Amateur Hour at NPR

I've been listening to NPR a lot lately, and even though I enjoy the content of it a lot of the time, their amateurishness drives me up the wall. Of all the smart people I know who listen to NPR, none of them seem to comment on this, and I don't know why. I listen to all kinds of radio, from conservative to liberal, and say what you will about conservative talk shows, they are a hell of a lot more polished than NPR. I mean, seriously. NPR sounds like freaking college radio sometimes, it's so freaking piss poorly produced.

So, I've decided to make an NPR drinking game. Take one drink when any of the following happens:

1a) The volume level of the guest is less than half of that of the host, so that you have a choice between not hearing the guest, or having your ears blown out whenever the host talks.

1b) The volume level of the host is less than half of that of the guest, with the same problems as above.

2) The host interrupts the guest repeatedly to say some sort of agreement (yes, uh-huh, etc)

3) The host interrupts the guest repeatedly to state something completely obvious in an attempt to prove that they are knowledgable and intelligent.

3) The host and guest spend more than 30 seconds in mutual back scratching, complimenting, talking about how important and wonderful the guest is, how great the show is, etc.

4) You can hear the host of the show rustling papers in the background.

5) The host or guest is a "low talker", where they start saying something, and then mumble the end of their question or comment as they ramble unintelligibly for another 10 seconds at the end.

6) The host or guest says "um.." or "uhhh.." more than 10 times in one minute.

I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones I've noticed in just the last two days.

Feel free to contribute your own to the list.