Why some pages really are intentionally left blank

Have you ever started reading a book (or just finished reading one) and come across a page that is almost entirely empty, save for the phrase "This page intentionally left blank?"

These pages always made me laugh, but I was never sufficiently curious to find out why they were there.

And by the way, most things that seem ridiculous to us have some rationale behind them, I've noticed. That doesn't mean you have to agree with the rationale, but in the majority of cases when you come across something that seems entirely weird and nonsensical, someone along the way had a reason for making them that way.

Anyway, this article is a good read if you have a minute: Why are some pages "intentionally left" blank and why do they say this?

If you're looking for the Cliff Note's version, the reasons include these:

(1) Simply to let you know they put the page there on purpose and weren't just careless.

(2) For timed test booklets, they're there to make it a little more difficult (and a little more obvious) when students are flipping ahead to sections of the test before they're supposed to.

(3) To prevent bleed-through of ink from subsequent pages

(4) Because printed works are often printed on sheets of four pages each, and there's simply not enough text to fill a particular four-page sheet

(5) In case you suddenly want to take notes in the middle of the book (though this one seems fishy to me)

So there you go. If nothing else, you can come to this blog to learn things for which you have no use whatsoever. You're welcome.

I can only remember things that are practically of no use to me

Exactly 13 years ago today was my first day as an employee of Dix & Eaton, the Cleveland PR firm where I worked for nearly four years and which provided me with a wealth of valuable experience and skills.

I am the only person in the world to whom this anniversary matters, and even I don't really care about it. Dates like this just stay in my head and I can't get rid of them.

Things I really, really want to remember – like where I put the iPad charger or the name of my wife's favorite Starbucks drink – come and go in my brain. Sometimes they stick, sometimes they don't. But I know the exact start date of every single job I've ever had, with the exception of the few months when I was a dishwasher at Tizzano's Restaurant back in the summer of 1985. (Though I know my first day there was in June.)

The only time this type of information comes in handy is when I'm filling out an application, like for a job or a loan or something. I don't have to go to the trouble of looking back through my records because all of the relevant dates are readily accessible in my mind.

But when someone asks me a question to which I really should know the answer, and to which I really want to know the answer, I'm often stumped. Why didn't they ask who hosted "Joker's Wild" in the 70s? That I know. But instead they ask for something that's actually, you know, useful and relevant and all of that, and I can't help them.

Why are we wired this way? Why does our brain collect facts that will never, ever be needed again and hold on to them as if they were winning lotto tickets? And why does it discard the stuff that should be right at the front of our cerebral file cabinets?

I want an answer. Mind you, I won't actually remember that answer once someone explains it to me, but on the plus side, I will be able to rattle off for them all of the U.S. presidents born in Ohio. That's useful, right?