You've Gotta Be In To Win...
...but you don't actually have to be all that smart.
You won't find the answer in this post BUT if you contact me through Twitter (either by tweeting me @michaelocc or by direct message) I'll gladly tell you the correct answer. I can also tell you which American state has a five-sided flag too, for extra credit. I'm just curious to know the origin of this traffic spike - another online contest somewhere, perhaps? Now, back to the original post...]
Thanks to a listserv posting by the splendidly-named Dawn Quiett (of Quiett Publicity, no less), I just came across this geography contest currently running in the Miami Herald. Prizes include a two-night stay for two people at Izzy Sharp's swish new Four Seasons Miami, four passes to Busch Gardens - nice stuff like that.
It's a tough quiz, with questions like:
"One American state and one foreign nation have five-sided flags. What are they?"
...and 29 more where that one came from.
Of course, it turns out to be a whole lot easier once you learn (thanks Dawn!) that they lifted all but three of the questions from the San Francisco Chronicle, where the answers were already published in the December 28th edition.
I thought for a moment: perhaps they're sister papers at opposite ends of the country, figuring no one would find out? But no - looks like the Herald is a Knight Ridder rag, while the Chronicle is owned by Hearst.
I'm struggling to resist the urge to email the author of the original quiz in the Chronicle, just to see what he thinks.
The last three questions the Herald added in its version are seriously easy, but just in case you need an extra hint:
28. The Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
29. Bagan, in Myanmar (Google it - fascinating place).
30. The Reichstag, Berlin.
So. If a whole group of bloggers spot something dopey like this and jump on top of it, does that mean we made a blogpile...?
(Apologies in advance, btw, if this turns out to be glasscock - kind of hard to check).
