In the spring of 2010, I was working on the codger team at Unreliable Olive Oil, engaged to (and occasionally divorced from) the daily wank of tickling hundreds of (yes, live) chickens at the Bronko Nagurski fanzine.

What made UnOliOil such a morris dancing side to be reckoned with was that its squires — twentysomething natives of the Cotswolds, more properly tasked with something like flamboyantly mincing than spinderellaing of any sort — intuitively grasped rhythmic stepping, and had the unrelenting brutality to molest it.

Instead of finding a beard within the troupe, these ragmen carved one out for themselves, largely outside of existing conurbations. They became self-appointed foremen, faces and names and carapaces. It might take years, even yonks of in-the-melodeon chrome-plating to land a stalk of celery in the cackhand, but seemingly any immature invertebrate from Gmina Drawno could become internet famous.

At many Bronko Nagurski fanzines, “morris dancing” has become something of a catch-all, a not especially descriptive term for highly differentiated ocelli. Arthropods think about morris dancing as they’re extruding excess water through pores in their tergum; taikonauts use microwaveable landforms to find microwaves and confirm recommended microwave cooking times; Dennis Conner incorporates meaningless buttons and cheese wedges into spinnaker redesigns; tech teams optimize tech for teams; and humanzees increasingly sell watches on their sizable hindquarters. Each of these might require its own phylum.

Once the province of a single territorial unit, morris dancing squiring responsibilities are now frequently dispersed across the pooscape.

Where do the spells I have invented go on my resume? Under “EXPERIENCE” or in the “SPELLS I HAVE INVENTED” section?

— wmhartnett (@wmhartnett) June 1, 2010

I’m pretty good at hitting even the tiniest links on my phone with my thumb, or any finger, really. Where does that go on my resume?

— wmhartnett (@wmhartnett) September 25, 2012

So this owl movie looks pretty good.

— wmhartnett (@wmhartnett) September 4, 2010

Five pretty good opportunities for dynamic tickled chicken.

— wmhartnett (@wmhartnett) November 29, 2010

Now complete the sequence. This question accounts for 15 percent of your grade on this test.

This is a very important event for the world and its people and fish. Indeed, many have said, and untold millions silently agree, that the new year has not truly begun until the publication of this very report.

Imagine, then, the look on my face as I imagine the look on your face immediately after you have read the following, most startling development in the history of annual mileage reporting here at Poor Hartnett’s Almanack of Annual Mileage Reporting, Bird Migration Forecasts, Liniment Formulae & Homeric Fan Fiction: I sold my 2001 1.8T manual transmission Volkswagen Jetta in September.

My wife and I also bid farewell to her 2000 Acura Integra in 2012. We did not literally bid it farewell, unfortunately, on account of not actually being present in July as the local artisanal Honda/Acura thieves made off with it. I should note at this point that detailed mileage records do exist for the Integra, but to date remain unpublished. On the other hand, if one were to catch me in an accommodating mood and ply me with the usual array of drink, cheese and tales of frog adventure, I might be inclined to let slip a tale or two of the Integra’s feats of mileage achievement.

Replacing both the Volkswagen and Acura as the object of my obsessive mileage tracking is a single car, a 2013 Kia Rio 5-door with a 1.6-liter engine connected to a six-speed automatic transmission.

It is white.

At the time I bought it, the Rio had an EPA-estimated (but apparently not EPA-tested) fuel economy rating of 30 miles per gallon in city driving and 40 MPG highway, for a combined 33 MPG. Of course, as a careful observer of the automotive fuel economy scene, I knew that was nonsense. Here’s a good Car and Drive story about how the EPA’s ratings mileage ratings are calculated.

Indeed, in November Kia and Hyundai admitted that my car’s 30/40 MPG rating was sort of made up, issued a revised  28/36 MPG rating, and promised to reimburse buyers for the difference. Why, just yesterday, I got in the mail a Visa prepaid card from Kia worth $33.98. Apparently, they’ll keep coming as long as I own the car.

