The one consistent element in the replies this question has gotten over the years is this:

Different things work for different people.

You just have to try them one at a time until (if you're lucky) you find the solution that helps most. Ginger doesn't work for me at all; it just makes me burp. I'm about to try bonine; it's available over the counter and my doctor says it's better than Dramamine/Gravol because there are fewer side effects. My... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 4:15 PM on July 22, 2008

Good question. The 1st rule: trust yourself. Your own instincts and quirky likes/dislikes are absolutely going to be your best guide here. Which means letting go of this:

I always feel like I might be missing that one life changing book that gets started on page 51

That's the 2nd rule: give yourself permission to stop reading. The 3rd rule is to give the author a fair shot - for me, that means finishing at least the, yes, first... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 4:18 PM on July 18, 2008

Don't think that abandoning the book is the only option.

And you can always pick up a book again after you've set it aside, so any risk from temporarily abandoning a book that isn't thrilling you right now is kinda minimal.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 10:10 AM on July 20, 2008

An Underground Education is probably perfect for a situation like this; it's got sections on medicine and science and is filled with short, readable bits of bizarre history.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 4:07 AM on June 13, 2008

That's exactly the kind of example I'm looking for, thanks! I'd love to see others from, say, the last 50 years - specific examples of the accidental ways ancient texts have come down to us, and possibilities for uncovering more new work in modern times. Btw, I wondered what "recovered from Egyptian mummy cartonnage" meant, searched and found this:

Cartonnage is a type of cardboard-like material. It was used by the ancient Egyptians in a manner similar... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 5:50 PM on May 19, 2008

Wow, this is great. Every single answer is a best answer. Y'all are wonderful. If anyone has recommendations of other books that trace how classic texts have come down to us (I know it's often accidental, but also that there were, e.g., specific late antiquity folks who made choices as to which plays of Euripides and Sophocles got copied for use in schools), I'd love to see them.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 6:28 AM on May 20, 2008

That looks perfect, Rain Man. I just ordered it via inter-library loan. Thanks! And thanks again to everyone for the fantastic info and links; I marked a couple as 'best' but would mark them all if it didn't look so silly.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 6:11 PM on May 20, 2008

Just discovered this relevant thread from a couple of years back and figured I'd add it for anyone who comes to this one later: How do we know so much about Roman history?
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 7:21 PM on June 10, 2008

I guess specifically I'm looking for chanting or gong

You may want to shade from New Age into world music a bit, then; there are some wonderful collections of gamelan gong music from Indonesia, and some great collections of Buddhist chanting that are mind-blowing, soothing, send-you-into-another world experiences.

perhaps point me towards a site that has recommendations

The Ambient... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 6:54 AM on June 9, 2008

Am I being unreasonable?

Yes.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 8:36 AM on June 8, 2008

Another vote for The Clumsiest People in Europe, an amazing, hilariously judgmental book from a bizarre early 19th century children's book author. I laughed so hard just reading the table of contents and introduction I had to put it down, and had other people in the room asking if I was ok and what the hell was I reading, anyway? The fact that such a bigoted, ignorant but weirdly captivating book was originally meant for children is what really gets you. But yeah, the last... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 8:40 PM on June 5, 2008

A "small family-owned business" usually won't handle returns as cheerfully as a big company, no matter how right the customer is.

I just wanted to mention that, in my personal experience, the opposite is true.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 7:22 PM on June 3, 2008

I'm in the same boat: love peanut sauce, don't like any of the bottled sauces I've tried. But if you haven't yet, you might want to try the Taste of Thai Peanut Sauce Mix on that page you linked. It's a powder you mix with a can of coconut milk on the stovetop, heat just until it starts to boil then reduce and simmer for 4-5 minutes. Yummy to use however you want. It keeps in the fridge at least 3 days, which is as long as I've ever been able to save any, and is good cold, too. It's not that... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 6:58 AM on June 3, 2008 marked best answer

general background / history on common and less well-known traditions of meditative movement.

