One such episode involved his fridge. As a resourceful sophomore in Lowell I-23, Fineberg was determined to move his fridge into his bathroom to conserve space. But to get the fridge to the desired spot, he and his roommates had to lift it over the toilet.

"As it was being carried, a bulb containing the refrigerant reservoir in the bottom of the unit clipped the side of the toilet and broke off--and the liquid refrigerant came pouring out of the bottom of the refrigerator into the toilet bowl!" Fineberg says. "This seemed funny until we were nearly overcome by an incredibly noxious gas."

Fineberg's entryway was forced to evacuate while the Cambridge Rescue Service--sporting gas masks and protective gear--removed the refrigerator and placed it under a tree in the Lowell courtyard.

"I suspect it was the first, and maybe only, time that the Cambridge fire department rescued a refrigerator sitting on top of a toilet bowl," Fineberg says.

Do Pigeons Dream of...

Fineberg wrote his senior thesis on the sleep of pigeons, the experimental animal of choice in the psychology department.

He first became interested in the issue of sleep as a sophomore.

"Since I wasn't getting much I thought it was an interesting discussion," he jokes. He did a paper on REM sleep and dreaming.