back in the day i used to listen to the (now defunct) don & mike radio show.  it was syndicated nationally, but based primarily in the DC area.  it was my favorite thing to listen to after a long day at work, as i was preparing to brave the hour-long commute that awaited me.

dc traffic fucking SUCKS, but listening to don & mike made it slightly more bearable.

one of my all-time favorite segments they used to do was called “isn’t that something? how about that?”  as a general rule, DJs/radio shows are solicited daily by various publicists and people hawking everything from books to comedy acts to websites, etc.  don and mike would take the most boring/inane person and invite them on the show.  so it could be someone from oklahoma who has the world’s largest star wars action figure collection or someone who wrote a book about the world’s greatest hamburgers.  it didn’t really matter.

they’d start the segment by asking them about their hobby/book/whatever and just let the person start talking.  meanwhile, unbeknownst to the guest, don and mike would be having a contest to see how many times they could say the phrases “isn’t that something?” and “how about that?” to the guest.  these phrases have the tendency to urge them to continue speaking on and on forever until they start to figure out the joke’s on them.

it was kind of amazing.

anyway, sometimes when i’m at a bar or a social event and i’m in some inane smalltalk conversation, i sometimes have the urge to play this game to myself, but i never follow through.  it’s easy to hang up on a caller on a radio show, whereas i’d have to find some deft maneuver to exit the awkward social situation when the person caught on.

anyway, this blog is sorta meaningless.  it just popped into my head and i thought i’d share.

i know what you’re thinking.  as you’re reading this and becoming more and more bored out of your mind, you’re mentally asking me “isn’t that something?  how about that?”