Most productions of Georgette Heyer books by Chivers Audio Books are excellent. For instance, Clifford Norgate reading "Frederica".

Among non-fiction books, I very much enjoyed Laura Hillenbrand's "Seabiscuit", but I can't seem to find an unabridged audio version on amazon right now.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 11:49 AM on July 8, 2008

I'd second junesix's steamed whole fish idea. Your local Chinese supermarket should have a variety of ready-made sauces in stock. 李锦记 （Lee-Kum-Kee) is a popular brand, and they make a sauce especially for steamed fish called 蒸鱼豉油. (My bottle says 'seasoned soy sauce for seafood' on its label.)

Chinese food isn't big on dessert, but a nice bowl of 'silver ear soup' would give the meal an elegant finish. It's easy to get dried银耳from any Chinese supermarket. Soak it... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 9:10 PM on June 17, 2008

Oh, a caveat on the 'silver ear soup' - if you don't like slippery mouth feel, this is not for you.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 9:27 PM on June 17, 2008

Are you familiar with tudou.com, the youtube equivalent in Chinese? You might find Disney movies there, if you know the Chinese titles. For instance:
花木兰 - Mulan
狮子王 - Lion King
阿拉丁 - Aladdin
美女与野兽 - Beauty and the Beast

If you do get hold of some DVDs, there are zone-free DVD players that you can buy. My friend has a Phillips model from Amazon for around $80 3,4 years ago.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 9:13 PM on June 6, 2008

R. A. Salvatore's "Homeland" from his Forgotten Realms trilogy is about one dark elf's attempt to escape the underworld. Parts of Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon" qualify as well.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 11:50 AM on June 2, 2008

Elaine Scarry's 'On Beauty and Being Just' lecture is linked from here.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 9:19 PM on May 2, 2008

You might enjoy the fairy-tale quality of Eva Ibbotson's books. They used to be hard to find, but some of her titles just got reissued: "The Morning Gift", "A Countess Below Stairs".

I think runincircles above meant "Course of Honour" by Lindsay Davis, and I strongly second that.

In addition to "Shards of Honor", Lois McMaster Bujold's "A... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 1:42 PM on April 21, 2008

In white: 'Not only do we need revolutionary fervor, we also need pragmatism'.

In black: 'the youth generation'
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 8:51 AM on March 20, 2008

Given that you are using SQL Server already, you may want to look into Microsoft Analysis Services. The preferred query language for OLAP there is not SQL but their proprietary MDX language, and learning the basics of MDX might give you a better vocabulary/framework to think about your data in a more OLAP/CUBE way. I wouldn't really recommend building OLAP style reports/queries by hand in SQL - if it were easy/natural/efficient, companies like Microstrategy or Cognos wouldn't exist.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 2:26 PM on February 10, 2008

There's a signature vegetarian dish in Shanghai called 烤扶 (kao-fu). You should give it a try.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 10:03 AM on January 30, 2008

The Bird and the Bee's "Again & Again" reminded me of Lily Allen.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 12:26 PM on January 14, 2008

I was at a cafe yesterday that uses Guestbox.com to charge WIFI access.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 11:31 AM on December 9, 2007

Some 401k plans allow you to borrow up to half of your current savings. (Mine charges a 8% interest rate. There's no tax consequence iirc.) If your credit cards are charging you more, it might be worthwhile to borrow as much as you can from your 401k to pay down part of your credit card debt. That way, you are at least paying the interest of that loan back to yourself.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 9:07 AM on December 4, 2007

A bit background about where the scanned article is from: the magazine is a very popular weekly in Hong Kong, (its name is literally 'one-week-magazine'), it's a bit of a tabloid, but still reliable in such matters.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 11:51 AM on November 28, 2007

I tried out a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3 and had to return it due to its poor image quality in low light/no flash situations. The Lumix line is somewhat infamous for that.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 3:30 PM on November 17, 2007

There are a lot of interpretations floating around, but this one strikes me: she did it because she thought he loved her.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 3:06 PM on October 7, 2007

1) The public library here is my default place to locate everything. And usually they do have everything.

