So, as a Minnesotan who loathes our Governor, I get an awesome, awesome fringe benefit from this. The word in several local media outlets was that Tim Pawlenty was really upset when he found out he wasn't McCain's pick; he must be gnawing at his own guts now that he sees who he was passed over for.
posted to MetaFilter by COBRA! at 7:25 AM on September 3, 2008

After chewing for a couple of days on the other night's combined Giuliani/Palin hatefest, I've also just joined the First Time Obama Donor pool. I guess what tipped me over the edge was the frustration of seeing McCain harp about ending partisan rancor when the night before his surrogates had flooded the place in bile.
posted to MetaFilter by COBRA! at 8:30 AM on September 5, 2008

The Exiled on Palin in Alaska.
posted to MetaFilter by COBRA! at 1:31 PM on September 5, 2008

Depending on what night, I might be up for it. I'd like to go, but, as Jeff Lebowski says, I've got a lot of ins, lot of outs going right now. My vote shouldn't count for much, given that I'm not a sure attendee, but I vote Minneapolis but not downtown. I like downtown, and it's easy for me to get to, but I'm guessing that's the one part of Mipples that'll suffer from conventionism.

If this one falls through, my band's playing a benefit show on the 12th, and all TC... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by COBRA! at 5:06 PM on August 28, 2008

"Mipples"

I never heard that before. I love it.

I read phonetically. Zing!
posted to MetaTalk by COBRA! at 7:38 PM on August 28, 2008

I vote either Monday or Wednesday night, but like I said, my vote should count for very little.

This has nothing to do with the meetup, but it's a pretty big pre-convention WTF: biking into work today, I saw that the city had gone through and washed the greenway pavement. What the hell? Were they worried that convention-goers would take time off for a spin and be disgusted by the city's dusty bike paths?
posted to MetaTalk by COBRA! at 7:04 AM on August 29, 2008

Out of no_moniker's suggestions, I'd say Herkimer. Downtown and Seven Corners are both going to be kind of nuts next week (Seven Corners will be getting it from all sides, with school starting and conventioneers in town, some of them staying on or near campus).
posted to MetaTalk by COBRA! at 1:51 PM on August 29, 2008

Gonna try my damnedest.
posted to MetaTalk by COBRA! at 5:34 PM on August 31, 2008

Yeah, I left with my tail tucked between my legs for warmth...

Frigidity aside, it was way cool meeting everybody.
posted to MetaTalk by COBRA! at 5:21 AM on September 4, 2008

Well, it's got too many notes.
posted to MeFi Music by COBRA! at 8:44 AM on September 3, 2008

I really like Bechdel as a cartoonist, but I've always loathed this test. I understand the sentiment, and agree that women are often poorly-served in film (and books, and comics, etc etc). But I think it's a horrible idea to erect some sort of ideologically-motivated litmus test (even if it's for an ideology I support) and apply it to art. Bad, bad idea that just leads to closing your mind and inevitably deprives you of good stuff that happens to fail your test.

For... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by COBRA! at 7:08 AM on September 3, 2008

What if we're applying it not so much to art, but to entertainment? It's perfectly reasonable for a woman to want to see movies which include women having conversations with each other.

I don't really draw a line between art and entertainment (I'd call, say, Meet the Spartans a form of art, just really, really shitty art). And I'm totally down with women wanting to see movies where women have conversations with each other. No... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by COBRA! at 7:30 AM on September 3, 2008

You seem to have missed the point. It's not supposed to deprive anyone of good stuff; do you seriously think Bechdel, or anyone, refuses to watch movies that don't pass the test? It's an excellent way to focus an important concern that should get much more attention. "Movies should treat women more seriously": vague, easily ignored. Bechdel test: pointed, effective. Thinking about the Bechdel test would help filmmakers make better films, if they bothered to do it.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by COBRA! at 7:43 AM on September 3, 2008

Bonus question: How can I restrict which applications get opened, to prevent enterprising students from firing up Word and leaving an epic poem about butts on the screen?
posted to Ask Metafilter by COBRA! at 8:46 AM on August 21, 2008

Gracias! Looking through the Slashdot thread, it looks like Parental Controls will accomplish most of what I need to do. I feel like such an authority figure!
posted to Ask Metafilter by COBRA! at 9:01 AM on August 21, 2008

Whoops. Yep, what edd said.
posted to Ask Metafilter by COBRA! at 9:02 AM on August 21, 2008

There'll be demand for Mac specialists for at least the short- and medium- terms; long-term, who knows with any platform?

You'd be a little limited as to where you can work; but on the other hand, there's a smaller pool of Mac-specific competition for job slots than there is for Windows.

