I could swear there was already a MetaTalk thread for essentially this question; anyone else know what I'm talking about? It had a ton of good answers in it.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 7:41 AM on May 24, 2008

At first I thought you wrote "I'm giggling that night or else I'd try and come down," which would have been one of the best excuses I would ever have heard.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 8:57 AM on October 1, 2007

Anyone who has paid attention to grumblebee's posting history would know that every word he's typed in this thread is absolutely sincere. He is not being passive-agressive, he is not being disingenuous. He is trying to understand why his post was inappropriate for MetaFilter. (Maybe people can try to work from that assumption in their further comments in this thread.)

When you think about it, why it's inappropiate for MetaFilter is a pretty hard question to answer,... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 11:24 AM on February 10, 2007

I thing bonaldi has a great point here. Certain times of day are much less busy than others; in particular, things are pretty quiet before the east coast of North America shows up for work, and after the west coast leaves work. Why not give people two questions per two weeks, but one of which has to be asked in "off-peak" hours? Would that be too difficult to implement/keep track of?
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 5:40 AM on February 7, 2007

I'm the one with the crazy black hair. Waiting for sueinnyc's photos... how late did things end up going? I snuck out around 10:00...
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 9:06 AM on January 13, 2007

Wish that the bird had been sitting next to me ... looks like a cool stuffed parrot!

(It's my wife, Rosie. I didn't add a note to the group photo because she's not a MeFite.)
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 1:58 PM on January 13, 2007

The boy will not fall in love with loiseau. She's just too damn awesome.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 7:14 AM on January 12, 2007

Sounds like this one's going to be a doozy.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 1:56 AM on January 12, 2007

Count me as one more thirsty mouth to feed, if anyone is keeping track.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 2:00 PM on January 9, 2007

I have reservations about inviting the ninjas.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 12:51 AM on December 7, 2006

Sweet.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 2:49 PM on December 6, 2006

I've been thinking about it for a while, but this post by grumblebee, highlighted a fact I've noticed several times before: I can essentially always tell when a post is by grumblebee, before I've finished reading it and seen his name. It's hard to put my finger on exactly why, in any way that isn't uselessly vague.

So, which members could you identify if all the names were hidden? Can you explain why?... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 8:47 AM on November 29, 2006

By the way, vis-à-vis my poor punctuation and my calling a comment a post: I hope that in general my identifying features aren't bad grammar and incorrect use of words.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 10:04 AM on November 29, 2006

Excellent. The eighth sounds great.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 7:55 AM on November 9, 2006

From someone who hasn't yet been sucked into the music site, a vote for something along the lines of what dobbs/matt are discussing -- I would be there in a second. (Of course, it seems that what's already going is certainly working very well for some people, as well...)
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 2:54 PM on October 7, 2006

Go choke on a bucket of caulking.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 5:04 AM on October 3, 2006

Which comments went unanswered: useful for keeping the discussion on track and maximizing the number of questions answered. I also don't think it's only useful for me: many if not most of the questions would be of interest to anyone moving to London, or even to those who've lived here for a while but don't know all the ins and outs of the city.

Furthermore, once I'm getting close to having a complete set of answers to these questions (and to many others I... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 8:44 AM on September 22, 2006

And in terms of asking 30 questions at once: would it be better to ask these questions 1-at-a-time? And, while group attention is focussed on this thread, would re-posting the unanswered questions at another time of day, a week or two from now, to try to capture a different demographic of London-savvy MeFites and elicit answers to those questions that had maybe been overlooked on the first pass, be unacceptably rule-bending or gauche? What say we all?
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 8:46 AM on September 22, 2006

Also, in response to lemur: many of the questions have been answered perfectly already, and my understanding is that it's perfectly acceptable to ask a question whose answer is only useful to the asker. Questions of the "what is this weird growth on my left buttock; here's a picture for your reference?" variety have passed without comment many-a-time.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 8:48 AM on September 22, 2006

hugsnkisses, these are the sorts of questions I would normally ask a friend, not a semi-anonymous mass of people. Unfortunately, we don't know anyone in London. This is a large, somewhat overwhelming city, and I don't want to spend the first year of my time here feeling like a fish out of water. So I'm trusting the benevolence of strangers to help me get my sea legs.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 8:57 AM on September 22, 2006

Point taken that it may have come off as overly regimented or controlling. I guess that may be one thing that increases the thread's utility specifically for me, at its expense as a general resource. If anyone has useful tips for life in London that I didn't ask about but that may be useful for me or others, please feel free to post them as well.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 9:04 AM on September 22, 2006

By the way, vis-a-vis the repeated "unanswered" lists: what I really wanted was a way to highlight the unanswered questions at the top of the thread, but I couldn't think of a good way to do that. I could have put a link to a remote jpeg which contained the questions, then changed the jpeg to reflect which questions had been answered, but that seemed complicated and not very good for the future useability of the thread. Can anyone think of a better way to accomplish this?
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 10:02 AM on September 22, 2006

As an aside to everyone who said it should be more open ended, the last item of my list (M8) was there to encourage anyone who knew about anything cool that I didn't think of asking.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 1:58 PM on September 22, 2006

jessamyn, there's something I don't understand. What harm do posts like this do? Wouldn't it maybe make sense to recognize that in certain cases, multiple-question posts are a very logical thing? AskMe is the best at what it does on the whole web. Where else could I turn to have these questions answered in a way that didn't take 30 weeks (more than 1/4 of my whole time in London)?

At any rate, thanks to everyone for your comments, both in this thread... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 2:44 PM on September 22, 2006

I am a bit obsessive about lists, but as far as I know I don't have Aspbergers. In face-to-face social interactions, I actually think I'm about the opposite of how I may have come off here (in terms of being conscientious of other people and aware of social cues). I also think there's a big difference between arguing your point of view and being insensitive to those of other people.

