Complex Numbers

The Singular of Trivia is Datum

PROMPT January 27th

What bit of trivia do you know that is very interesting but also very useless?

I mean, have you read this blog?

Seriously, though, I don't think any piece of knowledge is useless -- especially for a writer. Alternatively, I could take the philosophical approach that all facts are useless, but then Fox News might try to recruit me.

There is, however, a whole spectrum between "useful" and "useless." Problem is, that spectrum is different for each person. For example, someone else (who is not me) might think it's critically important to know who won Game 3 of the 1978 World Series (I don't know that one and can't be arsed to look it up; I just pulled those numbers out of the air. For all I know, it's somehow important to sportsball.) Meanwhile, someone else (who also is not me) might consider the knowledge that Mars has two small moons, one of them orbiting retrograde, to have no practical value, whereas I find it not only interesting but essential.

After all, I haven't been to Mars, and neither has anyone else, so what good does it do to know such things? Unless of course you're a science fiction writer, or perhaps work for NASA.

So in considering what's useless, I'd have to know what each reader considers to be useful, and that's something I just can't begin to guess at. We're all different.

Consequently, I'm going to go with something for this entry that really has no bearing on anything else:

The week I was born, the #1 single in the US was "Lightnin' Strikes" by Lou Christie. At some point I looked it up and it stuck in my head (though I did just now look it up again just to make sure my memory hadn't done what my memory tends to do). It's interesting because apparently Christie is, or until recently was, still performing; and it's useless because what difference does it really make to anyone what song was #1 when I was born?

In the end, of course, all trivia is useful -- at least if you like to win trivia contests at bars.