PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Coming up, it's Lightning Fill In The Blank, but first it's the game where you have to listen for the rhyme. If you'd like to play on air, call or leave a message at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT, that's 1-888-924-8924. Or click the contact us link at our website waitwait.npr.org. You can find out about attending our weekly live shows right here at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago and our upcoming show in Pittsburgh, PA, October 16. Also, check out our How To Do Everything podcast. This week, Mike and Ian tell you how to predict the winter without harming any groundhogs.
Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME.
ALICE DEANIN-LIMS: Hi, Peter. This is Alice from Princeton, New Jersey.
SAGAL: Hey, how are things in Princeton, New Jersey?
DEANIN-LIMS: Quite nice at present.
SAGAL: What do you do there?
DEANIN-LIMS: I live there, but I work at another university.
SAGAL: Another university?
DEANIN-LIMS: Villanova University.
SAGAL: Villanova. I see, over in Pennsylvania. What do you teach?
DEANIN-LIMS: I teach mathematics.
SAGAL: Do you?
DEANIN-LIMS: I do.
SAGAL: I have nothing funny to say about mathematics. It scares me and it intimidates me.
DEANIN-LIMS: Oh, I have lots of funny things to say about mathematics, but we don't have to go into...
SAGAL: Tell me - you know what I love? Do you have like a joke that a mathematician - only a mathematician would get?
DEANIN-LIMS: Several, but you don't want me to tell them on the show.
SAGAL: OK.
FAITH SALIE: Are they dirty math jokes?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Welcome to show Alice. Bill Kurtis is now going to perform for you three news-related limericks, with the last word or phrase missing from each. If you can fill in that last word or phrase correctly in two of the limericks, you will be a big winner. Here is your first limerick.
BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: Now that cupcakes are on their last legs, our quaint dishes move up a few pegs. And late midnight rambles end poached, fried, or scrambled at places that only serve...
DEANIN-LIMS: Eggs.
SAGAL: Yes, eggs. Very good.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Somehow eggs have replaced cupcakes and cronuts as the new trendy food. Runny is the new black. The Egg Shop in Soho in New York serves eggs in every imaginable overpriced variety and copycats are popping up everywhere. Right this moment, somewhere in Brooklyn there's 200 hipsters forming a line behind a very nervous looking chicken.
(LAUGHTER)
PAULA POUNDSTONE: So are cupcakes on their way out?
SAGAL: Oh, cupcakes are over.
SALIE: They've been over for so long. I mean, even macaroons are over.
SAGAL: Oh, God, yes.
POUNDSTONE: They opened a Dunkin' Donuts in Santa Monica and I'm not making this up, for days there were lines around the block.
SAGAL: Really?
POUNDSTONE: As if we'd never had a donut in Santa Monica before. It was embarrassing. It was absolutely embarrassing. There were news trucks out there.
SAGAL: Well, you're from Massachusetts where Dunkin' Donuts started...
POUNDSTONE: I'm from Massachusetts.
SAGAL: Were you not excited?
POUNDSTONE: I like Dunkin' Donuts, but I cannot support nor participate in their world domination.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Alice, here is your next limerick.
KURTIS: Tasty curry can make you feel young. Not too hot or your taste buds get stung. Our robot device will test food for spice. To taste curry we have a fake...
DEANIN-LIMS: Tongue?
SAGAL: Yes, tongue.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: So Thailand's government is serious about the authenticity of Thai cuisine, right, in Thailand. So they built a device. It is a robotic tongue that tastes green curry - their national dish - and gives it a quality rating. That is its job.
SALIE: I feel that there might be some off-label uses for a robotic tone.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Here - quickly moving on - is your last limerick.
KURTIS: My kid is a baby-clothes modeler, so I can't be a calm molly-coddler. To keep looking great he'll start lifting weights. Good thing we've got CrossFit for...
DEANIN-LIMS: Oh, toddlers.
SAGAL: Yes, a toddler.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Yes very good. You've undoubtedly heard of the exercise technique known as CrossFit because people who do CrossFit will not shut up about it.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Now according to The New York Times, CrossFit gyms across America are offering classes to kids as young as two or three years old. And they fit in really well because, like regular CrossFit people, they also communicate mostly by grunting and screaming.
Bill, how did Alice do on our quiz?
KURTIS: Three and 0 for Alice. Good going, Alice.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Well done, Alice.
(APPLAUSE)
KURTIS: Alice, Villanova.
SAGAL: Thank you, Alice. Thanks for playing.
DEANIN-LIMS: Thank you.
POUNDSTONE: She got all three right, so one thing we know for sure is she'll never be Secretary of Energy. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.