Why does the brain remember pointless shit? I was confined to bed almost entirely yesterday, and when I wasn’t having some bizarre Elder Scrolls meets Swordfish dream I was plundering the recesses of my knowledge. See, when I have debilitating migraines one thing I like to do to try and distract myself from the pain is quiz myself. Often times it is about useful, practical information: Japanese vocabulary, programming libraries or languages, things like that.
But I found out yesterday I also know some really pointless crap. For example…
Claymore
Are you familiar with the manga and/or anime Claymore? If not, I’ll just tell you that a ‘claymore’ in that series is a female warrior, named after the weapon obviously. Do you know how many there are? Forty-seven.
Now, name them, in order of rank, specifically the pre-timeskip generation when Clare is number forty-seven. Apparently I can do this.
That is never going to be important in my entire life. God knows I am never going to be on any game show and get asked what the first nine claymores were in order (because the tenth is never named). And also it’s…
- Alicia
- Beth
- Galatea
- Ophelia
- Rafaela
- Miria
- Eva
- Flora
- Jean
Go ahead and look it up somewhere to see if I’m right or not. I’m pretty confident that I am. I have only seen that series twice, and read the manga once, and yet my subconscious considered it important that my brain devote the resources and allocate the space to commit this shit to memory. Hell, I could tell you the order in which they appear and their voice actresses in either dub. Why?!?
Go
Not the programming language, but the board game. Over the years I have developed the ability to immediately replay a game from memory just after finishing it, but that is nothing special; tons of players can do that. The weird, pointless thing in my memory, however, are specific games. Like I could arbitrarily show you the first one-hundred moves of a game of the 9th Tiangyuan cup played by Ma Xiaochun and Nie Wieping. A game from 1995. Why?
I guess this makes a little more sense than the random Claymore trivia since I actively play Go. Yet I cannot remember my own games that I played forty-eight hours ago. But I can show you a number of games from memory that some Chinese professionals played before I even took an interest in the game. Why???
Birthdays
Heh just kidding, I can’t remember those damned things at all. I know mine. And I know John Edgerton’s, a good friend of mine, because his is the day after mine. So I get to be John’s age for twenty-four hours and then it’s a year apart once again. As far everyone else—friends, family, imaginary pet lobsters—can’t remember a damn one of them.
What about you guys? Any things you know which you consider pointless trivia, and you wonder why your brain continues to hold on to it?
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#1 by Daedelus on January 7, 2012 - 7:59 pm
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The thing that gets me about this topic is that there is a lot of stuff I actually want to remember. Japanese vocabulary, scripture verses, the various places my money needs to go because it actually belongs to someone else… That stuff takes a backseat, apparently, to various trivial junk.
Game and story characters: Quick, name Glorfindel’s horse in The Fellowship of the Ring. How about the sons of Finwe in the Silmarillion? The 16 major party characters in Final Fantasy Tactics? Who was the Norse god who had his hand bitten off when he put a ribbon around a giant wolf’s neck? The evil deity in The Last Battle by CS Lewis?
I’ve read Fellowship 4 times since 4th grade. I’ve read the Silmarillion twice- once in high school and once about a year ago. I haven’t played through Tactics since the first time, 12 years ago. Norse mythology? High school (I’m now 28). The Last Battle? 3rd damned grade, and I could also name the ape and the donkey that pretended to be Aslan and his herald (Shift and Puzzle). For some reason story stuff sticks with me.
Classic Rock: I don’t hate the classic rock genre, I really don’t. It’s just all my father listened to the entire time I was growing up. It’s tattooed into my head. Aerosmith, The J. Geils Band, The Doors… They burn in my mind like a repetitive, incomprehensible brand. And almost every song that comes on the local classic rock station immediately calls forth in my memory the title and the artist. I do not need this information. I’m not going to win any bar bets with it, because I do not go to bars. I’ll never be on Jeopardy. Why won’t Big Head Todd and the Monsters just leave me the Hell alone?!
Video game music: We didn’t have a lot of money when I was growing up, so our game library wasn’t enormous. But I was a kid in the glorious (for gaming) mid-80′s to late-90′s, and the music from just about every game we owned (or my grandmother owned) is instantly identifiable for me. I even whistle game music when I’m nervous or uncomfortable (or happy), and no one around me ever seems to have a clue what I’m on about. Heh, Bubble Bobble…
Doo doo doo, doo-doo doo doo, doo-doo doo doo-doo doooooo…
As a side-note to the video game music thing, my wife and I were talking and I asserted that new game music doesn’t stick with me as much now. She promptly called bullshit, and in an effort to prove her wrong I looked over at our gaming shelf and tried to call to mind the standout music from each game we owned. Did we play through it? Then I remember at least the main theme and a couple of stages. Also, Nights: Journey of Dreams’ main theme. We’ve played it once, for about an hour. In my defense, though, that theme is awesome. I hate it when she’s right. Fortunately, that’s extremely rare. Because she is a woman.