Which brings me to Logos Quiz. Logos Quiz is unique on two fronts. First, it’s not multiple-choice. You’ve got to dredge the right answer up out of the forgotten corners of your brain and type it in. I like that.
Second, it’s entirely visual. Every question is a picture, or rather, a piece of a picture. It’s a symbol, or a letter, or a couple of lines from a familiar company logo, with just enough key pieces to make you say “AH I F@%#ING KNOW THIS LOGO WHAT IS IT?!?!?!” Then your wife comes along and says, “Why are you looking at suntan oil?” and it all falls into place.
The game is both simple and top notch clever, and makes me smile at the sneakiness of avoiding copyright and royalty fees by having only partial logos within. I can see by Google’s autofill feature for popular web searches that I’m not the only one who’s been caught up in the mayhem. Here I am thinking I’m being sneaky and clever looking up “airline logos”, and upon typing the first four letters I see “airline logo answers to logos quiz” in the top ten common searches.
Admittedly, the Logos Quiz may not be for everyone. For example, if you have never used any product of any kind, or purchased food, you may struggle with this quiz. But then, you probably don’t have an iPad either. Everyone else should like it, though.
Finally, Sporcle. The headline at the top of Sporcle is Mentally Stimulating Diversions, and I can’t put it any better than that. If I was ever going to get the chance to prove my knowledge of Varieties of Dr Seuss Bird Eggs, Sporcle is where I just might find it.
It would appear the Sporcle people got tired of seeing “Who won Best Actress in 1997?” or “What’s the capital of Honduras?” Instead, they go for a complete brain shuffle. They take your mental filing system, kick it sideways, scatter it over the dance floor and ask you to rearrange it by futility and whimsy. I love it.
It’s difficult to explain without examples, so here are some examples:
- Normal Countries – List all the countries that are NOT in the top or bottom 50 of population and area in the world.
- Elements by any three letters – List all elements of the periodic table by any three letters in sequence (hint: “ium” knocks off a whole bunch)
- ‘SIN’ States – States that contain the letters S, I and N in any order
- Harry Potter Sevens – List the things that come in Sevens (Quidditch positions, Horcruxes, Weasleys)
You see? Lateral thinking to the extreme. Also, it’s another typer. You’ve got to pull them out of nowhere, and spell them correctly to boot.
If I had to find fault, Sporcle’s design is a bit squaresville, but what it lacks in panache it makes up for in gumption and chutzpah (ha, that’s three words that don’t mean anything all in one sentence).
So, to answer my original question: I’m going to have to go with (D) Sporcle. Locked in, final answer. Grab it today. But don’t let that stop you from grabbing the other three as well, since they’re free. Why don’t we just say (E) All Of The Above, and call it even?
If you’re reading this at work on a lazy Friday afternoon, I’ll leave you with a great trivia showstopper. Years ago when I worked in New York City, this question came through to somebody’s email, spread like wildfire through the office, and seriously stopped all productivity for the day. I can’t imagine our office was the only office this happened to, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that within a month, all dot com stock plummeted and the Internet became a financial wasteland. So now, I’m going to pass that onto you! Yay!
The question is this: How many actors can you name who have starred in two sets of trilogies? Here are two easy ones: Sylvester Stallone (Rocky & Rambo) and Harrison Ford (Star Wars & Indiana Jones). See how many more you and your colleagues can get.
And while you’re at it, kiss the rest of your day goodbye.
