That's what all the people say...

Toilet Seat Etiquette: Up or Down?

2011-05-30T01:48:00.000-07:00

A question as old as time. Well, perhaps only as old as toilet seats. But for anyone who's lived with someone of the opposite gender, the up-ness or down-ing on the seat can become an issue of epic importance. So much so that Jay Pil Choi, A Proffessor of Economics at Michigan State University wrote a paper discussing this very subject in 2002, let's take a look at his abstract...

"This paper develops an economic analysis of the toilet seat etiquette, that is, whether

the toilet seat should be left up or down. I investigate whether there is any efficiency

justification for the presumption that men should leave the toilet seat down after use. I find

that the “down rule” is inefficient unless there is a large degree of asymmetry in the

inconvenience costs of shifting the position of the toilet seat across genders. I show that the

“selfish” or the “status quo” rule that leaves the toilet seat in the position used dominates the

down rule in a wide range of parameter spaces including the case where the inconvenience

costs are the same. The analysis can be applied to other shared facilities that can be

customized to each user’s preference."

If you're a too long didn't read kind of person, the answer is that - unless the women in a household significantly outnumber the men, it's better to leave the seat as used in terms of time and effort for both parties.

Now, Choi goes into a lot of detail about this throwing about some very complex looking math to prove his point. The paper is very funny, and worth a read and you can check it out at https://www.msu.edu/~choijay/etiquette.pdf

So, in the interests of engendering discussion here, what do you do? Up or down?

You should be ashamed if...

2011-05-29T00:46:00.000-07:00

So, you should be ashamed if...

You leave the toilet seat up? You're lazy? You mug old ladies?

...Yes or no to any of those really. People and shame - and shaming of people - are as old as time. Everyone has their pride, and to prick it can be the most grievous wound you can inflict upon someone. But this is all waffle of the highest order, for the only thing that I think of when it comes to shame is Raleigh Addington in the apprentice's fantastic, mesmerising and I can't think of another superlative use of the concept of shame in the boardroom... Enjoy.

Oh, apologies for being away to those that Follow me, I'll be cayching up with your blogs today!

Worst Song to get a lap dance to?

2011-05-23T13:44:00.000-07:00

I see that this topic is trending on Twitter, so I thought I'd try and make my second blog post at least vaguely related to the title and discuss what - it appears - all the people are talking about. Worldwide, no less.

Now, I've been in a lap dance scenario before. I'll be honest, I don't really remember what music was playing. Generally if you're in that situation you're going to be at least slightly intoxicated, and if not, you are going to be distracted.

So what'd make a bad song? The lyrics? The beat? It'd be easy just to plump for something by Philip Glass, or a set of comedy lyrics (as a lot of the people on twitter did, such as Beyonces If I were a Boy, Kelis with I hate you so much right now and Jessie J's Do it like a dude). So I'm not going to. Instead, imagine a moderately attractive, scantily glad eastern European girl gyrating on your lap to this...

Oh dear lord!

...the first time

2011-05-22T05:34:00.000-07:00

So, this is a new blog. By me, for anyone who might want to read it. What's it about? anything really. Just stuff that people are talking about.

News. Gossip. Stuff.

In fact, quite often, it won't even be about that. But something.

Vague? Yes. Yes indeed.