Guess what I did tonight?

Seeing "This American Life" taped live was awesome - Ira Glass is so swoony in his nerd-riffic sort of a way, and while I enjoyed all three speakers, our local Dan Savage rocked the house. TAL has been doing a cross-country live taping - I think they're doing to same-ish show every time, and the best bits will be edited together for the final, one-hour show to be broadcast soon ("What I Learned From Television"). We were also treated to a live interview with the producer of the upcoming TV show, and to some clips. Everyone has been nervous about the idea of a TAL TV show, but so far it really does look well thought-out. And they promise to keep the radio show going. I'm so naive and innocent that the lights had been dimmed for ten minutes before I realized that this entire tour is a publicity stunt for the TV show. But the kool-aid sure tastes nerd-riffically good.

The first thing Dan Savage did before speaking was to unfurl a piece of paper and say, "Before I do anything else, I just need to vote...(rustling of paper and pencil) number one 'no', number two 'HELL no'." You see, Seattle has this downtown flyover freeway structure (think Embarcadero Freeway) that is destined to fall flat in a major earthquake (think Embarcadero Freeway) and there's been a big scuffle over what to do about it. Word came from Olympia (that's the state capital in these here parts) that the governor was going to issue a decree - rebuild, or do some sort of an underground tunnel. Weeks go by. Finally, the word came down...she's going to let the people have a say. Huh? So one million dollars later, we're looking at a "non-binding" vote. More like a "suggestion".

So you can vote:

a) for both the rebuild and the tunnel
b) for the tunnel and against the rebuild
c) for the rebuild and against the tunnel
d) against the rebuild and against the tunnel

Word just came to me that there's also an option to send in an empty ballot (they're all absentee), because if she's not going to make a decision, then neither are we. Not that our decision would matter, as it is non-binding.

Three cheers for decisive leadership!