Extra Credit #2: The Key to Enslaving the Human Race

A Google a Day = tons of fun. I would have to agree with Cinephile Femme about the Paul Revere question, though. It was kind of ridiculous--seriously, seriously ridiculous. The first question I encountered, however, was the one about the painting done by the inventor--first off, I knew (or was reasonably sure) that "What hath God wrought!" was the first message sent on the telegraph, so I searched Samuel Morse and read about him and his paintings--i.e., I only had to do one search to find the correct answer and was very proud of myself. Also, I knew that name of the colony from which the residents mysteriously disappeared was Roanoke--so I got to skip a step on that one as well. Yay! Since I'm not in school any more, I need these small affirmations. I tried several other of these Google "puzzles" (while I was working at the Orchard Mesa branch) and had great success with the exception of the cursed Paul Revere query.

In addition to being great fun, A Google a Day was very informative. For instance, I learned that "Popcorn smell has an unusually attractive quality for human beings" (I got this quote from where else but wikipedia, where it seems most of the solutions can ultimately be found--except the Paul Revere one, of course). I've never thought that much about popcorn's smell before, but wikipedia is right--our (the human race as a whole) affinity for the aroma of popcorn is kind of extreme. Think about it, we go where that smell is, we follow it--even if it were to lead us over a cliff, we would still follow it. If our senses tell us that our beloved popcorn has been burnt by some negligent microwave operator, we become incredibly offended and insulted and that person is never allowed the sacred job of tending to the popcorn again. It has a hold over us. If life forms from another planet wanted to enslave the human race, the key would be in the scent of popcorn--it has power. They would seriously just need giant microwaves with giant packages of microwave popcorn and giant theatre popcorn-makers and giant stove-tops with giant aluminum pans of Jiffy Pop and that would be the end of what is commonly known as the human race.

I would like my extra entry to go towards the down town gift card, please. Maybe I could buy popcorn with it.