my site has faired on Google using their Webmaster Tools webapp. So it was surprising to see a link back to my Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! statistics page from a blog post by the host of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, Peter Sagal... from two years ago!

In his blog post, Peter wrote:

"However, such casual hostility does leave a bad taste in my mouth, so to wash it out, I take a look at this remarkable site, maintained by a fan who I shall not call obsessive, but merely devoted. Thank you, sir!"

All I can say about this is: "woot!". This is enough to make up for not getting Carl Kassel's message on my voicemail last year (as noted in an earlier post).

Being a fan of the NPR program, Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, and knowing that one of their live tapings would fall on my birthday (this past Thursday), I sent an e-mail to NPR trying to be picked as a listener that could get Carl Kasell's voice on my voice mail.

Well, I was one of the listeners that was selected, but instead of answering at least two of three news questions or limericks correctly, or to try to find the true story in the Bluff the Listener round... I was selected for the Not My Job segment (of which the chances of winning isn't very good) with tennis legend Monica Seles. Unfortunately, Monica came up with goose eggs when trying to answer questions about the Guinness Brewing Company.

So... I won't be getting Carl Kasell's voice on my voice mail this time (which would have been great as a birthday present, of sorts). Instead, for the consolation prize, I get my name mentioned on the show by both Carl and Monica.

Over the past two weeks, I have finished entering panelist and guest scores for all of the 2005 "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" shows. Also, bar graphs have been added in the "Panelist Statistics" section to show the distribution of scores for each panelist. The updates are available at the WWDTM: Show Details and Statistics page.

I am now in the process of filling out show breakdown and notes for the 2005 shows. Once that I have finished with that, I will start to add information about the 2004 shows.

[2007-09-12] Update: show descriptions have been entered for all but a few of the 2005 shows and I am now moving on to 2004. The basic data structures for 2003 has already been put into place, with 2000-2002 to follow in the next couple of weeks.

As previously noted, I am an avid fan of NPR's weekly quiz show Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me! (although some may call it a mini-obsession).

With that mini-obsession, I have built a database of various information and statistics about the each show, panelists and guests, and built a web page that presents the collected information and generated statistics.

So far, I have entered in some information for shows since the beginning of 2005 and am continually adding more panelist and guest scores as time allows. I am also including quick summaries and notes for each show and my rating of each show (on a scale of 10, 1 being meh, not my thing and 10 being freaking rocks!!!).

This post is several days late, but...

I have been an avid fan of NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! for several years, I had a chance to go to a recording session when they visited Portland, Oregon last Thursday. All I can say is that you miss out on a lot of the antics of the panelists and the interaction with the audience. Much of this is due to the fact that they can only squeeze in so much into about 50 minutes when they broadcast the show.