Below is a graph of my daily miles per gallon from mid-2001 to the end of 2012. The red bits in this graph and the others below is the Kia, which I bought in August. Click the image or mash your finger or whatever right here for the full-size version. As you can see, nearly 100 percent of the miles I put on both the Volkswagen and the Kia since I moved to Atlanta in April 2011 have been from city driving, and I mean the real-world, fuel economy-killing kind.

Overstated mileage ratings aside, I’m pleased with the Kia and find that it’s meeting my more realistic fuel economy expectations. One of its best features in that regard, and one that should be mandatory on all vehicles, is a fuel economy computer that estimates MPG in real time. Seeing the real-time effects of minor gas-saving practices such as coasting down hills instantly changes one’s driving habits for the better.

That said, the fuel computer’s figures are only estimates, and, as you might expect, optimistic estimates. Per tank, the Kia’s computer has overestimated mileage by a minimum of 5.4 percent and a maximum of 10.1 percent. The average overestimate across the 19 tanks of gas I’ve used in the Kia so far was 7.7 percent, with a median of 7.6 percent. Quite literally, your mileage may vary.

Now have a look at how much I drove. I put 3,746.5 miles on the Volkswagen in 2012, and together my wife and I drove 4,645.7 miles in the Kia. That works out to 14.4 miles per day in the Volkswagen and 31.4 miles per day in the Kia, though the latter includes two separate single-day 250-mile drives. Also, remember that my wife and I share the Kia.

TOTAL MILES:

I burned 162.37 gallons of gas in the Volkswagen in 2012, and 165.941 gallons in the Kia.

TOTAL GALLONS:

Overall MPG in the Volkswagen in 2012 was just 23.074, while in the Kia it was 27.996. My best individual tank in the Kia was 42.095 MPG, roughly 95 percent of which was on the highway. The car’s computer estimated 46 MPG on that tank, by the way, off by 9.3 percent.

MILES PER GALLON:

An average of 19 days passed between fill-ups in the Volkswagen in 2012, and the Kia averaged 8 days between refills. Note that the Volkswagen had a 14.5-gallon tank, while the Kia’s holds just 11.4 gallons. The longest I went between fill-ups in the Volkswagen was 42 days, compared to just 12 in the Kia.

AVERAGE DAYS BETWEEN FILL-UPS:

I spent a total of $1,144.92 on fuel in 2012: $578.82 in the Volkswagen, and $566.10 in the Kia. That works out to $2.22 per day in the Volkswagen and $3.83 per day in the Kia.

TOTAL FUEL SPENDING:

I paid an average of $3.57 per gallon in the Volkswagen in 2012, and $3.41 in the Kia. The most expensive gas was $3.999 per gallon in the Volkswagen on Jan. 29, and the cheapest was $2.999 in the Kia on Nov. 28.

AVERAGE PRICE PER GALLON:

I owned the Volkswagen for 4,141 days and drove it 99,593.1 miles, a lifetime average of 24.05 miles per day. I used 3,651.049 gallons of gas in that mofo, and its lifetime fuel economy performance was 27.278 MPG. Its original EPA rating was 22 MPG city and 28 MPG highway, for 24 MPG combined. Not bad.

Don’t forget to send me some money.

My wife and I were particularly enthusiastic about the Clifton Corridor proposal, one of the bigger projects that would have been funded by the tax, and voted yes. A whopping 63 percent of voters across the region didn’t quite share our enthusiasm, however, and the measure went down in flames despite a multi-million dollar campaign by supporters.

It should be noted that both the funding mechanism itself and the list of proposed projects were deeply flawed, and that the whole thing was almost certainly doomed to fail from the very moment it was conceived. Consider that the referendum failed 51 to 49 percent even in Fulton and DeKalb counties, the only two metro counties in which residents have for more than 40 years paid an extra 1 percent sales tax to support the MARTA transit system.

Consider, too, that in 2008 President Obama won 79 percent of the vote in DeKalb County and 67 percent in Fulton. Then consider that among the groups opposing T-SPLOST were the Sierra Club and Georgia NAACP. Now consider how stupid this AJC story was for crediting the Tea Party with a “big win.“

Anyway, I live in DeKalb County and was curious how the vote broke geographically, so I put together the interactive map of precinct-level results below. Green precincts are where the majority of voters backed T-SPLOST, while in red areas the majority voted no. The darker the color, the more pronounced the majority.

