CARL KASELL: From NPR and WBEZ-Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME! the NPR news quiz. I'm Carl Kasell. We're playing this week with Brian Babylon, Faith Salie, and Charlie Pierce. And here again is your host at the Lerner Theater in Elkhart, Indiana Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you.
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SAGAL: Thank you, Carl. In just a minute, Carl gets free next day limericks with his Amazon Rhyme subscription.
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SAGAL: If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-WAIT WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news. Brian, everybody knows that Obamacare has had a rough first month or so, people have had trouble signing up. But we're happy to report that the Colorado version of the law has successfully covered whom?
BRIAN BABYLON: Oh, the weed heads.
SAGAL: No.
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BABYLON: Oh. Give me a hint.
SAGAL: Turns out that you can get covered even if you have the preexisting condition of mange.
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BABYLON: Dog?
SAGAL: Yes, a dog.
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SAGAL: A dog named Baxter who was successfully covered under Obamacare. At least that's according to a letter received by a Colorado man saying that his dog Baxter has been successfully signed up for insurance.
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SAGAL: It's a little embarrassing to the bureaucrats who run the Colorado version of the marketplace. It's a good plan for the dog. It includes coverage for the cheese they hide its pills in and 15 minutes of the doctor stroking its neck until its (unintelligible).
FAITH SALIE: But when you see Baxter you say, ah.
SAGAL: Ah.
SALIE: He's really cute.
SAGAL: I'm sure.
SALIE: He's 14, which makes him like 98 in people years, so that's...
SAGAL: Yeah, (unintelligible).
SALIE: ...that is a very liberal application of Obamacare, right?
SAGAL: That's very nice.
BABYLON: So is he on Medicaid or something?
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SAGAL: Dog lovers, of course, are thrilled that the new health insurance system apparently covers us and dogs. But it'd weird for people to leave the doctor's office with a big cone around their necks.
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BABYLON: Can I ask a basic question...
SAGAL: You may.
BABYLON: ...because I always learn here at this show. Is - what was that - who does a-- is a cone so you won't, like, touch wounded parts, or won't lick...
SAGAL: Yeah, the cone is so that they don't chew or bite or lick the...
BABYLON: ...stitches.
SAGAL: ...stitches or anything.
BABYLON: OK. Oh. You know what, that sounds stupid. I thought it was to pour dog food in there so they can just eat it comfortably.
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SAGAL: And just kick back, hold it in there.
BABYLON: Yeah, I thought it was a whole dog food...
SAGAL: ...food funnel.
SALIE: Sometimes Rob Ford wears one when he goes out drinking.
SAGAL: That's important.
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SAGAL: Faith, $11,000 for a TV sounds like a lot, we admit it, but not when you consider the amazing new Samsung 39C model TV. Just turn it on, and you and your spouse sitting there together can do what?
SALIE: Fix Season Three of Homeland.
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SAGAL: That would be awesome.
SALIE: That's not it, OK.
SAGAL: Not even at that price I'm afraid.
SALIE: Can I have a hint, please?
SAGAL: Well, you can watch Storage Wars and your husband can watch Duck Dynasty, whatever turns him on.
SALIE: You can watch two different shows at the same time on the same screen?
SAGAL: Exactly right.
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SAGAL: That's what you can do. It uses a technology similar to digital 3D, right? So you each put on these high-tech goggles and you look at the same TV and you can see different programs. So maybe the husband wants to watch an action movie while the wife wants to watch that new romantic comedy where two people love each other despite their complete lack of common interests.
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SAGAL: This is what we can't figure out is like, OK, you're going to sit down on a couch together, you're going to watch two different shows on an $11,000 TV, you're going to listen to the different shows through the earpiece in the glasses, right. So you're totally locked off from each other. What is the point of sitting there with each other?
BABYLON: No, that's called marriage, Peter.
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BABYLON: It's called marriage. It's what we do. You do your thing, I'm doing my thing. I'll see you next week.
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SAGAL: Charlie, just when you thought there was nothing new under the sun, scientists have discovered an entirely new type of what?
CHARLIE PIERCE: They're finding new species. They found a new, like, rat or something in Sumatra.
SAGAL: They're always finding rats in Sumatra. Who cares about rats in Sumatra?
PIERCE: Giant rats in Sumatra.
SAGAL: No, no, no, no.
PIERCE: Well, gee...
SAGAL: I'll give you that symptoms include yawning, thumb twiddling.
PIERCE: They found new ways to be bored?
SAGAL: Exactly right.
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SAGAL: They found a new kind of boredom.
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SAGAL: This was in Germany. German scientists...
PIERCE: Oh, well, there, there we go.
SAGAL: ...they did this very careful survey of students and their experiences throughout the day. And they expected to find four distinct types of boredom. But in their research they discovered a fifth never before classified form of boredom. And we have discovered a sixth form called reading research papers by German scientists.
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SAGAL: No, I'm sorry, that's not fair because it's fascinating. You think boredom is boredom. It's not. There are four main types. These are the ones they expected to find, a calibrating boredom, searching boredom, reactant boredom and PBS.
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SAGAL: But the fifth type they discovered is called apathetic boredom.
BABYLON: But don't you get - don't they have medicine for that?
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PIERCE: Yeah, it's called speed.
BABYLON: Yeah, there it is.
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SAGAL: Brian, newspapers in Austria are reporting that a Roomba-like cleaning robot is perhaps the first ever robot, that we know about, that did what?
BABYLON: The first robot to finally understand what love is?
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BABYLON: I know, how silly. Give me a hint.
SAGAL: He just couldn't take it anymore.
BABYLON: Suicidebots?
SAGAL: Yeah, the robot killed itself.
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SAGAL: The Roomba - you know, this thing, it's just an automated vacuum cleaner but apparently that's no way to live.
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BABYLON: He thought he could do bigger things.
SAGAL: Now this is what happened. The robot cleaner's owner swears that when he left his apartment the Roomba somehow turned itself on, drove onto a hotplate setting itself and the kitchen on fire.
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SALIE: Did it leave a note?
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BABYLON: You know what happened, Peter?
SAGAL: What?
BABYLON: That Roomba broke up with the blender and couldn't take it.
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BABYLON: So we - are we going to start prescribing, like, robot Xanex or something?
SAGAL: Yeah.
SALIE: I need some St. John's Wort.
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SAGAL: It's like, oh, it's no use.
BABYLON: Well, you know that's politically incorrect. You're not supposed to assume that robots speak like that.
PIERCE: I just...
SAGAL: Wait a minute.
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SAGAL: It's now politically incorrect to do robot talk?
PIERCE: ...to think robots talk like this.
BABYLON: What is this, the '80s?
SAGAL: Come a long way.
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(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.