Enough with the serious posts. Time for something a little more lighthearted. I found this article about a week or two ago on Yahoo! News. Apparently, someone in Japan released a on book on sure ways to get seats during your train commute to work. And since many millions of people commute by train each day, it's no surprise the book became a best-seller.
The bottom line of any long train commute is that if you want a seat, you'll have to work to find it. Unless you start at a terminus, you'll almost always have to stand and kind of scope out an empty spot on a busy train. On the packed ones, you can't really move so you've got to try to get in front of one person and hope their stop comes up soon. It's always tough to stand for an hour plus in a cramped train car, and I never even had to do that after a long day at work. If you're lucky, a seat close by will vacate quickly. If you're not lucky, hope you like standing.
According to the book, the trick is knowing who to look for. Some of these tips are actually pretty good. The tip about standing next to students is clever, and the thing about ladies putting on their makeup wouldn't occur to most people. Of course, everyone knows if the person taking up the seat in front of you is dead asleep with their mouth hanging open, you're pretty much screwed either way- better get out that Asahi Shimbun and start reading, cause you're not going to sit anywhere til you reach your stop.