Forgedaboudit

Geez, there's actually a memory championship.

There are five events in the U.S. Memory Championships. First, contestants are
given 15 minutes to memorize 99 names and faces, and 20 minutes to recall them.
Next, the contestants have to memorize an unpublished 50-line poem (this year
titled, "The Tapestry of Me") in 15 minutes, followed by a series of random
digits, a list of random words, and finally a shuffled deck of playing cards.
The best memorizers in the world—who almost all hail from Europe—can memorize a pack of cards in less than a minute. A few have begun to approach the 30-second
mark, considered the "four-minute mile of memory."

I have such a hard time with names. I can't imagine memorizing 99 people in one sitting.

And the best memorizers are from Europe? Is this because memorization techniques are encouraged there or do they just spend less time with video games and reality shows?