These may be obvious, but the Sufi whirling dervishes come to mind, as do other trance-inducing dance traditions around the world, and there's a long tradition in Buddhism of "walking meditation." In general, "movement meditation" is a good search term for more info about various traditions that combine active motion and meditation.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 7:01 AM on June 1, 2008

I'd just make sure Comcast was going to tell the landlord. Without knowing more about your relationship with the landlord, it's tough to give further advice. Knowing me, I'd be tempted to also go knock on the door and ask them to stop stealing from me or I'll call the police, but as lots of folks have mentioned, if you do that you should be prepared for an escalation you probably don't want. Hopefully I'd stop myself.

Make sure the landlord knows, and make sure s/he... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 5:41 AM on May 31, 2008

You really have to read Chekhov; his non-judgmental presentation of small slices of realistic life - without heavy moralizing - changed the direction of short story writing.

I also really like Kate Chopin's stories; they're smart, beautifully written and fascinating from a historical perspective. She started out doing "local color" pieces about her Louisiana Creole neighbors, but her stories quickly became much more. "A Pair of Silk Stockings" is a... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 9:02 PM on May 30, 2008

You might want to try Harry Crews, in the same Southern Gothic tradition Flannery O'Connor worked - and hell, Faulkner's As I Lay Dying fits the bill, too, with its family hauling mom's increasingly decayed corpse across hell and high water.

Also, there's a little-known but brilliantly horrifying satire of corporate life called The Chronicles of Doodah by George Walker that I read years ago; some of the gruesomely gag-inducing images still stay with me.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 6:23 PM on May 26, 2008

The poster is asking us to "tell me a bit about your favourite show right now" because "it's hard to sort through lists of shows that I know nothing about." Just listing titles isn't going to be very helpful.

Season 1 of "The Wire" should hook you if you like ensemble cast drama with a crime element (which it seems like you do). It's an amazing, almost Shakespearian show focusing on criminals and cops in Baltimore that deserves all the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 5:45 AM on May 26, 2008

It's worth emphasizing that the Marvel Essentials and DC Showcase collections remove the original color to save costs, and just reprint the comics in black and white. A 4-year-old might not enjoy that as much as color versions.

and excellent for kids: Jeff Smith's Bone

I really like the parts of Bone I've read; it's an atypical fantasy hero/humor comic that's been reissued by Scholastic in color trade... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 7:56 PM on May 22, 2008 marked best answer

For literary stuff, the Modernist Journals Project.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 8:08 AM on May 9, 2008

Kino released a 4-DVD series, Animated Soviet Propaganda, that's fun background viewing, and Netflix has it. Disc 2, "Fascist Barbarians," has some classic strident anti-Nazi exhort-the-people stuff from a Soviet perspective.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 7:52 AM on May 8, 2008

To clarify what cortex said, "court martial" is a noun-adjective construction which kept its original French word order when it moved into English (which usually puts the noun after the adjective). It means a martial, not "marshal" court, i.e., a war court. The plural would thus be "war courts" or "martial courts" - but for quirky reasons it stays "courts martial," keeping the odd, original French noun-adjective order.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 3:52 PM on May 7, 2008

I work in a used book and music store and we're seeing a lot more people than usual for this time of year bringing in used books and DVDs for gas money. The bossman and I were talking about it the other day and he said it was just like this in the 80s.

Food prices are notably higher, which effects how much meat and fresh produce I've been including in my diet.

Huh. I'm mostly vegetarian and haven't noticed much of an increase... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 2:30 PM on May 5, 2008

I liked The Quiet American, and it does offer a scathing indictment of the politics of the handover from French to American interests, but it's worth noting that some folks criticize its portrayal of the Vietnamese female love interest, who's left (disappointingly, I thought) as almost a total cypher - i.e., you learn very little about who she is and what she's feeling.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 8:22 AM on May 1, 2008

LSD however does remain in trace amounts in your spinal column

Cite, please?

