We’ve tested your knowledge of state quarters, license plates and state nicknames. And earlier this week, you wowed us with your mastery of flags of the world. Now let’s see how well you know your state flags.

Even if you don’t ace this one, you’ll be a better person for knowing some of these peculiar designs are flying over statehouses throughout the country.

Take the Quiz: State Flags

I hate the end of Daylight Saving Time. It means it’s dark by the time I get home at the end of the day, which makes it feel like the day is already over, which means I go home and get nothing done for the rest of the night. But there is a silver lining to this cloud: lots of loafing = lots more reading. For some reason I don’t feel as guilty about sitting on the couch with a book as I do when there’s daylight to burn. Luckily for me, Publishers Weekly just came out with their Top Books of 2009 list. Since I’m more apt to read fiction when I’m reading for fun, I’m going to list those – but if you want the whole list (including non-fiction, poetry and comics) you can check it out here. In no particular order, here are 10 of their favorite novels of 2009 thus far (their descriptions, not mine).

1. The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters. A finalist for the Man Booker Prize, this subtle, creepy haunted house story chronicles the decline of an aristocratic county family after WWII as seen through the less than reliable eyes of a bachelor doctor, whose mother once served as a maid at the family’s manor.

2. Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer. Dyer creates an aging hipster grinding it out as a freelance journalist who pursues the girl instead of the story: covering the Biennale. Then, depending on your point of view, he either loses or finds himself when he’s sent to Varanasi. Dyer has many books to recommend him, but all you need is angst-ridden Jeff: funny, frank and utterly charming, and if you haven’t walked in his shoes, you’ll wish you had.

3. The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly. Reporter Jack McEvoy decides to go out with a bang, after he’s laid off from the L.A. Times, in a nail-biting thriller that charts the demise of print journalism and shows why Connelly is one of today’s top crime authors.

4. The Fate of Katherine Carr by Thomas H. Cook. Edgar-winner Cook eloquently explores the often cathartic act of storytelling as George Gates, a former travel writer who after seven years still broods over his eight-year-old son’s murder, looks into the unsolved disappearance of reclusive poet Katherine Carr 20 years earlier. (more…)

He’ll sell you a vowel or sympathize when you go bankrupt, but how well do you know Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak? Here are a few things you might not have known about the veteran game show man.

1. He Got to Say “Good Morning, Vietnam”

Sajak joined the U.S. Army in 1968 with the hope that he could avoid being sent to Vietnam. Of course, since it was 1968, that plan didn’t work out so well; Sajak ended up working as a finance clerk in Long Binh, Vietnam. Desperate to switch jobs, he kept applying for radio duty, but nothing happened.

Eventually, Sajak hit on an idea. He wrote a letter to one of his old radio employers who had been elected to Congress. A few calls to the right people later, and Sajak became an Army disc jockey, a job he held for 18 months. Sajak didn’t love a lot of the military’s radio rules, so he circumvented them. He later told the New York Times, “If you said your name, you were supposed to say your rank – specialist fifth class, which kind of ruins your patter. So on the radio I would just not say my name at all. I went for a year on radio without ever identifying myself.”

2. His Career Had a Rough Start

Sajak’s first steady radio gig was in Chicago on a tiny 250-watt Spanish language station. (more…)

“Probably the most important trivia night that week.”
—Mangesh Hattikudur

If you’re the kind of person who likes doing things and you live within commuting distance of New York, get this on your calendar: the first Mental Floss Trivia Show will be held on Sunday, December 6th at 7pm. This (extra) special event will take place at the Galapagos Arts Space in Brooklyn.

Come show off your trivia prowess, win moderately-sized prizes, and meet some of the mental_floss gang.

We’ll share more details as the big day approaches. You just go ahead and clear your schedule.

Every Friday, I post a series of unrelated questions meant to spark conversation in the comments. Answer one, answer all, respond to someone else’s reply, whatever you want. Very casual. On to this week’s topics of discussion…

1. A few years ago, we replaced our old radiators with baseboards. The guy we hired to do the work was a friend of a friend, and he was very nice and chatty. He told me all about his son—a wide receiver for Texas A&M. The details were impressive and crazy specific: “Last week he set the school record for receiving yards by a sophomore.” “He’s a bit undersized, but with the success of guys like Wes Welker”—then with the Dolphins and not very well known—”he might have a better chance of getting drafted in a couple years.” “He’s on the track team, too—Big 12 champion sprinter as a freshman!” He was such a proud dad.

Of course, he made the whole thing up. I Googled the man’s son—not because I didn’t believe him, but because I absolutely believed him, and I wanted to root for his kid, too. There was nobody by that name on the Texas A&M football team. Or at Texas A&M. Perplexed by the lie, I kept searching and found out the kid was an athlete. On his high school track team. Junior Varsity. Couldn’t find anyone else comparing him to Wes Welker, though.

People lie about stuff all the time. “I didn’t get your email!” “I’m not cheating on you with your brother!” “I did not eat your sandwich!” You can (probably) understand those. But what’s the most bizarre, completely unnecessary lie you’ve ever been told?

