How Many Countries Can You Name?

I stumbled upon this little timewaster yesterday, and wanted to share it. Fun though it may be, the quiz is badly named. Instead of "How Many Countries Can You Name in Five Minutes?" it should be called "How Many Countries Can You TYPE in Five Minutes?" And if anyone's seen my four-fingered method of typing, you'll know that my answer to that question is always going to be "Not as many as I could say out loud!"

Although I was slowing down a little, I wasn't even close to the bottom of my barrel of countries when the clock ran out on me. Even worse, the quiz had spit out some of the countries I listed due to silly things like punctuation (it disallows US Virgin Islands, in favor of U.S. Virgin Islands) or spelling (under pressure I couldn't get the L's and P's in Philippines sorted out, and called Equatorial Guinea Ecuadorial Guinea).

I never would've gotten this entire list, no matter how much time I had. In fact, I'm sure at least some of the countries listed are fictional. "Nagorno-Karabakh" is a nation? Right. Sounds more like a syndrome. And I'm not even going to look up "Ross Dependency." That's not a country. It's what Rachel was suffering from when Friends went off the air.

I knew going in that I'd suffer greatly when it came to naming African nations. We had to memorize every country on the African continent when I was in middle school. But after countless civil wars, those countries have changed names more times than an international jewel thief. What a waste of my seventh grade year. I could've been doing something constructive with that time, like trying to score my first French kiss.

Anyway, don't rub it in when you beat me...and you will. The most frustrating thing about this stupid quiz is that although geography is one of my worst subjects, I really felt like I was rolling when the sands ran out. I thought this was a chance to redeem myself for taking so long to get the blue pie piece every time I played Trivial Pursuit. Geographical glory just isn't in the cards for me.

I guess I'm better off sticking to Arts & Literature. I wonder what the blue pie piece is in the kids' version of the game?