Our secret sources tell us that since we posted the reader poll -- whose results could have far-reaching implications not only for this blog but also for the country, although we doubt it -- roughly 73.5 people (and 2 cats) visited the blog. There is a slight discrepancy between this number and the number of those who actually responded to the survey, which was a grand total of: 4.
Dividing the number of respondents by the number of actual readers by the average commute time in Gillette, Wyoming (18 hours, 26 minutes), and multiplying by 1.5 Euros to account for our international readers, we arrive at a fewer percentage of readers responding to the poll than that of eligible cocker spaniels voting in the last presidential election. (How they voted continues to be a closely guarded secret.)
These findings confirm what pollsters in national elections have long suspected: more cocker spaniels than people vote. No one knows why this is, although spaniels are strongly suspected of receiving Kibbles 'n Bits kickbacks for their votes.
We also have it on good authority (mine) that one respondent took the survey twice. In other polls this would be grounds for disqualifying both the respondent's answers, and possibly grounding of the respondent as well; in this poll, however, we can't afford to be too choosy, so we will just assume this person has a split personality and is therefore eligible to cast a vote for each personality.
So without further dithering ("qualifying" in scientific language), let's analyze our 4 votes and see what imaginary results we can come up with.
Now, it is very important that the respondents of a poll represent the total population in general in characteristics like age, gender, like or dislike of Martha Stewart, etc. Our first survey question indicated two people who admitted to an actual age range, and two people who said that they are not as young as they'd like to be. By 2020 (a year arrived at totally through experimenter license), there will be as many baby boomers as people of all other ages put together -- although given boomers' tendency to be high achievers, they may get there sooner -- so I'd say that our sample, two sort-of-young and two not-so-young, adequately represents the general population.
We could extrapolate ("make up") all kinds of additional information about these respondents who did not admit to an age, but in the interest of continuing to have people take part in these polls, I think it wise to move on to the next question.
We here at Slightly Humorous like to know how our readers found out about us. We also like to think that it was through a segment on David Letterman, but what we like isn't really important. At least that's what our mother always said.
But one person did say he or she learned about the blog through Oprah. Since -- and I know this will be shocking news to you -- this blog has never been mentioned on Oprah's show, I assume that this respondent has some sort of direct, personal connection to Oprah, or that the person has a computer-literate cocker spaniel named Oprah.
One reader apparently has been forced to read this blog as punishment for not doing his or her homework. I would be most interested in speaking with this person's parent or other person of authority on the topic of alternative ideas for "punishment."
There was 100% agreement on "reading this blog more than once," which leads to a scientifically significant question: Did you people study together? One of these people, however, must not have been there for all the study sessions, as he or she went on to answer the next question about why he or she does not read this blog more than once. Again, in the interest of keeping people happy enough to take future surveys, we will refrain from making extrapolations about this person's mental capabilities.
And so this ends the scientific analysis of our third (fourth? We're not all that good with numbers, even though we are very scientific) reader poll. As soon as we can come up with some more questions that are totally meaningless, we'll have another survey. Watch for it on Oprah.
2 comments:
Was Katerina one of the cats to take the poll? I have often wondered why periodically I find cat fluffs on the keyboard. I thought that it was just my poor housekeeping. Now I realize that Kat has been reading your blog...I shudder to think what else she does while on the internet, when she is supposed to be doing the laundry, no doubt.
Due to the Florida Poll Privacy Act of 2005, which guarantees the right to chad-free voting, I am unable to release names of individual voters, whether human or feline or other. But if Katerina IS reading the blog, it might explain some of the more interesting blog comments that I have been attributing to my husband.
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