From: nebusj-@-rpi-.edu   
      
   	Filing into the studio takes a lot of time.  It takes more   
   time than you might imagine to get 210 people seated, even though it's   
   superficially not actually harder than getting a movie theater audience   
   seated.  The monitors overhead showed blank pictures or the color-bar   
   test pattern while the speakers played _Modestly Rocking Songs Not Too   
   Intense To Distract You_ until about 5:15, when everyone was pretty   
   settled and Brian McCann came out to lead the warm-up.  The warm-up   
   format has changed a bit since the 90s, even putting aside the finale   
   special events.   
      
   	He pointed out the special nature of the show and appreciated   
   everyone coming out, and did some asking about whether anyone got in on   
   standby tickets --- given to people who lined up and waited outside all   
   night.  A few did, somehow, and he pegged them (as you might expect) as   
   losers.   
      
   	I wouldn't have slept in Rockefeller Center in late February for   
   a TV show taping or much of anything else either.  As was reasonably   
   familiar he asked where people were from; there's always a big New Jersey   
   contingent to the point he'd stopped telling jokes about that.  Someone   
   was in from Iowa, another from California, some from Texas, and a few   
   rows behind me was someone from Saudi Arabia.  Next to him was someone   
   from Pakistan, which McCann noted was remarkable although he couldn't   
   really specify how other than it was neat people were coming together for   
   this very silly thing.  Finland had some representatives, of course.   
      
   	My father urged me to point out I was here from Singapore but I   
   felt that was a really, really extreme stretch considering I flew in from   
   Singapore over two years earlier.  And then some women in the back by the   
   stage-right aisle proclaimed they were from Hong Kong, which seemed to me   
   a much fairer ``farthest from'' trophy, until they admitted they grew up   
   in Hong Kong but had lived in Manhattan the last three years.   
      
   	In the 90s, Conan O'Brien himself would come out to bring the   
   warm-up to its climax, picking someone in the audience and singing   
   ``Burning Love'' in a rather good impersonation of Elvis Presley until   
   he would break character by singing more intently until he could point   
   out what a fool he was making of himself.   
      
   	He didn't come out this time; whether this reflects a change in   
   warm-up policy established for years or just that in the fuss over the   
   Final Show he gave it a pass I couldn't say.  It was different, but then,   
   it was a different sort of show from one I'd seen before.  I'd never been   
   to an Event.   
      
   --   
   								Joseph Nebus   
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)