AskMe isn't the place for passing along Stuff You've Heard Somewhere as a serious response to a medical question.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 5:25 AM on May 1, 2008

Don't know if it counts as "reasonably acceptable," but the bizarre, Bob Guccione-produced Caligula might be worth a look. From the review: "No film has ever tried to combine historical drama with such extreme content and the end result is perversely fascinating in segments."
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 8:13 PM on April 29, 2008

We might be able to give better advice if you tell us what county and district races you're interested in. The NC Sierra Club has endorsed two statewide races so far - Janet Cowell for Treasurer and Dan Besse for Lt. Gov - and a bunch of local ones. I can vouch for Janet Cowell as a pretty good rising young politician. I've known her as a city council member and my state senator; she's accessible and intelligent.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 7:49 PM on April 29, 2008

Just a quick note on the Independent Weekly's endorsements: they can be spotty. I was just talking this afternoon with a black friend who's been active in Democratic circles for years; he thinks they really botched their endorsement in N.C. Senate District 14 (here), which he says should go to Vernon Malone (who was endorsed by the NC Sierra Club). I don't know enough about that race to claim he's right, but just thought I'd mention that every election I notice a contest or two where they seem... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 8:04 PM on April 29, 2008

I've never heard the story with Ford, but there's a famous story Grace Slick tells about getting invited to the White House for a Finch College alumni tea and planning with Abbie Hoffman to put LSD in Nixon's tea:

Okay, tell me about trying to slip Richard Nixon acid at the White House.

See, Trish Nixon’s daughter went to Finch College, and it was so small that she invited all of the alumni to a tea at the White House. But my name when I... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 7:25 PM on April 29, 2008 marked best answer

small casts with stellar scripts and casting

Mike Leigh and John Sayles are two directors definitely up this alley. Leigh's Secrets and Lies is especially wonderful, but Life is Sweet and High Hopes are right up there, too. Sayles' Matewan is a little-known gem of a historical film, and Lone Star is near-perfect dialogue-driven drama. You can't go wrong with either of those... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 8:04 PM on April 27, 2008

Oh, and Richard Linklater's nearly unknown Tape, released the same year as Waking Life, has a cast of three and is a great example of a tight, dialogue-heavy small-cast film. In general, you'll want to keep your eye out for stage plays adapted by smart directors.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 8:15 PM on April 27, 2008

Oh yeah, there was a similar question a couple of years back with lots of good answers. I'll repeat a recommendation for Death and the Maiden, another adapted play that's a dark, brilliant, captivating small film.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 8:30 PM on April 27, 2008

fructose has it perfectly. Present it to the landlord as you've presented it here - she's given notice four times and the rest of you are tired of her disrespect for you and the disruption she's been causing and want to continue living there without her, which would actually be less disruptive for the landlord, too. Be sure to point out that last part.

But I'd also start looking at other places now as a backup if I were you.

At any point,... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 5:41 PM on April 27, 2008

Yeah, my first thought after seeing The Mist was "Hey, that was a pretty good Lovecraft movie" (and I loved the ending; it was *perfect*). Sunshine wouldn't have occurred to me, but I agree it works here - plus it's a great little horror/scifi blend. And I'll disagree with BrotherCaine; Lovecraft seems to me *very* adaptable to cinema, and it's a mystery why more Hollywood directors haven't used his world. Even if you ignore the many films where... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 5:04 AM on April 22, 2008

...and then her dad came out, moved her car onto a side street before the police arrived, threatened to beat the shit out of me, and then told the cops that his wife had been in the car with his daughter (which was not true)

Jesus, you need a lawyer. Many lawyers do free first consultations, often over the phone, to help you sort through whether you want to hire them or not. Describe this situation to a couple of lawyers (ask your friends and family... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 6:36 PM on April 21, 2008

There's no reason for her to ask you for checks in advance if she's promising to not cash them in advance. What's the point? If you wanted to scam her you could always just tell your bank to stop payment, so she's not really protecting herself from anything. It's like airport security theater; it just makes her *think* she's more secure.

