Eminem says some of the most controversial things of any popular musician I know of. As someone who's not a fan of rap I can only claim a passing familiarity with his music but I think he has three songs that seal his place as being (or at least having the persona) one of the great misogynists of the last decade.

Example #1: Kill You from the Marshall Mathers LP (2000):

Slut, you think I won't choke no whore
till the vocal... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by meditative_zebra at 9:13 PM on April 3, 2008

All this hyperventilating about drink names makes me think back to the clarion call for revolution against corporate tyranny enshrined in the Dead Milkmen song "Punk Rock Girl":

We went to the Philly Pizza Company
And ordered some hot tea
The waitress said well no, we only have it iced
So we jumped up on the table and shouted anarchy
And someone played a Beach Boys song on the jukebox
It it was... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by meditative_zebra at 3:04 PM on January 4, 2008

As a regular reader at Obsidian Wings for the last year I know I will miss seeing posts from G'Kar.

.
posted to MetaFilter by meditative_zebra at 2:51 PM on January 4, 2008

Keep your hands moisturized. I had this problem when I worked as an invoice clerk handling bajillions of pieces of paper each day. Neutrogena was the solution for me.

(Just as an aside, paper cuts are so much less bad than cardboard cuts. Yeouch!)
posted to Ask Metafilter by meditative_zebra at 3:42 PM on October 7, 2007 marked best answer

UPS offers tuition benefits to part-time employees. It looks like they have some openings around the Milwaukee area.

I had a friend who worked at UPS for the tuition assistance. The money for school was helpful and he only had to work 20-25 hours a week, but the work was exhausting. Picking 20-30 50 lb boxes off a fast-moving conveyor every 60 seconds for a four-hour shift is quite a workout. I tried to get on at UPS but was never able to. I went in for the application... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by meditative_zebra at 11:27 PM on October 3, 2007

I live in Oklahoma and I have a government job. I bring home about 70% after taxes, insurance, etc. I only claim one person on my insurance, so I probably make out a little better than your wife would with three people on her insurance.

Assuming the agency pays monthly I would guestimate around $1900-2000 per check, or a biweekly check of ~$900
posted to Ask Metafilter by meditative_zebra at 9:12 PM on October 1, 2007

I think friendships (and relationships more generally) are very valuable things. It sounds like you are still too close to your breakup to be around your ex-boyfriend at this time, but if this is a person who you have had an established friendship with I would suggest that you take some time away from him and then see if you can be friends again. It might take a few months or it might take a few years, but if you are both willing to still be friends you should be able to re-establish that... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by meditative_zebra at 8:51 PM on September 17, 2007

Dinosaur Jr. is one of those early/mid 90's grunge bands that helped inspire the movement but didn't get a ton of airplay. "Start Choppin" was probably their biggest hit and I think it was even on MTV back when they still played music. They have a greatest hits cd that's worth checking out.
posted to Ask Metafilter by meditative_zebra at 1:27 AM on August 5, 2007

I can't believe there's a binary scarf being discussed without Neal Stephenson even being mentioned. Hasn't anyone read The Baroque Cycle?
posted to MetaFilter by meditative_zebra at 11:11 PM on June 4, 2007

.
posted to MetaFilter by meditative_zebra at 4:55 PM on April 16, 2007

I'm fond of the "taco" technique that was demonstrated to me by a friend several years ago. Lay a blanket out on the ground, place the cat on the blanket. Have the cat lay on its side on the blanket. Proceed to wrap the blanket around the cat, just as you would wrap a taco. Pick up the bundle and cradle the cat as you would a baby, with the cat's belly up. When I do this to my cat he looks at me to figure out what the heck I'm doing. When the cat is looking at you he is now in perfect... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by meditative_zebra at 9:21 PM on February 20, 2007

I'm not a doctor, but I would guess that you have TMJ. I had chronic jawaches a few years back and when I went in to have it checked out the dentist diagnosed me with TMJ, which basically means that the joint in your jaw is aggravated by excess movement, in my case it was a problem of too much chewing gum and too much time spent playing clarinet. The solution was to stop carrying gum and too minimize my jaw movements. Eventually I stopped having the aches in my jaw, but they do come back... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by meditative_zebra at 11:56 PM on January 12, 2007 marked best answer

