Lunchtime, at a bookstore and cafe, with some tasty breads and hot chocolate. Conversation was quiet on our right, but we caught two good snippets:

what is your passion? do you just love dead bodies?...

otherwise there are some nice criminals ready for parole...

--
Next two women, probably co-workers, sat to our left. They alternated between talking loudly and softely, but we got some good bits:

so it was packed last night

oh yeah

i dressed too warmly

well you know yesterday - it keeps going back and forth

so how did it feel?
...
very complicated right now, with her marriage and her kids. then she said to me, 'i need a policeman.'
...
what i heard is, she's, you know, 'self-employed.'
...
in the back of my head i laughed
...
i don't have any experience, but from what i hear...

in some ways it's easier to do it when you're alone, and in other ways
it's not. so the policeman, i said, might help you in the short term...

i don't know a lot of things, but i do know that if it doesn't stop, it's going to get worse.
...
she wasn't making a lot of sense...but i can't do it.
...
that's the other thing she said to me.

---
Outside a restaurant/club/bar, two drunk people, one guy mumbling unintelligibly and one angry and tipsy woman, trying to physically push him while berating him (this is all the woman, standing about 7 feet from us, in the middle of the street by a cab with its door open, making a scene):

If you don't get in there I'm not talking to you again
Get in
Get in there
Get in the cab
I've had a bad enough week
You know, please go home and go to bed, I'll be home later
Get in the goddamned car
They're not going to let you back in there, you offended a customer
I'm your friend; I don't want you wandering the streets
Please, please, please for me will you do this?
Ok then fuck you
I don't want to see you for the rest of the night!

--

Overal it was a very amusing experience, and curious how difficult it was to capture a full conversation. I like some of the tidbits we caught, especially with limited context. Seems that when people are sober and in public they often talk softely about sensitive issues, until they really get going and then they become more enthusiastic and louder.

Doing this as a team was fun because we were able to divide up some conversations so each of us could take one speaker, or provide cover in close situations so the transcription efforts were not so obvious. Also, some of us (me) have terrible handwriting, so utilizing the skills of superior scribes was wonderful.