My real-life example: I'm the jack-of-all-trades IT guy for a midsized art museum in the Twin Cities. This place is all Mac all the time, and won't be going... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by COBRA! at 10:43 AM on August 14, 2008

Most Macs in the corporate IT environment are orphans. The standard IT people treat them like lepers, so you'll be on your own as far as any networking, security, software etc. The big thing these days is getting the Macs on Active Directory, so a little studying in that area will serve you well.

100% lined up with what I've seen in museums/academics. A big chunk of my job now is trying to get our Macs to play nice with AD.
posted to Ask Metafilter by COBRA! at 11:04 AM on August 14, 2008

I'd say the Holy Trinity of north shore parks are Gooseberry (awesome stuff visible with about 5-minute walk from the parking lot), Tettegouche (awesome stuff all over, could easily support as much hiking as you want to throw at it) and Temperance River (mind-blowingly awesome stuff about 5 minutes from the parking lot, with options for longer hikes if you want 'em). Split Rock's kind of cool, but not as good as those three. The rest of the parks have their good points, but, well, you should... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by COBRA! at 7:12 AM on August 8, 2008

I deserve it. Hit me... baby, one more time.
posted to MeFi Music by COBRA! at 12:14 PM on August 6, 2008

Mulp did "Hit Me Baby One More Time." But it's pretty much the same song, and his is way better.
posted to MeFi Music by COBRA! at 5:26 AM on August 8, 2008

I liked the part where he says Jobs's products are uncreative derivatives of other people's work.
posted by ryanrs

Yeah, that hit me, too. Maybe this is just my personal hobbyhorse, but at this point I just don't see lot of value in somebody taking an existing, beloved property and tweaking it to make a lame little point. Basically, I think Family Guy strip-mined that practice so heavily that the ground will be... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by COBRA! at 7:08 AM on August 7, 2008

Wait, let me get this straight. Mad Magazine, arguably the most influential satirical magazine ever published in English, who have been running satires exactly like this one every single month for more than fifty years, should go ahead and throw in the towel because of... Family Guy?

No. Mad Magazine, the influential satirical magazine which has light-speeding off into irrelevance since I was in knickers, should at least have the fucking dignity to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by COBRA! at 5:23 AM on August 8, 2008

Wow. That's on the cool side of strange.
posted to MeFi Music by COBRA! at 8:42 AM on August 6, 2008

Everyone seems to uptight. Let's go have some pasta with the Hulkster.
posted to MetaTalk by COBRA! at 7:58 AM on August 6, 2008

Awesome! Welcome back!
posted to MetaTalk by COBRA! at 9:37 AM on August 3, 2008

1. I like Rush. A lot. This is me, more or less.

2. We get to Omaha and it is great and we have a wonderful few days. On our last day, we step into a book store with a record store in the basement and an art gallery upstairs called The Antiquarian.

Holy shit, man, I grew up just north of Omaha, and that place was the Holy Grail of Cool to me (although the exact name is The Antiquarium). I laid out a lot of the foundations of... [more]
posted to MeFi Music by COBRA! at 7:35 AM on August 1, 2008

It's not there anymore?! Raw deal. I know it was there the last time I was in Omaha, but that was 2 or 3 years ago. It was probably their lack of respect for Jeff Lynne that did them in. I'm sorry, brought them down. Rhoose!
posted to MeFi Music by COBRA! at 7:28 AM on August 2, 2008

Are you amenable to camping at all?
posted to Ask Metafilter by COBRA! at 11:46 AM on August 1, 2008

If camping's out, xotis' list is a good one. One resort on the north shore that has some bare-bones cabins and is fairly cheap is Lamb's in Schroeder. Blue Fin Bay is pretty nice, but a bit more expensive...
posted to Ask Metafilter by COBRA! at 12:47 PM on August 1, 2008

I can say for sure that Civ4 for Windows does not work in the VMWare Fusion installation of XP I have on my Macbook pro. So there's one datapoint against PC gaming in a VM.
posted to Ask Metafilter by COBRA! at 11:02 AM on August 1, 2008

OS B, preferably Linux. Your Laptop is set up that it tries to boot from a USB stick first. On you USB stick you have a bootloader that starts Linux from a second HDD partition. Hence your real OS, Linux, will only boot when you insert your USB stick. The whole Linux system is encrypted of cause.

Taking it a step further, you could use this watch as your bootable USB stick. I have one, wear it every day, and nobody ever realizes it's not an ordinary... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by COBRA! at 8:39 AM on August 1, 2008

If I may be so bold, my band just finished an EP of James Bond-inspired songs, either alternate themes for existing movies (our Octopussy theme nukes the original) or themes for Bond movies that don't exist but should.

