Back on the night that Stephen Colbert announced that he'd be hitting Philadelphia, taking the show on the road for the first time, I had decided to go to bed early and just catch the rerun in the morning. My friend called me just as I began to doze off and immediately told me that she had gotten tickets for us to see Colbert in Philadelphia. I had no idea what the hell she was talking about, so when I hung up, I just shrugged it off as a late-night half-dream. The next morning, I watched the episode and it finally made sense: We were about to go on another Colbert Report adventure.

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Last Monday (March 31), I went on a pilgrimage to the Daily Show studio in midtown Manhattan to attend a TDS taping for the first time. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting on the way to the studio. Actually, that's a total and complete lie, because I definitely had expectations. I wanted to enter that tiny little studio and have the most epic adventure ever. My first time at a taping of any sort was February's super-intense trip to the Colbert Report, so I guess I started with the bar set really, really, really high. I mean, after dancing like a trashy high schooler with the host, anything normal just pales in comparison. Speaking of comparison, that's all this post is going to be. Really, it's damn near impossible for me to not compare my TCR experience with this one, since the set-up is so similar.

So, with that in mind, I'm a little sad to report that my visit was disappointingly average. While queuing and sitting around the audience, I picked up a few tips and tricks to help make the adventure a little more epic, though. For future reference, you see.

Or How Annie Embarrassed Herself in Front of 100-Some Strangers, or In Which Annie Is Filled with More Self-Loathing Than Usual, but more on that in a moment.

On Monday, February 11, 2008, I visited The Colbert Report for the first time. I've been getting tickets and planning trips for the show since it first started, but each and every time I get ready to go, something goes horribly wrong. This trip has been three years in the making! It's been a string of bad luck, and I actually spent my bus ride to New York waiting for the vehicle to flip over or for an aneurysm to kick in. Surprisingly enough, neither of those things happened, even though extreme cold and snow appeared out of nowhere upon my arrival. Yay me and the trail of destruction I leave in my wake.