Fun! Fun! Quiz! Time!

Posted on August 19, 2003    Posted by John Scalzi

Just to keep y’all in the loop with what I’m doing, I’m, like, this close to wrapping up Book of the Dumb, which is good. The main chunk of the articles is done, and now I’m just doing interesting little “series” articles, which are recurring bits interspersed between stand-alone articles. These categories are Tips For Stupid Criminals, Dumb Movie Festivals, Historical Dumbosity and Really Stupid Quizzes. I’m particularly having fun with the Really Stupid Quizzes, since I’m taking one actual news story and then making up two fake news stories, and then making people guess which actually happened.

Want to try it? Sure you do. Here’s one of the quizzes. Remember, one of these is true, the other two are false. Guess which is which. I’ll put the answer in the comment thread.

1. A German criminal who had escaped from a city jail in Hamburg, was re-arrested after he posted an online personal admitting he was an escaped felon. The criminal posted on the German version of Yahoo! Personals, and noted: “In the spirit of openness, I have to say I have a criminal past and I am hiding from police as I have escaped from jail. But I am looking forward to turning over a new leaf with the right woman.” Yahoo Personals staff notified police, who posed as a woman looking to meet. Our criminal was arrested as he waited for his date at a café in Bremen.

2. An escapee from a Sao Paulo, Brazil prison was rearrested on his first day at his new job, as a bus driver taking friends and relatives to visit prisoners at another Sao Paulo prison. How the escaped prisoner got the job in the first place is still open to question, but he was taken into custody after a routine inspection disclosed his true identity. Said a police spokesperson: “How dumb can you be? You escape prison and then get a job where you drive inside another prison every week?”

3. A prisoner serving time for arson who escaped a state penitentiary in Nevada attempted to hitch a ride on a highway by displaying a sign that read “Just Escaped From Prision [sic] — Give a Guy a Break!” And in fact it worked, up to a point: A truck driver stopped and drove the escapee to the next truck stop on the highway, where he bought the escapee breakfast and encouraged him to take a shower. While our escapee was doing so, the trucker had the waitress contact the police, who rearrested the escapee as he was coming out of the truck stop shower.

Which is Really Stupid?

(The answer is in the comment thread)