2) About 70% of the things I check out are things I've put on hold ahead of time. Browsing through, say the graphic novel section, can be fruitful.

3) 'Browsing beyond' often happens at the monthly special section with books handpicked by librarians in a certain theme. ('Banned books' was one, for instance.) I also like looking through... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 9:21 PM on September 29, 2007

Vacapinta has already mentioned a download link for Oracle, and I just want to highlight Oracle Express, the entry-level, free version of Oracle. People who have installed it found it easy to use.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 8:56 AM on September 26, 2007

Clark Art Institute is nice, so is Williams College campus.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 2:24 PM on September 20, 2007

I heard that in Chongqing (a major south-west city) 4 years ago, a young woman (a family friend) had to sign a contract promising not to have a baby within the first three years of her employment at an insurance company. I was assured that that's rather common practice.

Employers regularly put height requirements in job ads. And yes, people do get turned down for being 1cm short.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 9:04 PM on September 16, 2007

I have to link back to reddit's thread on this thread, since it contains some good suggestions (whiskey, drawing animals, poker...) as well , and because they bitch about askme 's 'presentation'.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 4:47 PM on September 11, 2007

I clicked the "clean up" button on the download page, and that caused a massive freeze-up, unsurprisingly. I eventually killed Firefox and removed download.rdf from (since this is Windows): c:\documents and settings\\Application data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\.default\. That worked.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 2:08 PM on September 10, 2007

A bit far afield in fantasy genre, there are Patricia Wrede's "Talking to Dragons", Delia Marshall Turner's "Nameless Magery", and Doris Egan's Ivory Trilogy (especially the first two).

Georgette Heyer has a number of splendidly sensible heroines. The first one that come to mind are "The Nonesuch" and "The Talisman Ring".
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 11:12 AM on August 24, 2007

"Inside Men" is suspenseful but not that violent. "The World's Fastest Indian" does feature a sexually active senior, but it's mostly romance-free.

They are not that new, but "A Short History of a Small Place", a hilarious southern novel, and the devious "Debt to Pleasure" might fit the bill. You probably know of "The Power and the Glory", and "Life of Pi" already.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 10:32 AM on August 24, 2007

Ayn Rand. Sorry.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 11:04 AM on August 21, 2007

Elizabeth Dewberry has a novel tellingly titled "His Lovely Wife".

Andrea Lee's "Interesting Women" might also fit the bill.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 1:12 PM on August 8, 2007

Try search string [话梅 snack preserved plum].
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 10:21 AM on July 18, 2007

Your page 3 and 4 should probably be reversed.

I'm not up to a literal translation of this. (Notice how there are no punctuation anywhere in this article? It's quite a workout just to guess where each sentence begins.)

This is an article written by a pretty important Chinese emperor 乾隆 (from the Qing dynasty) for a collection of five classic works that dates before Confucius. They actually started out as six, but the one about music/arts got... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 6:55 PM on May 27, 2007

* It also served as foreword *
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 6:57 PM on May 27, 2007

This page finally finished loading, and about 6/7th down, there's a picture of that screen, and the full text of the article, nicely punctuated:
[pic 2事虽大而无关于天理人心之正者，不可炫其有文而为之记。事虽小而有关于天理人心之正者，不可憪其无文而弗为之记。兹五经萃室之记盖有合于后之所云者，五经之有关于天理人心，夫人之所知也。而谓其事小者，徒以萃宋时岳珂所刻之五经，故曰小，然而六 /pic... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 7:35 PM on May 27, 2007

Thank you for the answers!
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 8:15 PM on May 17, 2007

There is also - "there is no police like Holmes".

*duck*
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 7:58 AM on May 2, 2007

My dad did that in lieu of shaving, and I think eventually his beard doesn't grow anymore. That's one way to stop the pulling I guess.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 9:15 AM on May 1, 2007

Chenghuang Temple (also called Yi Temple) in Shanghai.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 2:44 PM on April 30, 2007

I'd second The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, The Lady Eve, Indiscreet (not B&W though), and The Shop Around the Corner. The director of TSATC also made "Ninotchka", as in "Garbo laughed!"
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 12:08 PM on April 15, 2007

Digging further in Cary Grant's catalog: Father Goose (1964), The More the Merrier (1943).
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 12:15 PM on April 15, 2007

There's a part of me that wants to overanalyze everything and there's a part of me that wants to proceed balls out

I don't think these are mutually exclusive choices. Why not be brave and open and overanalyze everything with your boyfriend? Why not ask him about his views on 'fairness' in relationships?