But I did apologize, and I was sincere in my apology. And Wilder: I'd... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 8:54 AM on September 24, 2006

Damn ... sorry I missed it. Just got back from Canada and was too jet lagged. Please let me use this thread for self-interested purposes and direct you all over to this AskMe post, where I'm trying to figure out everything you need to know to make London feel like home. Any help will be rewarded with beer at the next meetup.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 6:46 AM on September 22, 2006

When posting this post:

Error processing CFX custom tag "CFX_JSpellCheck".
The CFX custom tag "CFX_JSpellCheck" was not found in the custom tag database. Please be sure to add custom tags to the database before using them. If you have added your tag to the database then you should check the spelling of the tag within your template to insure that it matches the database entry.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 6:44 AM on September 22, 2006

I just moved to London, so I'm excited about this ...

So far the 22'nd sounds like it's bad for more people than the 21'st ... to be rather forward, may I suggest we fix the 21'st, at 6:00, at the Bricklayer's Arms, at this point?
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 8:31 AM on September 10, 2006

if anyone still has spreadsheet/writely invites, i'm interested ... email in profile. thanks!
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 4:18 PM on June 7, 2006

My favourite, no doubt about it: Why do homeless people in the Paris metros say "seven", in English, to themselves?
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 2:54 PM on May 16, 2006

herrdoktor, were you serious? If you were, tell me; I can't find this journal ... what's the full name? Is it available online? Thanks. If you were joking, here's my preemptive embarassement for being fooled, right before this period.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 8:41 AM on March 4, 2006

Just pick a time and a place. L'île noire and Ste. Elizabeth are getting a little south for my tastes, but I could make the trek. Anyone else like my friend Miami? Free pool if it's not busy, and it's usually not busy...
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 9:21 PM on January 16, 2006

G.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 1:37 PM on December 8, 2005

I don't know. I just don't know.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 2:20 PM on November 7, 2005

I have noticed that klangklangston particularly enjoys the phrase "ouch, my straw man hurts". Curse you, klangklangston, you'll never get away with using the same clever turn of phrase twice! Not while the straw man posse is on MeFi patrol.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 10:35 PM on October 25, 2005

Woo hoo!
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 4:58 PM on October 25, 2005

(The original post)
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 5:03 PM on October 25, 2005

Maybe there was no deletion reason reason, but why was there no reason for the deletion reason? Was there also no reason for that? Or was there a good deletion reason reason reason?
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 5:05 PM on October 25, 2005

Maybe If I Had An Anus could be that same asshole. Where are you, my dear Mr. Anus? We have the opportunity of a lifetime for you in aisle 10404.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 5:24 PM on October 25, 2005

Please keep it anonymous. I don't want anyone to know that I'm a fat, constipated, hemorrhoid-ridden, emotionally repressed, sex-crazed, cheating, alcoholic, book-writing capital-gaining sex-blogging seductress , okay?... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 11:04 PM on October 24, 2005

Miguel is Back? Uma Beleza!
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 9:46 PM on October 20, 2005

So apparently we're not supposed to "editorialize" and we're supposed to be "balanced" about the situation in the West Bank and Gaza. This is a situation about which a South-African delegation, in their report after a fact-finding mission to Israel and Palestine, concluded "[i]t becomes difficult, particularly from a South African perspective, not to draw parallels with the oppression experienced by Palestinians under the hand of Israel and the oppression experienced in... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 1:39 PM on October 15, 2005

scarabic, thanks for the considered response. You correctly read part of my point; the other part was that if this really is a situation which is comparable to Apartheid South Africa, then it is an issue over which people should feel moral outrage. If you agree with that fact-finding commission in their assessment, then to not feel that outrage takes a seriously skewed moral compass.

On the other hand, I agree with... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 2:36 PM on October 15, 2005

Something you forgot to mention, y2karl, in your list of rules for how to post: minimize the things you write that have more than one possible interpretation, no matter how obvious it is to you that people should understand which one you mean. Otherwise, people might think that you believe MetaFilter has been around since 1986 or something crazy like that ;)
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 8:37 PM on October 15, 2005

scarabic, it's true that the situation is not a perfect parallel, though I think it's far closer than most people - not to say you - want to belive. In SA, moral outrage on the part of the international community, and, for a long while, in the face of US support of South Africa, played a big part in bringing an end to apartheid.

And I think it makes a difference, so I'm pointing out that the ANC did injure and kill civilians in their struggle to end... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 8:53 PM on October 15, 2005

You're right that the fact that it occurs is very bad in terms of international opinion about what's going on.

And, so that I'm not misunderstood, because innocent civilians die.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 9:00 PM on October 15, 2005

I'm worried about the baggage retrieval system they've got at Heathrow.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 7:55 AM on October 12, 2005

Aside from agreeing with grumblebee, I have this to add, partly in response to FYKshun: AskMeFi is largely not a place where people snark in the way that they do in the rest of MetaFilter. People read the question, usually carefully, and give considerate responses that usually help the poster figure out an answer to their question. It's a great site, and the lack of snark is one of the reasons I read it a whole lot more. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who feels this way.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 5:44 PM on September 23, 2005

Hey kjh: here are the posts grumblebee was talking about them. Why don't you go read them, and the responses and discussions that follow, then decide whether or not grumblebee deserves that from you.

The alternative, it seems to me, is to assume that if someone asks questions indicating they believe certain groups of people may have behavioral characteristics that are different from their own, it follows that they are horribly prejudiced against that... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 7:43 PM on September 23, 2005

Sorry: those groups of people.
posted to MetaTalk by louigi at 7:44 PM on September 23, 2005