I was not looking forward to going to work on Wednesday morning.
I had to give a presentation on Thursday afternoon. A presentation I had a serious mental block about. Which meant that I had done no preparation. Which in turn meant that in addition to the mental block, I now had a healthy dose of stress. And disappointingly enough, none of the other work I was procrastinating on had magically disappeared.
So yes, I wanted to crawl back in to bed.
And right then I found an announcement in my email: Peter Sagal's talk will be at 12:30 pm. Peter Sagal? Peter Sagal of "Wait Wait, don't tell me" fame was coming to Google??
Since I am reasonably sure that none of you know what "Wait Wait, don't tell me" is, this needs some background.
WWDTM is my newest guilty pleasure. It started out as a casual, occasional weekend fling. My car radio is tuned to NPR all the time. And if I was ever driving around between 11 and 12 on a Saturday morning, I would catch snippets of a mildly amusing news quiz show. The more I listened to it, the more I liked it - and soon I started planning my errands on Saturday around the show. Then came the fateful day when I realised I could get the show's podcast. It was a godsend! An excellent way to amuse myself while doing mundane tasks around the house, it almost made me look forward to cleaning and washing dishes! And in recent months I have become completely addicted to the show. To the point where I have listened to the last 3 years of archives. To the point where I have seriously contemplated flying to Chicago, just to watch a taping of the show.
So yes, I was excited to see that the host of the show would be at Google. He is a great host and very witty. Recently I discovered his blog, and he came off as a thoughtful and likable person as well. The idea that I would get to see him in person made my day.
The talk was one of the better attended talks at Google. I am clearly not the only NPR junkie in town. Peter Sagal did not disappoint in person. He started off with some Google jokes, at the same time telling us how much he loved our products. I don't know if he really likes them or he was just being polite.. but I enjoyed the needling about "Googlers" and "Googly". To an outsider, those terms must be seriously cringe-worthy. I know I cringed the first time I heard them! [You get used to it, though I have never used the word Googly myself - atleast, not without mental "air quotes"]
He then went on to read us some excerpts from his book. They were quite funny but sometimes a little hard to follow... wordy comedy like that needs to be read rather than read aloud. And then several people aske him about WWDTM. He told us about how Gene Simmons from KISS appeared on his show and was a complete a**hole. Apparently Gene Simmons was equally bad with Terri Gross [never mind, she's another NPR personality who you will be perfectly satisfied to know nothing about]. He told us about how he hates Clippy, the Microsoft Office animated paper clip, and how they fantasized about a gangland execution of Clippy on the show one time. I remember that show, it was a great bit.
All in all, I am thrilled that I got a chance to finally see him in person. If my colleague with the big camera had attended, I would have had a few pictures of the talk to post here. Oh well.
I still want to watch a taping of the show though.
By the way, the blog title has nothing to do with this blog post. I just really like the Wear Sunscreen speech. What do you mean: what Wear Sunscreen speech? Look it up - I hear there's this wonderful website called "Google".
I had to give a presentation on Thursday afternoon. A presentation I had a serious mental block about. Which meant that I had done no preparation. Which in turn meant that in addition to the mental block, I now had a healthy dose of stress. And disappointingly enough, none of the other work I was procrastinating on had magically disappeared.
So yes, I wanted to crawl back in to bed.
And right then I found an announcement in my email: Peter Sagal's talk will be at 12:30 pm. Peter Sagal? Peter Sagal of "Wait Wait, don't tell me" fame was coming to Google??
Since I am reasonably sure that none of you know what "Wait Wait, don't tell me" is, this needs some background.
WWDTM is my newest guilty pleasure. It started out as a casual, occasional weekend fling. My car radio is tuned to NPR all the time. And if I was ever driving around between 11 and 12 on a Saturday morning, I would catch snippets of a mildly amusing news quiz show. The more I listened to it, the more I liked it - and soon I started planning my errands on Saturday around the show. Then came the fateful day when I realised I could get the show's podcast. It was a godsend! An excellent way to amuse myself while doing mundane tasks around the house, it almost made me look forward to cleaning and washing dishes! And in recent months I have become completely addicted to the show. To the point where I have listened to the last 3 years of archives. To the point where I have seriously contemplated flying to Chicago, just to watch a taping of the show.
So yes, I was excited to see that the host of the show would be at Google. He is a great host and very witty. Recently I discovered his blog, and he came off as a thoughtful and likable person as well. The idea that I would get to see him in person made my day.
The talk was one of the better attended talks at Google. I am clearly not the only NPR junkie in town. Peter Sagal did not disappoint in person. He started off with some Google jokes, at the same time telling us how much he loved our products. I don't know if he really likes them or he was just being polite.. but I enjoyed the needling about "Googlers" and "Googly". To an outsider, those terms must be seriously cringe-worthy. I know I cringed the first time I heard them! [You get used to it, though I have never used the word Googly myself - atleast, not without mental "air quotes"]
He then went on to read us some excerpts from his book. They were quite funny but sometimes a little hard to follow... wordy comedy like that needs to be read rather than read aloud. And then several people aske him about WWDTM. He told us about how Gene Simmons from KISS appeared on his show and was a complete a**hole. Apparently Gene Simmons was equally bad with Terri Gross [never mind, she's another NPR personality who you will be perfectly satisfied to know nothing about]. He told us about how he hates Clippy, the Microsoft Office animated paper clip, and how they fantasized about a gangland execution of Clippy on the show one time. I remember that show, it was a great bit.
All in all, I am thrilled that I got a chance to finally see him in person. If my colleague with the big camera had attended, I would have had a few pictures of the talk to post here. Oh well.
I still want to watch a taping of the show though.
By the way, the blog title has nothing to do with this blog post. I just really like the Wear Sunscreen speech. What do you mean: what Wear Sunscreen speech? Look it up - I hear there's this wonderful website called "Google".
