I got the thiiing.

Every week, as part of my workplace's continuing effort to improve our morale so as to encourage us forget the fact that our poor business model (no plans for the market ever turning down even a little, apparently) resulted in none of our workers getting our annual and expected merit-based raises this year, (that's right, folks, it's Spirit Month!) they sent around a movie trivia quiz, via email, the winner winning some delightful and sparkly and distracting from lower pay trinket. (Technically, a gift card to Target, which I do not need, nor do I really, deep down, want, given that it would only further drive my unwanted desire for STUFF and THINGS.) But I love quizzes, so I busted out IMDB and answered all the questions correctly. I was the first person to get my results in. I even went so far as to double-check my answers, if you can believe it. I know, I know.

Well, most of my answers and mostly correctly. When it came down to clicking send, or checking every single one, I decided not to check the first question, since I thought it was right: What was the other X-rated picture to be nominated for best picture besides Midnight Cowboy? The answer is, of course, A Clockwork Orange. I, however, answered Last Tango in Paris, which was nominated for best director, which is close, but not close enough, also not that great a film, in my opinion. Depressing, artistic, and bland. Not a best picture. I should have known.

So I didn't win the trinket. Which is how I figured it would turn out when I clicked send. See, when I take a test, I fully and completely expect to getat least one of the answers wrong becaue I thought I knew, and didn't check. No matter how well I know the subject matter. I'm surprised when I get them all right even when I'm the one who made the test. It's kind of an anticlimax if I do get them all right, too; all that work, and then, well, boring success.

The same happens when I create a puzzle; I expect to have to go back and fix it at some point. In third grade, we were assigned to make assignments for the rest of the class for our spelling words. I made a word search that was really complicated: some were backwards and up to the left, even. But, I misspelled about half of them, and people kept getting confused. So, things that I said were in it, weren't. And then, some of you got to see what happened when I made that puzzle for the blog. Had to redo it, like, three times. So, I figure, when I do a thing that requires precision, I'm gonna mess something up along the way. I'm much more of a creative person than an ontarget person. No excuses, fie on it, even, but it is so.

So, when this week's history quiz came along in my email yesterday, I decided to go all out, answer all the questions really thoroughly, researched on Wikipedia, the whole bit. Elaborated on Napoleon and Hitler's downfall in attacking Russia during the spring. Named 10 of the modern countries that exist within the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire, instead of just 5. Double-checked the ones I thought I knew. Mentioned the last unsuccessful invasion of Britain in a question about the last successful one. So, then, I made it creative and precise. Best of both worlds. But when the results came back, I wasn't even in the top 2. Thought I'd done so well, too.

Today, the guy who made the quiz came by and told me I did a good job, and I asked him what I missed. I thought it might have been that I put "The Orient" instead of "The East Indies" in a question about ol' Chris Columbus, but he said that was fine. Turns out I'd only lost half a point: I left off the "when" part of the question about which two presidents died on the same day, and when. Same old, same old. Missing minor details and hitting the big picture. 'Swhy I'd make a lousy engineer. On my ACTs, I hit the 97th or higher percentile on every category except pre-algebra. Aced the college level reading, bombed jr. high math. It's my life.

But then the guy who made the quiz said he had come by, not to let me know what I'd gotten wrong, but what I'd gotten right, to let me know that I was correct: Tanzania had never declared independence, that it is a merger of two other countries that had declared independence previously, and so there is no true date of independence for Tanzania. Then, he gave me a very nice consolation prize, a leather keychain with a carrying bag(!(?)), which I won't need for the keychain which I will now use, that I may end up using for holding dice or for my sunglasses, which I am tired of losing.

So, to celebrate creatvity trimphing over lack of precision, I turned on my under-shelf florescent lamp, tore July off my desk calendar for a backdrop, and I took a picture. That I posted on my blog. And then wrote a blog post about. Which you are reading. Er, have been reading. Good day.






Oh, and for those who care, here's a link to the rest of the good pictures I took yesterday at lunch: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=62312&l=2a2e3&id=529650350