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The Trivial News

Far more than you ever knew there was to KNOW about almost everything!
Yep, the Abstract is back! And the most recent volume is — as always — full of fascinating, little known facts you can quote to dazzle your buds. For instance:

1. About 35.5 million individual tax returns (88 percent of itemized returns) claimed charitable contributions for 1999, amounting to $126 billion in total deductions or an average of $3,541 per return.
2. In 2001, 57 percent of workers age 25 and older used a computer on the job. Usage ranged from 80 percent for managers and professionals to 21 percent of operators, fabricators and laborers.
3. Households in the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, Calif., area spent the most for food ($7,442) and housing ($19,682) among selected metropolitan areas in 1999-2000; Anchorage, Alaska, was the next highest. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Fla., consumers spent the least on food ($4,589) and Pittsburgh-Beaver Valley, Penn., spent the least on housing ($10,451).
4. The average cell phone call in 2001 lasted 2.74 minutes, and the average monthly bill ran $47.37.
5. Of the 25 largest metro areas in Census 2000, Phoenix-Mesa, Ariz., had the highest percentage of workers who carpooled to work (15.3 percent), followed by Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County, Calif., (15.2 percent).
6. In 2000, 44 percent of adults did volunteer work, contributing an average of 15 hours per month.
7. There were 2.7 million federal civilian employees at the end of fiscal year 2001, down from 3.1 million 10 years earlier.
8. In 2000, nearly 51 million tourists arrived in the United States and spent more than $85 billion while here.
9. The most densely populated country in the world was Monaco, with 41,235 people per square mile in 2001. Next was Singapore, with 17,849 per square mile. Greenland had less than one person per square mile and the least densely populated country was Mongolia, with four.
10. States collected $39 billion in gross revenues from pari-mutuel and amusement taxes in 2000. After prizes and administration, $12.4 billion in proceeds was available.
11. The states with the highest percentage of federally owned land in 2000 were Nevada (83 percent), Utah (65 percent) and Idaho (63 percent). Alaska had
    the most acreage at 221 million.
12. Sault Sainte Marie, Mich., averages 117 inches of snow each year. Juneau, Alaska, gets 99 inches and Buffalo, N.Y., shovels a stunning 93. (Minnesota, eat your heart out!)

Each issue provides you with new and ever-more-trivial news! Want to be a FreeLook correspondent? Contact our submissions editor for information!