The adventures of me and Chan at The Colbert Report:

I took the 6 to the E and saved a spot on line at West 54th between 10th and 11th for Chan. They have a covering over the line, which goes down an alley, so I wasn't totally frozen. But after an hour I was quite uncomfortable. My thumbs fell asleep. Chan asked why. I had no answer. He brought a Kit Kat and M&Ms and told me I could choose which one I wanted. It was a tough call, but I opted for the K-Squared. Good job by Chan here, as I didn't eat beforehand.

After an hour and a half, we got little laminated cards with numbers 31 & 32 on them. We were escorted through a metal detector into a small room with a TV that was showing Jeopardy! Smart audience that Colbert attracts, most of us were yelling out questions, even though the sound was off. But I discovered lip-reading isn't too hard.

Then we were given some instructions about cheering loud and turning off cell phones, before being brought into the studio in the order of our laminated cards.

Chan & I ended up in the last row. Since there are only five rows, this was okay. The stage manager gave us more instructions, and then a comedian came up and warmed us up. It was cool just looking at the Report's set up close.

Steven came out and took some questions. Some young dudes lifted their shirts to reveal the word "Colbert" painted across their chests. Colbert was really funny in this improvisational pre-show role, telling us how he felt like we were only cheering him because his mom must have told us to, since she used to encourage people to listen to what her brilliant son (one of eleven kids) had to say.

Everything was really loud. The mic levels were set to earache.

Colbert seems to enjoy the rock. During commercials we heard Cheap Trick (who wrote the show's theme song), some old Foo Fighters, and a Screaming Trees tune.

That scroll across the bottom of Steven's desk isn't real. It's just cardboard, with words on it, and a red light behind it.

Chan & I have been to Letterman tapings in the past. In those, everything goes. They do it in real time and edit if they have to later. On the Report, however, Steven does screw up. And when he does, they stop the show, and go back and fix it. It only happened twice, but once it was in a really key spot. During "The Word," he lost it and just stopped. They realized that there had been no stopping point, so they had to do the entire Word over. This was a shame, because it was so funny the first time, and we as an audience had such a great reaction to it. So the second time, we had to fake the laughs. We just watched the final product at home, and it definitely was funnier the first time--the take you'll never see. Too bad.

During these mess-ups, Steven kept us laughing by making fun of himself. This also gave us a chance to see how these shows work.

Harry Smith was kind of a tool, but it was a pretty funny interview.

Seeing the show in person was like going to a concert. Everybody was just so psyched to see Colbert. He's so damn funny. I'll be back there January 9th, and I'll be bringing those hand- and foot-warmers.

I recommend going. Go to the Comedy Central website and request tickets. They're free.

Afterwards, we went to Zen Palate. I got Curry Supreme, as always.

The description of my night is now over.