I work at a public library that is on the proverbial wrong side of the tracks and it is not a very quiet library. One of the contributing factors to the noise pollution in the library is that it serves as a place for unsupervised kids to kill time after school. We have a fairly large number of kids who are at the library five or six days a week. There are three different schools within a two block radius and their daily routine is to leave school at 2:30, walk to the library and use the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by meditative_zebra at 5:53 PM on January 4, 2007

The empire-building pc games are the ones that have always drawn me in the most. Civilization III is the epitome of this genre and if you haven't played it you are truly missing out. It can be had for $10 at places like Target and Best Buy in the bargain games section.

Another game in this genre is Rise of Nations. I've only ever played the demo of this game but I plan to pick it up from Circuit City when it goes on sale for $10 this Sunday.
posted to Ask Metafilter by meditative_zebra at 9:56 AM on December 30, 2006

I think you might be best served by a pay-as-you-go plan. I had a TracFone for the last year and with it you are not obligated to a contract or monthly fees. You buy a phone and then activate it with a card that has a set number of minutes. The phone and card that I linked will cost about $60 and give you about four hours worth of minutes that will last a year from the activation date. If you need more minutes you can go buy another card.

TracFones aren't top of the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by meditative_zebra at 8:54 PM on December 17, 2006 marked best answer

Best shot I had was a 0.114, not counting the two 0.000 shots I had in one round. Now I think I need to go back to letting the sheep put me to sleep (even though that will ruin my score).
posted to MetaFilter by meditative_zebra at 6:09 PM on November 17, 2006

For those wondering what is the purpose of this site (and similar sites such as UPC Database) allow me to explain how I use these sites.

Since many nationwide retailers tend to clearance items at approximately the same time, but allow the individual stores (districts? regions?) to set the exact price (Wal-Mart, Target), and since the stores will often not update tags for the new prices immediately an industrious person can print off their own list of barcodes and use... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by meditative_zebra at 10:32 PM on July 26, 2006

Another male here who has had long hair. My hair was a few inches below my shoulders when I started looking for a job a year and a half ago. When I was hired by my current employer my hair was 'professional' looking: short, neat and unobtrusive.

I had several interviews (including one with a bank) while my hair was long, and I was never called back. I cut my hair and fairly soon thereafter was hired by my current employer.

Starting last fall I... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by meditative_zebra at 11:54 PM on May 28, 2006 marked best answer

This one is a biography and will probably be pretty hit or miss, but I haven't been able to stop reading it since I picked it up:

The Path to Power by Robert Caro.

It's the first volume of a four volume biography of the life of Lyndon Baines Johnson. LBJ's life had no shortage of plot and intrigue, and Caro is a masterful storyteller who manages to simultaneously provide a very detailed biography with the pacing and... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by meditative_zebra at 10:06 PM on May 25, 2006

As someone who bagged groceries for more than a year at two different stores I can only say that the whole concept of a canvas bag for the grocery store is foreign to me. A canvas bag is something that people around here use for the library, not the grocery store (at least I never saw or heard of a canvas bag being used at the stores I worked).

Maybe it's a regional thing, since the biggest grocery stores in this area are Wal-Marts, and everyone just tosses their plastic... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by meditative_zebra at 9:41 PM on May 14, 2006

This question reminds me of the opening pages of James Burke's book Connections, which was also a television mini-series. In it he describes a blackout that occurred in 1965 along the east coast, and speculates how the denizens of major urban areas would cope if the infrastructure that modern society depends upon were no longer there. How would they provide themselves with food or warmth or security? He doesn’t really try to answer the question, but uses it to explain the historical... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by meditative_zebra at 8:25 PM on May 8, 2006

I had a girlfriend who was getting calls on her cell at all hours, mostly in the middle of the night. The strategy I employed was basically to bluff and convince the perp that it was no longer worth the risk to make his phone calls. So one night I answered her phone when he called and had prepared little speech for him:

"I don't know who you are, but you know and I know that you are conducting a form of harassment. Further we have your telephone number and the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by meditative_zebra at 9:44 PM on May 2, 2006

I think frogan has it right that the key point here is developing motor skills with a particular type of interface. So I would guess that the best games for working on this type of hand-eye coordination are ones that use both of the Xbox controller's analogue sticks, and are particularly focused on movement of the sticks and not as much on button pressing.

