Sunday, December 30, 2012

Trivial pursuits


Did I mention that I won "Trivial Pursuit" last night? It's hard to drop that casually into a conversation  without sounding prideful. Let's not talk about the fact it was necessary to cheat in order to end the game. But if we hadn't, we'd probably still be there sitting there bleary-eyed around a table rolling the die, trying to get someone with all six wedges filled in into the center space for the ultimate question.

We were playing a vintage version, probably manufactured not long after 1982, when the game was introduced. Wikipedia says 88 million have been sold since in 26 countries and 17 languages. At least the box and related gear looked exactly like that pictured above (harvested online) --- except our box was in better shape.

Many of the questions linked to popular culture were hopelessly obsolete --- but then some of us are approaching that point, too. That made it more fun.

And some of the questions served to remind that history marches on. Like, "What four countries contain a fourth of the world's population?" China, India, the United States --- so far so good. But who remembers the Soviet Union? I wonder what the right answer would be now.

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I've been taking the week between Christmas and New Year's off --- kind of, engaged in other trivial pursuits: Reading a little, cleaning house a little, cooking a little, watching the birds. Not composing lists of new year resolutions (why bother?). This always has been one of my favorite weeks of the year. Three days left. There's a lot to be said for trivial.

3 comments:

Ken said...

Not to be impertinent, Frank, but once you're retired, what does it mean to "take the week ... off"?

Frank D. Myers said...

While gainfully employed, I only had one office. Now I move from the historical society office to the Chamber/Main Street office to the church office with spare time spent in the home office. Go figure.

Ken said...

Just so you don't take any time off from your blog!