Rough mixes of a couple of these appeared on Mefi Music, but it was asynchronous with the spy music challenge.
posted to MetaFilter by COBRA! at 7:53 AM on August 1, 2008

Wow wow wow and wow again.
posted to MeFi Music by COBRA! at 7:50 AM on August 1, 2008

The voice and even the effect on it is great.

yeah, what're you doing to your voice on these? It's not something I'd want every person to do on every song, but for your stuff it's working really well?
posted to MeFi Music by COBRA! at 7:49 AM on August 1, 2008

Yeah, this is really nicely put together.
posted to MeFi Music by COBRA! at 7:42 AM on August 1, 2008

Could be my headphones, but I wish you had the vocals a little more prominent, and the guitar dialled back a little. The lyrics are great, but they get a little lost.
posted to MeFi Music by COBRA! at 7:41 AM on August 1, 2008

All hands, man your thingies!
posted to MetaFilter by COBRA! at 2:18 PM on July 30, 2008

Thanks for starting this thread. I'm still trying to come to grips with the enormous piles of material-- old and hot-off-the-press-- on MefiMusic, and this is a damned helpful thing.
posted to MeFi Music by COBRA! at 12:11 PM on July 29, 2008

Right on, thanks for that. I'll talk to the hombre that maintains our site...
posted to Projects by COBRA! at 7:39 AM on July 24, 2008

I would love it if more political debates involved rap war-style chest beating. That's what was missing from the Bush/Kerry debates.

As far back as 2000, I was saying I'd vote for Bush with a smile on my face if he'd opened a debate with, "Vice President Gore, WELCOME TO THE TERRORDOME!"
posted to MetaFilter by COBRA! at 7:19 AM on July 24, 2008

It's frustrating that it's such a marginal question.... in a way, it makes me wish we were five years ahead or five years back, instead of this weird transitionary period. Y'know, just a few years ago I would have looked at it as a no-brainer. And weird as it seems, I think it'll be a no-brainer in the other direction before too long. I mean, in the end it seems to boil down to Cortex's last point,

- Are CDs going to be, in some foreseeable way, the... [more]
posted to MeFi Music by COBRA! at 2:33 PM on July 21, 2008

Huh, I actually didn't realize that small-run production like saulgoodman's was possible-- all of the local stuff I'd googled had minimum run sizes that would have left me filling up my friends' basements with extra CDs. That really does sort of Change Everything.

and thanks for the spotlight, sleepy pete
posted to MeFi Music by COBRA! at 8:53 AM on July 22, 2008

Nobody made a fuss when I joined, and I am someone from Minnesota who has smoked pot.
posted by Astro Zombie

Holy shit, me too!
posted to MetaTalk by COBRA! at 2:24 PM on July 21, 2008

Astro Zombie and COBRA!, were you both also members of writing group pot-smoking group The Scribblies The Splifflies?
posted by turgid dahlia

Yeah, I was the Blue Spliffie. I was "the wacky one."
posted to MetaTalk by COBRA! at 3:40 PM on July 21, 2008

The beautiful thing is that you kind of verge on the "Whole Lotta Love" riff in the chorus. Not accusing you of ripoffery at all-- more like Jimmy Page was eating out of the same Bo Diddley cooke jar.
posted to MeFi Music by COBRA! at 1:51 PM on July 17, 2008

Thanks a lot, guys!

After bean-plating it last night at practice, we think this mix is probably pretty close to what the final one will be. The big worry was that the vocals were a little nasal, but we kind of decided that we are what we are, nasal vocals and all.
posted to MeFi Music by COBRA! at 7:01 AM on July 16, 2008

I root for BOOM! studios, and I enjoy the hell out of a lot of the stuff they put out, and they bring in lots of people I like, and I want them to succeed.

But part of me groans a little at the endless series of internet memes they mine. Cthulu, ninjas, zombies, sure. Giving the (web) people what they want, or pandering? I go back and forth.

But the day they do LOLCats Tales, I'm done with them.
posted to MetaFilter by COBRA! at 8:34 AM on July 15, 2008

Yeah, I agree, it's smart business. And in the end, making enough money to survive's probably more important to them than nurturing the tender sensibilities of some fussy dude in Minneapolis.
posted to MetaFilter by COBRA! at 11:37 AM on July 15, 2008

If they go for it, send me the submission guidelines. My principles'll go right out the window if I can haz exposure.
posted to MetaFilter by COBRA! at 2:13 PM on July 15, 2008