I’m pretty sure they added another one to make things even more complicated, but I can’t remember the third one for the life of me. Ah well, at least they haven’t gone the crazy Swiss route with seven Heads of State; I don’t even know how they sort that out.
When I was in elementary school, I had the books of the bible memorized. Now my only memorizing claim to fame it being able to recite Jabberwocky. (But I had to look up how to spell it.)
When I was a youngster I worked at a fast food joint. We didn’t have the fancy cash registers of today. Hamburgers and drinks were 15 cents each. So, I memorized all the multiples of 15. Still know them today and that was 50 years ago.
I memorized the US Presidents via Jonathan Coulton’s The Presidents song. I can’t recite them in order (I have to sing the song in my head), but as a bonus I also know a short factoid about each of them that lets me place them in a historical context, for example:
“Rutherford B. Hayes ended reconstruction”
or
“Taft was big and fat and had a mustache”
The license plates of all my crushes.
The 7 steps when playing archery (learned in high school)
Stance
Knock
Draw
Anchor
Aim
Release
Follow through
Scientific description of a kiss (asked high school crush if he wanted to experience the anatomical juxtaposition of two orbicularis oris muscles in the state of contraction)
Kingdom-Phylum-Class-Order-Family-Genus-Species
(aka ‘Kitchen police cry over frog gut stew’)
I can count upto the tens of thousands, in binary.
I can name all the U.S. states, just by closing my eyes and imagining a map.
I can name all the planets and their moons that were known in 1953.
Thanks. With mathematics, I’m doing well if I can add 2 plus 2 and make 4; and it’s a long time since I was at school !
“Righty-tighty, lefty-loosy”
Handy with taps, screws, bolts, etc.
Lesseee --my last Florida driver’s licence number, my social security number; I can reel those off without skipping a beat. Useless in that I’m now living in Australia,
I’m not good with numbers but used to be good with memorizing words. A few of my favorite memorized poems were:
*To His Coy Mistress,*Andrew Marvell
Dover Beach, Matthew Arnold
*The Children’s Hour,*Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Spring and Fall, Gerard Manley Hopkins
Then some Lewis Carrol and e.e. cummings.
At one time I think I could probably sing the lyrics to most of the popular songs of the thirties to the seventies.
Add to this the obligatory "Gettysburg Address, " sundry Bible verses and nursery rhymes and I had a significant store of SUT to entertain myself while I slaved away sans radio or conversation on a plastics factory assembly line in the lean days.
I write in past tense because currently I am victim to CRS syndrome. I know it’s filed away somewhere in there. Problem is I’m still operating on the Dewy Decimal System and there’s only one little guy up there frantically going through all the files. After a while there’s an awful lot of SUT in those card catalogues.
If it matters, I know what THC stands for.
I can explain that business with Pluto. Talk about semi-useless trivia. :rolleyes: