Let the Millennium Games Begin

Millennium Quiz: Can you name the 10 most influential people of the last 1,000 years (other than Jose Cuervo, Madonna and the Brady Bunch, who were inexplicably omitted from the list)?

Clues: None are Americans, all are dead. Answers appear below.

Out of the Closet Department: We have just discovered that we were lowly scum in a previous life. According to a Los Angeles reincarnation expert, the way people dress reveals who they were in a past life--and our hatred of wearing neckties means we were probably a criminal who was hanged for a serious offense.

We apologize for whatever we did--unless it involved killing a previous incarnation of the Spice Girls.

Other fashion karma tidbits: Flamboyant, flashy dressers were most likely royalty in a past life. Folks who like revealing clothes were probably hookers. And people who wear high heels or platform shoes were very tall in a past life and are trying to compensate for their current short stature.

Stereotype-Revision Bureau: A new study by Navigation Technologies, a digital map company, reveals that men stop to ask for directions nearly twice as often as women--4.2 times a month on average for guys, versus 2.3 times a month for women.

Quiz Answers: According to the book “1,000 Years, 1,000 People” (Kodansha International, 1998), the 10 most important humans of the millennium were (starting with No. 10): Ludwig van Beethoven, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Aquinas, Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, William Shakespeare, Galileo, Martin Luther, Christopher Columbus and Johann Gutenberg.

The book--which ranks historical figures based on their lasting influence, contributions to wisdom and beauty in the world, influence on contemporaries, genius and fame--makes for a fascinating history lesson and conversation topic.

Its mini-profiles cover everyone from Elvis Presley (No. 352), Ralph Nader (No. 744) and Teresa of Avila (No. 949) to barbed-wire inventor Joseph Glidden (No. 680), original “nutty professor” George Washington Carver (No. 410) and remote control pioneer John H. Hammond Jr. (No. 891).

Andy Warhol rounds out the list at No. 1,000, just behind Marilyn Monroe, Dr. Seuss and George Santayana--but ahead of Tchaikovsky, Bill Gates, Ronald Reagan, Oprah Winfrey and John F. Kennedy, who didn’t make the final cut.

Naturally, we disagree with some of the authors’ choices.

For example, in terms of sheer impact on people’s lives, we’d put Thomas Edison (No. 28) and Alexander Graham Bell (No. 74) in the top 10--along with a disease conqueror such as Jonas Salk (No. 314).

Also, we were hoping the book would rank the importance of the castaways on “Gilligan’s Island,” especially the Ginger versus Mary Ann question.

Best Supermarket Tabloid Headline: “Robot Flutist Is One of the Top 10 Musicians in the World!” (Weekly World News)

Yet another inexplicable omission from the millennium 1,000 list.

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Roy Rivenburg’s e-mail address is roy.rivenburg@latimes.com. Unpaid Informants: Wireless Flash News Service, Ann Harrison. Off-Kilter runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.