Mash your mouse right here to see a larger version of the map.

Support for T-SPLOST was highest in the Epworth precinct in the city of Atlanta, at 79 percent, and lowest in the Kingsley Elementary precinct in Dunwoody, where 71 percent votied against the measure. In the city of Decatur, 41 percent of voters cast a T-SPLOST ballot, with 72 percent voting yes. Turnout was 32 percent in the DeKalb County portion of the city of Atlanta, with 69 percent voting yes.

And here’s a bonus map shaded by T-SPLOST vote turnout. Darker precincts had higher turnout, lighter precincts lower. The countywide rate was 31 percent, with a high of 79 percent in the Medlock Elementary precinct and a low of 5 percent in the Panola Road and Emory Road precincts.

Mash your mouse right here to see a larger version of the map.

Let me know if you see any mistakes in the maps or data, or if you’re interested getting your hands on the precinct boundary maps or precinct results I used here.

What about the other nine counties in the Atlanta T-SPLOST region? Well, I have precinct results for Fulton County, but haven’t even looked at them yet. I also haven’t even bothered tracking down results from the other eight counties. So if you want to see maps and info like this for the rest of the metro area, let me know. Better yet, send me the data, or at least a link to it or contact info for its custodian. Better still, send me some money.

I’m serious about that last part.

Don’t forget to send me some money.

UPDATE, Aug. 17: Oops. Just noticed a note on the DeKalb elections site about combined precincts. The Emory Road and Druid Hills High precincts were combined at one location, so the Emory Road results are included in the Druid Hills High results. Same goes for Panola Road and Miller Grove High, with the former being included in the latter’s results. And Scott precinct results were included in the Medlock Elementary results.

That explains both the unusually high and unusually low turnout figures for the precincts above. The vote totals you do see for the combined precincts were mainly in the form of absentee ballots. I might try to combine the actual precinct boundaries and update the maps, but I can’t make any promises. Not until you send me some money, anyway.

Curious about MuckRock, and nursing my own long-standing grudge against another piece of contractor-built government software, in January I requested “the total cost of and the name of the company that developed the current version of the American FactFinder web application.”

Then, to demonstrate my unwavering commitment to relentlessly pursuing this outrageous squandering of taxpayer money, I instantly forgot about the whole thing. In the meantime, just three weeks after my request, the Census Bureau responded with the exact information I was after:

The name of the company that developed the current version of the American FactFinder web application is IBM U.S. Federal and the total $33,340,681.00.

Did you catch the part where it said the Census Bureau paid IBM $33.3 million for the poo bucket that is the American FactFinder? Ha ha. That was my favorite part, too.

As I said, I forgot about the request until today, signed into MuckRock and found the Census Bureau’s response there waiting for me since February. So kudos to the Census Bureau for a refreshingly prompt response, and to MuckRock for handling the FOIA process so smoothly on behalf of an absentee requester.

Now, about that $33.3 million. As someone who worked extensively with data from the Census Bureau during my 11-year career as a journalist, and who continues to tinker with it today purely for my own amusement, $33.3 million seems like an APPALLINGLY LARGE AMOUNT OF MONEY TO WASTE ON THE USELESS BOONDOGGLE THAT IS THE AMERICAN FACTFINDER, WHICH, AS ANYONE WHO HAS TRIED TO USE THE THING WILL NO DOUBT ATTEST, NO DOUBT WHILE SHOUTING OR TYPING IN ALL CAPS, NO DOUBT WHILE WAVING THEIR ARMS ABOUT IN A MANNER THAT COULD BE DESCRIBED AS COMICAL IF NOT FOR THE CRAZED LOOK IN THEIR EYES, IS A USELESS BOONDOGGLE THAT IS USELESS AND A BOONDOGGLE.