Anyway, according to section 4-401 of the Uniform Commercial Code, there's a legal way to make sure she can't cash the checks in... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 9:54 AM on April 20, 2008

If it were me I'd set up a separate bank account that only holds enough cash for 1 months rent

Again: You can notify your bank in advance of the existence of the post-dated checks, which makes the bank responsible for not cashing them before the date listed. No need for a separate account or any other discussion with her. Notify your bank and then smile like the most trusting and helpful sub-leaser in the world as you hand her the post-dated checks.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 10:35 AM on April 20, 2008

Roald Dahl's books can have a bizarre, challenging sort of amorality you might find interesting; they blur the boundaries between good and evil while flirting with anti-social behavior. See, e.g., some of the appalled reviews at Amazon of George's Marvelous Medicine, an astonishingly funny and obnoxious little children's book.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 7:21 PM on April 19, 2008

What Mikey-San said. There's no fucking way faking a conversation in the comments of your blog is ethical. It might be trivial, sure, but no way is it ethical.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 6:56 PM on April 19, 2008

This thread might have some useful info.

Some are quite obscure.

Can you clarify what you mean by that, maybe with a couple of examples? I ask because our store deals with a lot of folks trying to sell comics who *think* they have something "quite obscure" but don't really have a good sense of what's out there in large numbers and what isn't.

Basically, if it's only a hundred or so, and you... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 6:51 PM on April 19, 2008

What more can I do to educate myself on this process?

One thing that's tricky is knowing when a book is a "true first" edition or "first state." Different publishers dealt with this in different ways over time - Knopf, I think, early on identified its true first editions by *not* putting any mark noting the book was a first. They just added markings for 2nd, 3rd, etc. Other publishers put "first printing" on all their true... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 7:27 AM on April 17, 2008 marked best answer

Books like this for the layperson are fairly common; if the local library carries any in its reference section you can see which suits the person best. Last time I searched through that section, I didn't find much of a difference in the popular prescription drug guides my library had. They were all ok on what I was looking for.

(netbros, the standard PDR is about as far as "layperson-friendly" as it's possible to be, I think, but they have released versions... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 6:47 AM on April 17, 2008

as far *from*
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 6:48 AM on April 17, 2008

Carmen McRae does a version on Carmen Sings Monk (two versions on the remastered edition); haven't listened to the album in a few years but I remember really loving it.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 7:44 AM on April 15, 2008

Looking for Cyberpunk Novels has some good post-'01 recommendations, if you haven't seen it.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 6:05 AM on April 14, 2008

yet can find plenty of acting examples that holds up perfectly well today

Worth repeating. The framing of the question is a bit unfair; there are plenty of performances in movies from the 30s, 40s and 50s that hold their own against "realistic" acting today. One classic example would be 1920s star Louise Brooks, who's often credited with a noticeably more "real" style of acting that was way ahead of its time, esp. in the 1928 film... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 7:32 AM on April 8, 2008

Have you seen the Small-Cast One-Act Guide?

Also, previously.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 8:22 PM on April 6, 2008

Seconding The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene; it's where the stock term "whiskey priest" first came from. The unnamed fugitive priest is one of the most interesting religious figures in fiction - full of doubt, liquor and cowardice yet still almost desperately spiritual. It's a great book - one of my favorites.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 8:09 PM on April 6, 2008

Use the map at localharvest.org to find organic food of all kinds near you. Zooming in on the Los Angeles map showed lots of options. Links in these two threads might also be useful. A good search phrase in general would be Community Supported Agriculture (CSA).
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 12:17 PM on April 6, 2008

Oops, missed the implication of a keyword, sorry.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mediareport at 6:15 AM on April 1, 2008