trivial pursuit: terrorist edition

if you're looking for some news to read today, make sure you scan the story about pulitzer prize-winnging, nyt journalist david rhode's escape from his taliban abductors in afghanistan. it involves board games(!!!), and it's pretty incredible.

from the official nyt story (the whole thing is worth a quick read):

On Friday evening, in a planned bid to keep their captors awake as late as possible to ensure that the men would eventually sleep soundly, Mr. Ludin challenged the militants who slept beside them in the same room to a local board game.

When at last the games ended at midnight, the journalists waited for the militants to fall asleep.

At 1 a.m., Mr. Rohde woke Mr. Ludin and sneaked out of the room. Mr. Ludin recited several verses of the Koran and followed him. They made their way to the second floor, and Mr. Ludin got to the top of a five-foot-high wall.

When Mr. Ludin looked down, he said, he was greeted by an unnerving view: a 20-foot drop. Mr. Rohde handed Mr. Ludin a rope that he had found two weeks earlier and had hidden from the guards. They fastened the rope to the wall, and Mr. Ludin lowered himself along the rope before unclenching his fists for good.

He crashed to the ground, leaving him with a sprained right foot and other injuries. He cut his foot, he said, pointing to his swollen and heavily bruised ankle and his bandaged big toe.

Mr. Rohde then lowered himself along the wall and jumped down without injury, Mr. Ludin said.

When asked why their captives did not hear the thump of their impact with the ground, Mr. Ludin said they waited to make the escape attempt on a night when the city had electrical power. At night, an old, noisy air-conditioner that ran masked the sound.

with added gawker commentary:

We imagine that Stephen Gaghan is probably working on the script for this right now, likely hung up on trying to decide whether or not to go with Pictionary or Trivial Pursuit: Terrorist Edition to sexy up the board game scene. Then again, Cranium can be pretty damn exhausting.