Do You Feel Lucky?

(and feel free to comment! My older posts are certainly no less relevant to the burning concerns of the day.)

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Another Sunday, Getting Wild NFL-Style!

So I'm watching football, as I do, and I'm fixing myself a tuna salad sandwich. I realize I'm pretty hungry so I decide it's time for an experiment. A lot of my experiments start out like that! Because I realize: I'm going to make two tuna salad sandwiches. And that sets the stage for a perfect opportunity for a controlled experiment. Do one sandwich one way, one sandwich the other, and then see who wins! I like to push the variables a bit. I can get pretty experimental!

So I decide to make one sandwich on plain bread - not toasted - and the other one on toasted bread. And then see who wins.

Now you're probably saying to yourself, that's no contest at all! Of course toasted wins. But that's where you might be surprised. Sometimes the results of the experiment don't fit your theory going in. That's why you do the experiment. No greater saboteur of veracity exists - in any science or academic discipline! - then the preconditioning of one's outcome.

And in this specific case, you'd be dead wrong as well. Because it turns out, toasted didn't win. It was a tie. See, that's what I didn't expect either! But that's why you have to do the experiments.

I know it shouldn't be, but somehow for me it's always a little bit unsatisfying, when an experiment ends in a tie.

4 comments:

John Dantzer said...

Which one did you eat first? The non toasted? If that's the case then it's no surprise it was a tie, since the first one you eat will be better.

dogimo said...

I alternated bites. With liberal beer intermezzos, to cleanse the palate.

I believe I first had a small bit of toasted, then from there on in I alternated large bites of each in turn.

One thing's not in dispute: I nailed the proper chopped-celery size.

limom said...

I thought you were going to do something bold.
Like adding extra mayo.
Weak.

dogimo said...

I agree! Extra mayo = weak.

I considered raising the stakes a bit, but I couldn't very well mix it up on the filling between the two sandwiches, and still get a clean result on the toasted vs. untoasted!