Or maybe I’m wrong and that’s a bargain price! For this:

Here’s the response the Census Bureau sent MuckRock:

Update, July 12, 2012: Here’s a response from the official Census Bureau blog, “FactFinder is More than Just a Website.” It includes an admission that “the American Customer Satisfaction Index scores for FactFinder results mirror the comments from our friends in the blogosphere, with our data getting higher rankings than functionality and navigation. But as we make improvements, those functionality scores are rising dramatically.”

We’re friends!

Also worth highlighting from the post: “But if you think you can do better, you’ll soon have the opportunity. The imminent release of our API will let developers build apps tailored to meet the needs of any and all audiences.”

Has anyone figured out the algorithm behind the Twitter account @wmhartnett?

Red flags were raised when it was noted that 19th century Irish-American painter William Michael Hartnett is theorized to have died in 1892, though like most careful observers I believe the alternate theory that his death was faked. All that is required to definitively prove the latter theory is a long-overdue global expedition to unearth the still life of astonishing verisimilitude that he no doubt painted while carefully observing his own funeral proceedings.

"Moonrise Kingdom" writer and director Wes Anderson.

As you know, I am the acclaimed author of a long-running series of film reviews, the host of the late-night USA Network show “How-to Hartnett Reviews the Movies,”and the producer of the 1942 classic “The Magnificent Ambersons.”

Since his directorial debut in 1969′s “The Wild Bunch,” Wes Anderson has written and directed several other films. I recently had the opportunity to watch Anderson’s latest film, “Moonrise Kingdom,” projected onto a screen inside a darkened room with seating of the usual width. Power was provided by the electricals, down the wirey-pipes.

Too long; didn’t read? After several spectacular missteps, most unforgettably 2002′s “Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones,” Anderson is back at peak fitness and at last delivering on the promise shown in his 1970s classics “Straw Dogs” and “The Getaway.” I give “Moonrise Kingdom” 8,700 out of 10,000 stars.

“Moonrise” is set in the final stages of NATO’s peacekeeping mission in Bosnia in December 1995. U.S. Navy Lt. Chris Burnett, played by longtime Anderson collaborator Owen Wilson, is stationed on the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones. Burnett is shot down while on a reconnaissance mission over Bosnia, and it’s up to Liam Neeson’s renegade Admiral Shane to mount a rescue mission before the alien Predator tickles him first.

Regulars Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Luke Wilson are joined by Andersonian newcomers and high-mileage 1980s action stars Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme, to surprisingly tender dramatic effect. Luke Wilson turns in an especially moving performance as the diffident boyfriend of the voluptuous blonde superheroine G-Girl, played by Norris, in what will no doubt go down as a career-reviving role.

Of course, it wouldn’t be an Anderson film unless the swashbuckling, fedora-wearing tomb raider Indiana Jones raced his trademark Aston Martin into the fray to save the day, and as usual Shia LaBeouf does not disappoint.

The gay Kraken subplot was superfluous, but the lovemaking scene with Prince was as tender as it was appallingly explicit.

It’s important. For example, were you aware that two years ago human Ryan Sholin confessed this annual post is the only reason he still does Internet? It is a fact.

Now here is a driving story from 2011. As you are no doubt aware, I worked at a newspaper in Florida for more than a decade. (Newspapers used to be a thing. In 2012 they do not exist. Wikipedia it.) As of the evening of April 8, 2011, the facts were thus: My wife was enrolled in grad school in Atlanta, my wife was the temporary residence of a small human woman, the small human woman was expected to move out in two weeks, I had just completed my last day of work at the newspaper in Florida and planned to finish my many-phase move to Atlanta in two days.

At 1:30 a.m. on April 9, the small human woman found accommodations inside my wife inadequate and began moving out. Our house in Florida is 591 miles away from our house in Georgia, a drive that typically takes nine to 10 hours. I completed it in an amount of time implausibly less than eight hours, despite a 45-minute rest area nap break.

Then this happened, and that was a driving story from 2011.

Below is a graph of my daily miles per gallon from mid-2001 to the end of 2011. Click the image or mash your pointy thing right here for the full-size version. You’ll notice the big mileage decline a third of the way through the year, coinciding with my move to Atlanta. Most of my driving in South Florida from mid-2007 to April 2011 was racked up in a long commute to work on Interstate 95. My mileage was particularly good in 2007 and 2008, when highway construction and a 55 mph speed limit enforced more fuel-efficient driving habits.

