[Interest] Far Afield

OUT OF LEFT FIELD

People who are not geography challenged may not relate to this, but I had a humbling experience earlier in the week when a cyber-friend sent me a link to something called GeoQuiz (and by all means, please feel free to visit their web site at www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz and see for yourself) where you can test your knowledge of the modern world. Or, if you're a moron like me, what you end up doing instead of testing your knowledge is confirming your ignorance, which if I wasn't already taking a variety of mood-enhancing drugs, I would tend to find pretty depressing, thank you very much not. I started in Europe, where I figured I would have about the best chance, since I know practically nothing about Africa, and I knew if they asked me one question about Australia, I already wouldn't know the answer. So they show you all the European countries nestled together cheek by jowl, as they are, and in different colors (which they aren't in real life, by the way) and then they tell you to go ahead and click on the one that you think is Slovenia. So you click on something to the right of Italy, and it tells you, no that's Slovakia, try again. So you click on something different even farther to the right, and that turns out to be Ukraine. So then it feels sorry for you, and asks you to try to find The Netherlands instead, which only goes to prove that you can find Norway, Sweden and Finland, but somehow The Netherlands continue to elude you, that is, if you're an idiot like me. Then it really must have taken pity on me, and lobbed me a few fat ones, so that I could at least demonstrate that I knew where to find France, Spain, Portugal, England, Ireland, Greenland and Poland. After that, it asked me to locate Moldova, and at that point, I just had to throw in the towel and splutter, "Okay, now you're just making this stuff up!" Moldova, indeed.
Alert readers may be wondering whatever became of the mythical locality of Moldova from the GeoQuiz web page. Well, wonder no more, because we have our friends at www.wikipedia.org to thank for this historical tidbit about the imaginary region:
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MOLDOVA
For other uses of "Moldova" and "Moldavia", see Moldova (disambiguation).
The Republic of Moldova (Republica Moldova) is a small landlocked country in eastern Europe, located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the east and south. Historically part of the Principality of Moldavia, it was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1812 and reunited with other Romanian lands in Romania in 1918. After changing hands during World War II and ultimately being annexed by the Soviet Union, it was known as the Moldavian SSR between 1945 and 1991 and finally declared its independence on 27 August 1991.
The Republic of Moldova is a member state of the United Nations, WMO, UNICEF, GUAM, CIS, BSEC and other international organizations.
Moldova is a parliamentary democracy with a President as its head of state and a Prime Minister as its head of government.
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They also provide a wealth of other pertinent information, such as the size and population, language, capital city, anthem ("Limba Noastra" - gosh, now I'll be singing that all week!) plus pictures of their flag and coat of arms. For me, the most poignant part was the section that said simply: "Motto - none." By golly, that's waving the proverbial red flag in front of the charging bull, and don't think that I intend to take that lying down! No motto! What kind of a cockamamie whackadoo tin-plated outfit are they running here, anyway? How do they expect anyone at the WMO, CIS or BSEC to take them seriously, when they don't even have a motto to call their own? I would think that would be the first thing you would come up with, if you were going to strike out on your own, and toss off the Russian yoke (in fact, "Toss the Russkies!" wouldn't be such a bad motto, under the circumstances) and yet, here they are all lounging around on their Moldovan backsides, as if their motto is just going to drop out of the sky and fall into their laps one of these fine days.
Well, I for one will not stand for it. I say we come up with a motto for these Moldovan laggards, before they become the laughingstock of the international community and motto-loving individuals the world over. Back in the day that the dinosaurs and I were roaming the vast unformed land masses, there was a service station nearby with its slogan above the door on an outside wall in letters attached to the building. Unfortunately, time and gravity had taken their toll, so that the world passing by was left to wonder why the building seemed to be announcing to one and all --
ERVICE IS UR MOTT
As a matter of fact, it made me wonder if service really was their motto, why the first order of business wasn't getting up there on a ladder to fix their own slogan. In any event, in the absence of anything more appropriate, I nominate "Ervice Is Ur Mott" for the official motto of the Republic of Moldova, and they are welcome to it. No, don't thank me, the bright, shining faces of happy Moldovans are all the gratitude that I need.