2. Did your college or high school have any non-traditional graduation requirements, either official or unofficial? (more…)

It seems that both politics and politicians rarely change. America is blessed, however, to have a heritage of colorful political figures who have uttered many memorable saying throughout our history. Your job is to match the quote to the person who said it.

Take the Quiz: Who Said It? (Political Edition)

The car in the video, based on the prehistoric trilobite creature, is known as its Latin name, the “Sarriugarteis (Odontochile) trilobiteis,” or the Electrobite. It was made by the same people that made the famed snail car for the Burning Man Festival.

They say the internal workings are based a wheelchair, but it’s movements totally remind me of the spinning snails in Disney’s Electric Parade. One of the truest-to-Burning-Man-adaptations is its  ability to hold a propane tank just in case it needs to shoot fire out the horns.

The creators say they hope their next project can incorporate the Segway, for example, a wobbly mushroom vehicle.

Woman Reports Herself Driving Drunk

Mary Strey called police in Clark County, Wisconsin to report a drunk driver. What made this call so unusual was that she was reporting on herself! She told the dispatcher that someone was driving drunk on Granton Road. When asked if she was following that person, she admitted it was herself. Strey pulled over and waited for the responding officer, who gave her a Breathalyzer test which showed her blood alcohol level was .19. Strey is due in court over the matter in December. http://www.wtsp.com/news/watercooler/story.aspx?storyid=116662&catid=58

Fast Cat for the Fastest Man

Usain Bolt, who holds the world record for both the 100- and 200-meter sprint, adopted a cheetah named Lightning Bolt. But he isn’t going to make the cheetah into a house cat. Bolt paid $13,700 for adoption rights, and has pledged $3,000 a year for the cat’s upkeep at a wildlife center in Nairobi. The money helps to support the Kenyan Wildlife Services and their efforts to protect endangered species.

Father Reports Eagle Crime to Police

A sea eagle swooped down on the island of Väddö in Sweden and snatched a little girl’s pet rabbit on the night of October 24th. The girl was so inconsolable that her father phoned the local police department to report the crime.

The police however have decided not to launch a preliminary investigation as they were unable to find anything in the law books allowing for the indictment of large birds.

Calf Gets Prosthetic Legs

Nancy Dickenson of Ocate, New Mexico and her stepdaughter Martha found an 11-month-old calf on a neighbor’s ranch that was suffering from severe frostbite. The black angus heifer had lost the use of her back legs and hooves. What to do? Obviously, the answer is to give her prosthetic legs! Dickenson found the calf’s owner and bought her, then talked to veterinarians from Colorado State University, who agreed to help the calf they now called Meadow. Doctors and students at the veterinary school amputated Meadow’s back legs and fitted her with artificial limbs. Dickenson said her family will take on the costs, estimated to be thousands of dollars, because Meadow is now a pet. She is in no danger of becoming beef.

Man Shows Up at His Funeral

The family of 59-year-old Ademir Jorge Goncalves of Santo Antonio da Platina, Brazil identified his body after a fatal traffic accident. The funeral was held the next day, which is customary in Brazil. Imagine their shock when Goncalves himself appeared at the funeral service! Goncalves had spent the night drinking at a truck stop. A police spokesman said the body was disfigured and the family was upset, which may explain the misidentification. The victim has since been identified and the remains sent to the correct family.

Bird Drops Bread, LHC Shuts Down

You can’t make stuff like this up. A piece of a baguette dropped by a passing bird caused a shutdown at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The bread fell on some exposed machinery, which led to overheating in parts of the accelerator. The temperature spike would have caused the LHC to automatically shut down if it had been in operation at the time. The collider is scheduled to be reactivated later this month. The bread incident won’t affect those plans.

Woman Robbed by Tinky Winky

A man dressed as a purple Teletubby pulled a gun on a woman on the streets of London, Ontario just after midnight on Halloween. He made off with an undisclosed amount of cash.

The woman wasn’t injured but her misfortune wasn’t hers alone. A second man dressed in costume was later stopped in the area by police and questioned — but police had the wrong teletubby.

“He was deemed not to be the teletubby we were looking for,” Const. Kevin Lui said. “Unfortunately, Halloween provides (robbers) more cover than any other night.”

You’ve definitely seen them: commemorative state plates featuring landmarks and slogans from a particular state. I call them “state plates,” but the official term among collectors is “souvenir state plates.” They’re often displayed in kitchens, and the designs range from kitschy to classy to impossibly bizarre — see below for examples of each. According to CountryHome (in their “What’s Hot Now” feature!), state plates have been around since the 1870s:

Souvenir state plates date back to the 1870s. When travel became more accessible thanks to cars, they became increasingly popular with jet-setting travelers. There are tons of unsigned, flea-market-type plates out there, but keep your eyes open for some big-name manufacturers, including Vernon Kilns, Homer Laughlin, Salem China Company, and even Wedgwood.

In the post below, I (with the able assistance of Sadie Eck, standing in as Mental_Floss State Plate Research Assistant for this post) have collected plates for ALL FIFTY STATES. I’ve picked out some favorites first, then the rest are in alphabetical order. Fun things to do while looking through them: count the states you’ve visited, count the states you’ve lived in, spot the craziest designs.

South Carolina

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