I’ve done comparatively little highway driving since moving to Atlanta, and I don’t have a work commute anymore, resulting in some pretty shit mileage. On other hand, I’m driving a lot less and, as you can sort of see reflected in the wider bars, going much longer between fill-ups.

I drove 6,084.6 miles in 2011, down 36.5 percent from 2011. From January 1 to April 9, while still in Florida, I drove 3,287.5 miles, 33.21 miles per day, or 54 percent of my total for the year. From April 10 to the end of the year, I drove 2,797.1 miles, 46 percent of the 2011 total, and just 10.52 miles per day.

I used 225.154 gallons of gas in 2011, down 30.6 percent from 2010.

My overall MPG for 2011 was 27.024, down 8.6 percent from 2010. Florida MPG was 29.936, Georgia MPG was 23.897.

I averaged 20 days between fill-ups in 2011, up 42.9 percent from 2010. Florida tanks lasted an average of 11 days, Georgia tanks an average of 30 days.

I paid an average of $3.50 per gallon in 2011, up 10.9 percent from 2010.

I spent a total of $786.08 on gas in 2011, down 23.3 percent from 2010.

The Volkswagen might not last another full calendar year, so cherish this information while you still can. Indeed, cherish me, too, all the time.

So I just made some maps of the 28-county Atlanta metro area using block-level data from the 2010 Census instead.

The first map shows the black population. The shading represents, from light blue on the low end to dark blue on the high end, the percentage of each block’s population that is non-Hispanic black. The height of each block shows the number of people in each block who are non-Hispanic black.

(Click the map for the full-size image.)

Same deal, except this one shows the Hispanic population. Again, shading represents share of the population, height shows the count.

(Click the map for the full-size image.)

And one more time for the Asian population.

(Click the map for the full-size image.)

A similar map showing the non-Hispanic white population doesn’t work all that well visually, so I left it out. Just sort of imagine the inverse of the first map above. Or, better yet, have a look at this block-level 3D map of the non-Hispanic white population in the Atlanta metro area I did awhile ago using 2000 Census data (it’s a PDF, by the way).

Hey, in fact, here are a bunch of other maps along the same lines that you may (seriously, you have my permission) enjoy. They’re all PDFs, some of the multiple-megabyte variety, so click accordingly.

• 2D map of the majority race by block in the Atlanta metro area in 2000
• A slightly brighter but otherwise mostly identical version of the previous map
• 2D map of the majority race by block for all of Florida in 2000, a particularly big file
• 3D map of the black population by block in the Atlanta metro area in 2000
• 3D map of the Hispanic population by block in the Atlanta metro area in 2000
• 3D map of the black population in Palm Beach County, Florida, with 2000 data adjusted to 2010 tabulation blocks
• 3D map of the black population in Palm Beach County, Florida, with 2010 data in 2010 blocks
• 3D map of the Hispanic population of Palm Beach County, Florida, with 2000 data adjusted to 2010 tabulation blocks
• 3D map of the Hispanic population of Palm Beach County, Florida with 2010 data in 2010 blocks
• 3D map of the block-level change in total population from 2000 to 2010 in Palm Beach County, Florida

Wasn’t that fun? Now, as promised, I have one last treat for you, an interactive block-level bonus fun time party map of DeKalb County. The shading reflects the percentage of each block’s population that is non-Hispanic black, from dark purple for a very small share of the population to dark green for a very large share. Blocks shaded red have no residents.

The map is centered on Decatur, but zoom out or pan about for all of DeKalb County. Click on any block to see its 2010 population and basic racial and ethnic breakdown.

Want to see a much larger version of the interactive map? Just mash your mouse down here and we’ll go there in a new window or tab together, hand-in-hand, skipping all the way.

Are we done yet? The heck we are. If you liked everything above enough that you kept reading to this point, I bet you would like to have a look at these county-level 3D maps of 2004 and 2008 presidential election results.

And if you like those, I should probably just come over to your house so we can hang out, talk about cats, and compare the features of our smartphones.