If you can't help becoming emotional when you are talking to him, it shouldn't be a big deal either - he's your... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 6:44 PM on April 11, 2007 marked best answer

Your problem is pretty much an equal join in relational database terms, and this is a much visited area. For databases, the fun thing is that both lists (tables) are usually too large to be held in memory.

The classic solution is Merge-sort, after external sort has been performed on the two lists. An alternative is hash-based join, which scales well if done in parallel.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 8:42 PM on March 27, 2007

Grounds for Sculpture is about 30 minutes from Princeton, and a relaxing place to visit for half a day. There's a Turkish decor restaurant inside that might be called (unfortunately) Rat's, IIRC.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 8:13 PM on March 13, 2007

Line by line from right to left:
'World's Happiest Celebration
Disney Art Gallery
Beauty's Castle'
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 6:51 AM on March 7, 2007 marked best answer

Are the leaves on those trees really that shade of pink?
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 6:55 AM on March 7, 2007

Kate and Leopold with Meg Ryan & Hugh Jackman
It Happened One Night with Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable
Down with Love with Renée Zellweger & Ewan McGregor
Plus Truly Madly Deeply, Sliding Doors, Serendipity with Kate Beckinsale & John Cusack?

There are simply tons.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 2:51 PM on February 28, 2007

Also, if you want to an extra Wii remote and/or a nunchuck, you can sign up with toysrus.com to receive an email when either item becomes available on-line. And act fast when you get the email notice!
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 7:04 PM on February 27, 2007

You did say that you are already with a good group of people now, so you mainly seem unhappy with your gear, and I don't quite see how a guild will help you with that without raiding together. Unfortunately the gear on the AH is never going to be nearly as good as you're going to get from running instances.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 3:02 PM on February 26, 2007

Brinkzilla, within the last month or so, I've had two occasions to purchase a Wii at a Target in NJ. Call them ahead of time and be prepared to arrive at the door >15 minutes before the store opens on the day they tell you, and you will have an excellent chance.

Fatwallet.com also has reliable rumors.

And don't pass up any chance to get extra Wii remote/nunchuck.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 1:05 PM on February 22, 2007

Abiezer, thank you for the link to that calligraphy site.

It seems that the identity of the recipient of the letter, i.e. 寺丞, isn't really clear to the scholars, but the guess on that pdf file linked is a member of the royal family.

'韩马' may refer to some famous painting of horses by '韩干', a Tang dynasty painter. The line '韩马预借三五日，... 赏玩如何？' makes sense in this light, and can be translated as
'Could I... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 12:18 PM on February 2, 2007

Yeah, '冲胜' gives me trouble too, and Mi Fu seems to be quite fond of the phrase - he used it in some other letter as well.

Abiezer, kudos. You capture the tone of the letter very well.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 9:07 AM on February 3, 2007

1) Yes.

2) It was the artist who combined the writings of two well-known Mi Fu scrolls. The combination might be chosen for two things: the total number of characters that fit on the piece of paper at hand, and the stylistic similarity between the two original scrolls - both are early works in '行书' or 'Running Script'. (As it happens, the wiki page on calligraphy links to another Mi Fu piece, and the style there is just a touch more cursive.)... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 8:17 PM on February 3, 2007

On preview: I concur with Abiezer.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 8:18 PM on February 3, 2007

Yes, I noticed the bamboo leaf background on the first piece, but the 'green' part is probably just a coincidence. The piece has several red chop marks, and the right-most hard-to-make-out line has the date and the place ('xxx Year ... China Institute'), so it looks quite formal and not like a practice piece.
posted to Ask Metafilter by of strange foe at 7:50 PM on February 3, 2007