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Kara’s latest feature for mentalfloss.com, “Five Murders and the Movies they Inspired,” was picked up by CNN.com:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/07/11/inspired.movies/

Sandy here. Both WJR-AM radio and The Detroit Free Press have requested interviews with us concerning our latest book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Fun FAQs. Because interviews require focusing on a subject for an extended period of time, we’re understandably hesitant to do them. While developing our trivia chops since the early 1990s, Kara and I have become masters at taking a narrow subject and finding ways to expand it using tie-ins from pop culture, history, literature, whatever.

And, quite frankly, we do so darned much of it that it’s difficult to distinguish one job from another. When interviewers ask about a particular article done six months ago, we find it very tricky, since we’ve filled our minds with thousands of new bits of information since then. It’s like asking a baseball player about a particular pitch from earlier in the season. There have been so many since then that all you can really say is something generic like, “Yes, well, that was challenging, but I did my best.”

I’m happy to talk about our “craft,” but I even draw a blank when someone asks me for a random interesting fact. There are so many swimming through my head at all hours of the day and night that it becomes more and more difficult to pull out one from the batch. We try to FIND things, and we try to PROVE things, and while we’re at it, we do our best to LEARN things. But they don’t all stick.

A few months back, I calculated our output in 2007, and here’s what I came up with:

• Multiple-choice trivia questions: around 2,500
• Paragraph-length facts: nearly 3,000
• FAQ questions: around 1,200
• Puzzles of varying descriptions: over 500

Combine these with additional things we’ve written (in print, online, and tied to merchandise) and I figure that we ran well over 500,000 words last year alone. Yow. It’s no wonder that the letters keep rubbing off our keyboards. And that doesn’t include the research and fact-checking work that we do for mental_floss, where we have to check every article in each issue for accuracy. That’s a full-time job in itself, with all the checking, reading, calling and digging it takes.

It’s a job that’s usually interesting, sometimes maddening, and often exhausting. But one thing Kara and I both agree on – without hesitation – is that there’s nothing else we’d rather do.

UPDATE: Our interview with Julie Hinds is schedule to run in The Detroit Free Press on Tuesday, August 5. There will be a photo as well, so consider yourselves warned.

Kara and Sandy provided questions for the World Quizzing Championships in 2007 and 2008. This year’s contest found Pat Gibson, a one-million-pound winner on the British Who Wants to be a Millionaire, as the winner.

Anyone who knows us knows that we’re not heavily into politics, but we couldn’t resist taking part in this project. Several weeks ago, we received a call from Jay Kamhi, founder of a company that has produced popular novelties ranging from stuffed mice to musical gift boxes. He asked us to provide some trivia content for his latest venture, a laughing pen in the shape of 2008 Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton.

We added a few extra touches that were incorporated into the final product — such as the graphic of the “audio analysis of Hillary’s voice.” In fact, we composed nearly all the text for the back of the blister package for the pen, which you can view at http://www.hillarypen.com/laugh.html

Only a few of these limited-edition pens are still available, so if you want to purchase one (and you know you do), visit http://www.hillarypen.com

I didn’t take statistics in college, so maybe I’m missing something. But this article makes me think. If you don’t want to bother to click through, the article cites a Web source containing odds for teams to reach the 2008 World Series. What I don’t get is that five out of the top six teams are American League teams. The Mets are the only NL representative among those top six.

Now, only one AL team and one NL team makes it to the World Series. So how can you have five different AL teams at 7:2, 5:1 and 10:1 odds, but only one NL team at better than 12:1 odds? If the Mets were big-time favorites, I guess it would make sense, but they’re 4:1.

I’m usually good at math, so someone please explain this to me.

Kara and Sandy researched and wrote the “truths,” mental_floss co-founder Mangesh Hattikudur penned the “lies,” and this is the result: The mental_floss Spot the Big Fat Lie 2008 page-a-day calendar.

WGN News/Talk 720, Chicago
Saturday, January 6, 2007

9:05pm Nick Digilio:

Nick talks with Will Pearson and Sandy Wood of mental_floss magazine about their 5th anniversary issue and their newest book, The Genius Instruction Manual.

http://wgnradio.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30565&Itemid=262

WGN News/Talk 720, Chicago
Saturday, July 8, 2006

Following a 6:05pm Cubs game (approximately 9:05pm) Nick Digilio:

Nick talks with Will Pearson about Cocktail Party Cheat Sheets, the new book from mental_floss magazine. Also in on the interview will be Sandy Wood, mental_floss magazine’s ace research editor.

http://wgnradio.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30567&Itemid=262

Sandy & Kara’s latest is a Disney quiz for the Travel Channel:

http://www.travelchannel.com/convergence/familyvacations/interactives/disney/quiz/quiz.html

A new board game from the folks at Pressman, featuring plenty of trivia questions and answers written and/or edited by Sandy & Kara, and coming soon to a toy retailer near you…

mental_floss: The Trivia Game