useless knowledge

Once in a while, the silly competitive animal in me likes to be unleashed in games of useless knowledge.

Frankly, its amazing how much unimportant things the human mind retains. Advertising jingles first heard in youth, lines from poetry or fiction that do not necessarily change the world, names and places that bear no relevance to daily life, numbers and statistics of foreign economies, celebrity deaths, the list goes on.

Sometimes I fear that I need to reformat my brain's hard drive and just dump all this pointless stuff. Perhaps the reason my thinking about super-specific things is slowing down is because of the weight of trivia in my mind. I imagine new knowledge coming in and having to go really far to find a place for themselves - because the front portions have been occupied by the same old Sesame Street songs since my childhood.

But then again, the plethora of insane details does contribute to my mind's general legerity, allowing me to often win at trivia game variants (until my intellectual bully of a wife comes along with a smile and beats me within an inch of my life - in the very same categories I'm supposed to have "mastered", and then some).

So until I defrag, let me know if you need someone to explain the exhaustive history of the nutmeg trade. Or somesuch.