Tonight I had tickets to The Colbert Report. It was to be the second time for Chan & I, and the first time for my friend Brian (pictured, at Omaha, Nebraska's Cog Factory in 2001 while on the U.S. tour of our old band, The Pac-Men) and his girlfriend, Jessica.

I was holding a place on line, when Brian appeared. "I hit a snag," he said, my car's gone." They had driven into the city from Connecticut, and now it didn't look like they'd be driving back.

After running over to the police station for the second time, Brian was told that his car had most likely been towed, before the cops changed that to "it's most likely been stolen."

At that point, The Colbert Report was the last of their worries, so they left Chan and I to fly (Han) solo (-flex).

Turns out the people in front of us got the last available tickets, as it's a first-come, first-serve deal. But they're going to give us four "VIP" tickets to a future taping. Which works out perfectly. Because Chan and I would've felt horrible had we gotten in tonight, with Brian and Jessica off looking for their car. And this way, they'll have another chance to go, and with sweeter seats.

And we avoid Nancy Grace, who was tonight's guest. Borrrr-ing.

After we were denied entry to the studio, we went to the police station to look for Brian and Jessica, waited for a while, and then finally just got food at Zen Palate. But not before we checked Burritoville, which is where we had planned on going after the show before the car thing happened.

We talked to Brian when we got home, since neither me nor Chan has a cell phone, and found out that eventually the car showed up at an impound place. They gave him a tow and a ticket for being parked illegally, albeit accidentally. TJ, NYPD. And they had been at the police station and Burritoville, in each case right around when we were there. That just added to the weirdness of the night.

So it all worked out, except for the multiple hundreds of dollars Brian now has to pay.

The moral of the story is: Chan.