my next publication?

if you are a frequest streetcar passenger, i'm sure you are familiar with the phenomenon of soaking wet seats after a rainstorm, due either to leakage from the ceiling or a window left open (or both!). this weekend's april showers yielded the perfect conditions for an observational study of streetcar riders under just such circumstances.

according to my findings, streetcar riders seem to fall into 1 of 3 categories:

pessimistic: conducts a visual examination of the seat before even thinking of sitting down, often paired with confirmation by touch. i fall into this camp. i might even be characterized a super-pessimist, as i always give a quick visual inspection. riding the streetcar twice a day, every day, for years and encountering things like water, food, and still-damp graffiti has made me suspicious.
optimistic: doesn't even glance at the seat before sitting down. end result, sopping wet bottom.
idiotic: checks the seat, sees that it's wet and thinks "well, it can't be THAT wet". sits down and is rewarded with aforementioned sopping wet bottom.

while the number of people in the 'pessimistic' and 'optomistic' categories was approximately equal, i was surprised by the number of people in the 'idiotic' group, probably around 10% of the total.

the take home message: i'm a geek. instead of reading on the streetcar, i conduct observational studies. actually, i might not want to throw this in the trash. one of my supervisors at queen's once had a paper published that evaluated the veracity of the saying "if you want to be happy for a day, have a drink. if you want to be happy for a year, get married. but if you want to be happy for a lifetime, grow a garden." go figure.