Halo, I think, would be a good game if she can get acclimated to killing aliens, as there is a focus on moving the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by meditative_zebra at 11:50 PM on February 21, 2006

Will Eric Idle have to write a new song now?
posted to MetaFilter by meditative_zebra at 1:27 PM on February 12, 2006

I also found out about this site from Penny Arcade a few weeks ago. It alternates between being really stupid, and being really stupid and hilarious.

Another comic in the same vein is The Parking Lot Is Full.
posted to MetaFilter by meditative_zebra at 12:03 PM on July 30, 2005

I'm surprised that Bush didn't choose a woman or a latino (assuming this is an accurate report) as a political wedge tactic / to aid in a quicker confirmation hearing and vote.

Is it time to start a pool on whether there's a filibuster?
posted to MetaFilter by meditative_zebra at 5:03 PM on July 19, 2005

Did they choose Roberts to help distract from Rove?

Evil Plotter: 'If we choose to nominate someone who will guarantee a contentious confirmation hearing, it will distract the media from the Karl Rove leak story'. Cue Evil Laughter.
posted to MetaFilter by meditative_zebra at 5:11 PM on July 19, 2005

I worked at Wal-Mart a few years ago in a supervisory position, and this was definitely the case then. We were told that as supervisors, there always needed to be someone present, and that if no one else was available that we needed to have 'open availability' officially filed on our paperwork so that they could call us in. I was told that if I didn't file as having 'open availability' that I would not be able to remain in that position and would be demoted. I can't remember for sure, but I... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by meditative_zebra at 2:25 PM on June 20, 2005

See also the Urban Explorer's Network, for general resources and advice.
posted to MetaFilter by meditative_zebra at 7:52 AM on May 25, 2005

Jase_B, I can attest to crap like this happening. I had a good friend in high school who had Crohn's disease and was in and out of the hospital semi-regularly. While he was in the hospital (around 2 weeks) he missed several tests. When he returned to school he had passed some arbitrary cutoff date on retaking tests. Most of his teachers worked with him and let him make things up as needed since he had a valid medical reason. However one teacher refused to let him make his test up. The test was... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by meditative_zebra at 5:51 PM on May 17, 2005

You could say the same about some star high school athlete, but would your symapathy be as strong then?

Not really, most of the athletes I knew were ignorant jackanapes. [/partial snark]

But it would still be just as unfair for them to lose an athletic scholarship as it would be for someone else to lose an academic scholarship because they violated some obscure beauracratic rule that some dickhead assistant school principal... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by meditative_zebra at 6:15 PM on May 17, 2005

Why do I have to have such a fucking stupid senator?

(And the other senator, and the representative. Even my state senator…)
posted to MetaFilter by meditative_zebra at 1:22 PM on April 26, 2005

Knowing little, I assume the redesigned and shrunk ps2 would be preferable to the older model. Can I expect either version to actually work playing playstation one and two games as well as dvd’s? I know that the xbox is the way to go for modding and emulators, but are there any ps2 mods or emulators I should know about? Does the new model ps2 have any technical issues? Overheating? Anything else I should know? Any game recommendations that haven’t been made yet or that no... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by meditative_zebra at 6:46 AM on February 2, 2005

The first thing I would reccomend that you do is document all of your interactions with the police and with your tenet. If the situation become adversarial this will be information you want to have.

Since you're worried about obstruction of justice, I assume that you haven't just not seen your tenet, but believe that she is evading the police. Your concern then, should be whether the police and district attorney would consider the note that you left to be a warning that... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by meditative_zebra at 12:21 AM on January 31, 2005

Let me raise my hand as another person whose had a similar experience. I had just gone to college and she was still in high school. I thought I just had an infatuation with a friend and that I should let it fade it out. But she was pretty and smart, and our sense of humor seemed to match and my infatuation didn't fade. I tried to suppress it for six months or so and then decided to act on the way I felt. For a while things started moving in a new direction, but when I got a negative reaction... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by meditative_zebra at 8:28 PM on January 23, 2005