Easy Peasy

Here's something to do if you feel like wasting time at work: http://quiz.history.com/

But the questions are ridiculously easy. Reminds me of how I won my "2010 Census" coffee mug at Merry Main Street (our town's Christmas "doing"). I saw they had swag and walked up and said, "I want a mug. What do I have to do to get it?" So they asked me a trivia question.

"Not counting this year's, when was the last U.S. census?"

"2000." They handed me the mug.

"That's IT? That's all I have to answer? I don't even have to say it's mandated by the Constitution? Or that a bunch of the data ends up in Statistical Abstracts of the United States? Which is a GREAT book, by the way, and a huge bargain."

They interrupted me. "Um, no ma'am. Just the year."

"Oh, okay! Thanks."

I am a total weirdo, but I LOVE Statistical Abstracts of the United States. It's published annually by the Government Printing Office (www.gpo.gov) and compiles a gracious plenty of data about the US. When I was running a library (Ericsson, Siemens' Wireless) I used to drive to the GPO bookstore in downtown Dallas on the release date every year to buy my new copy. You could say that StatAbstracts was my Harry Potter. Except cheaper. And no one has to camp out in tents ahead of time.