"The one that made me sick was called 'hot dog.' I couldn't believe people eat the dogs."

What a great idea, StoryCorps. It's this organization whose mission is to preserve stories in sound. You sit in a little recording booth in the middle of Manhattan and tell your story. Okay, maybe not everyone has a great story to tell, but the ones spliced and edited on StoryCorps' website are pretty interesting.

There's 90-year-old Albert Kahn who talks about Coney Island's movie houses. Harold Slappy, aged 91, talks about what it was like visiting Harlem's Savoy Ballroom every Saturday, seeing Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Elvis, Louis Armstrong. A mother tells her son about her first "romantic encounter." In the photo, she's this silver-haired grandmotherly type smiling sweetly into the camera.

The idea is really simple. You start by choosing someone to interview. Then you reserve space in this little "story booth." You prepare a list of questions (they have a "question generator" for this) and you show up, do the interview, and they'll make a digital recording of it right then and there.

It's like mini audio documentaries. I love it.