Oh, one more quick thing to report…

There was a slush discovery this month. We bought “Old as Books” from Mike Shultz, a newish writer who has had one previous sale to Black Gate. So I guess I can’t claim all the credit for discovering him, but I did read the story, saw that it was good, and passed it along to the man who signs the checks.

Sorry to disappoint those who thought that the title of this post was referring to a new reality TV show in which slush writers try to out-write, out-revise, and out-format each other (with the winner, of course, not winning a million dollars, but publication in a fine literary journal of the fantastic).

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I was reading something this weekend that got me interested in Mensa. I was curious just how smart you needed to be to get into it. It’s pretty intimidating — only like the top 2% of the highest IQs get in.

On their website, there’s a “workout” quiz, which you can take as practice before taking a real IQ test, and you can use it to gauge how well you might do. It’s at http://www.mensa.org/workout.php.

I did better than I thought I would. I’ve never considered analytical thinking to be the strongest part of my intelligence (I always thought of myself as more of a knowledge guy). But I got 24 out of 30 correct, and the results page said “That is a very good score, you would have a good chance of passing the Mensa test.” I was pleased at how some of them came to me almost instantly, and then satisfied when I worked out some of them that I didn’t immediately recognize. I think the only sad thing about it is that three of the questions I missed were word-related (not math-related). Two were straight up word scrambles, and one was a different sort of scramble, and I just didn’t even really understand how I was supposed to unscramble it (once I saw the answer sheet, it made complete sense, and I felt slightly stupid).

I used a calculator to help me with the math problems, assuming that was okay. If it’s not, I don’t think I’d be able to pass it (I can’t do complex math functions in my head, or perhaps I’m just too lazy to do it). Oh, and it says to take 30 minutes to do it, and to time yourself and be honest. Well, I totally blew the time limit. Took me about an hour actually to do it. What? It isn’t enough to be smart, but you have to be smart *fast* too? Sheesh.

Kinda made me want to play Trivia Pursuit or something.

Oh, and yes, I realize I haven’t blogged in a quite a while (sorry, kittens!), and that a ramble about Mensa is not what you folks are looking for from me. But hopefully more will be forthcoming soon.

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