We have rural land... I wonder what would stop me from selling square-inch plots of Texas on the Internet.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 8:34 PM on November 15, 2007

Wait, helicopters busting parties is weird? We always ran from those in Albuquerque, back in the day. You mean to tell me that it's not typical?

Albuquerque? For a second I thought we were talking about Nam. That explains why the cops came in and drank all the beer.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 8:28 PM on November 15, 2007

One always wins extra points with an English translation.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 7:08 AM on November 12, 2007

What happens when that 1,000,000 Scoville pepper gets to your intestines? Are you then stuck on the can for the rest of the day?
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 7:43 AM on November 11, 2007

It is depressing the way this government treats its war veterans. Yet I'm constantly seeing these "support the troops" stickers all over the place. Does not compute.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 8:05 PM on November 10, 2007

More power to him. Though I am not a fan of obesity, I want to see resistance to the idolization of bony, boyish figures with big tits. When you look at all of the art produced by humanity, this kind of lust for anorexia really didn't get going until the 1960s.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 6:46 AM on November 10, 2007

As much as I enjoy living in a town with different cultures here, I find the "working class Hispanic" subculture stands out as being kind of abrasive and depressing. Some people may be playing on blatant racism, but the culture itself and its values (as separate from educated, accomplished Hispanics) and its rapid growth throughout the country I think is what is an issue here.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 8:40 AM on November 4, 2007

It is with heartfelt hope that I write to seek your co-operation and assistance in the context stated below: May I first introduce my self as Dr. Mrs. Mariam Abacha, the wife of Late General Sani Abacha who died suddenly on 8th June 1998. My husband kept 24,000 kilograms of hyena food in a warehouse in Lagos (Security and Finance Storage Pty Ltd). As it is equally required, the administration of my late husband's hyena food is under the authority of his cousin (Mr Timothy... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 8:32 AM on November 3, 2007

Here's a chart that's very scary, and we haven't even gotten to the pre-summer price runup. I have to credit that source as from a PeakOil.com thread. There's some lucid points in there dealing with the devaluation of the dollar and other factors.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 7:06 PM on November 2, 2007

We're a little past summer driving season.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 7:38 PM on November 2, 2007

I'm relieved the jokes in this thread have petered out... I've never really understood how the Jim/Joel vs. Mike thing continues to persist even in 2007, and now I think I'm starting to understand it better.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 7:13 PM on November 2, 2007

This candy would take the Mentos commercials to a new level.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 5:11 PM on October 30, 2007

I'm not understanding this new BBI... is this like just some corporate creation capitalizing on past glory, or does it really involve Mike Nelson and some of the crew? I don't know who this Jim Mallon guy is and if he puts the funny in the show.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 9:28 PM on October 29, 2007

Like any real blog it needs a little v1@gra spam in the comments.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 9:23 PM on October 29, 2007

I'm still trying to figure out whether Crayola is a girls name or boys name.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 9:34 AM on October 28, 2007

I think we can all be grateful that America has finally gotten over it's "Brianna" obsession.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 12:34 PM on October 28, 2007

Several years after joining the military, which has a casual culture of cussing, I struggled with this when I was moonlighting doing television news work, an environment which has zero tolerance. My biggest fear was one slipping out on the air. Very, very quickly I found my mental lexicon replaced with a slew of garden variety euphemisms, like 'good grief' instead of 'holy shit'. Developing that replacement is what worked for me.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 7:04 AM on October 28, 2007

I wonder how on earth they find arson evidence when everything is just cinders and ash... unless there's canisters lying around.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 6:48 AM on October 28, 2007

I still don't have it figured out, but it's definitely not the educational system.. that's just a symptom. It's something rotten at the core of our culture. Maybe it's just that the technology-heady 1950s/1960s conformity and the war culture inspired a competitive spirit and a drive to learn. Perhaps intellectualism is just falling back to what it was before those years.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 4:10 PM on October 27, 2007

My only complaint is the Onion Personal of the Day... it gets kind of old constantly having a "hot" 25-year old hipster-fashioned lady du jour staring out of the front page.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 7:01 AM on October 20, 2007

Oh, and I'm pissed that they killed off Herbert Kornfeld. He was one of the main reasons I went to the Onion site, I have to admit.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 7:02 AM on October 20, 2007

Does this have any scientific validity? I want to forward this to some people but I'm not going to take any part in perpetuating a bunch of scientific baloney. And FWIW I see it clockwise.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 6:54 AM on October 20, 2007

One night at 1 am when I lived in Oklahoma my wife and I were relaxing in our hot tub, and we saw one of these things come in from the south... a long white tubular cloud extending across the sky. A few minutes later the cloud had departed to the north and the moon was back out again. No weather, no wind, just a strange cloud trying to get from point A to point B.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 6:16 AM on October 19, 2007

The world is being a hypocrite if they're using metric but not using Julian dates. We're never going to be able to transition to Stardates with this 24-hour calendar baloney.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 5:22 PM on October 17, 2007

What DU said. The TV show Cops pretty much shows where our priorities are.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 7:41 AM on October 15, 2007

Eminent domain is inherently a Bad Thing and should never, ever be leveraged for anything except publically owned and maintained infrastructure. A little old lady holding out against commercial development is just how the system ought to work. She got there first and is entitled to the same rights as the commercial firm.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 7:06 AM on October 15, 2007

This would be cooler if they would stick things in the combustion chamber and we could watch what happens to it. Things like a french fry, a pinball, a tamagotchi, and so forth.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 8:51 PM on October 12, 2007

Er, I thought these were called "back massagers".
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 1:44 PM on October 11, 2007

A good mapping story with no legible examples of maps? Grr.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 6:45 AM on October 11, 2007

Let the engineer make that $400K salary and let the CEO have his $4 million compensation package. Where I have a problem is once you start going into magnitudes beyond $10 million or $100 million. No one should have that kind of personal wealth. That should either be taxed or spent out on products or services to keep it moving, and there should be perks for using it to invest in businesses outside the family. Yeah, it will probaby go to cronies, but at least it spreads the wealth and they'll... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 6:37 AM on October 11, 2007

"Gangsta" and "ghetto" have nothing to do with crossing racial lines... it's all about embracing thug culture. I live in a Texas town where all the white kids like driving around playing ghetto rap. It's clearly not a skin color thing.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 9:33 PM on October 10, 2007

What are Billy Carter's thoughts on this?
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 7:09 PM on October 10, 2007

Never mind, I guess that would have to come from a seance.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 7:11 PM on October 10, 2007

I'm actually astonished that Vinderen Elektriske made good on this and paid the $4000. It seems the defacto route for companies is to ignore the matter until a suit is underway, and then settle. But like the article said, the company could have avoided this to begin with if they didn't decide to be dicks about it.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 8:01 AM on October 9, 2007

Is there any cool Internet fad that's not in Seattle or Manhattan?
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 9:02 PM on October 8, 2007

Too safe for work.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 8:59 PM on October 8, 2007

I'd like to know what is defined as a "disaster," I'd like to see actual statistics on the "record number," I'd like some analysis on deviation from the mean, and I'd like some scientific evidence of common causation among these disasters before I accuse the entirety of Western Civilization of racist neglect.

I agree 100%. I believe in global warming but I am sick of every single stroke of lightning and every tornado being flagged... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 9:18 AM on October 6, 2007

I always imagine that Blackwater mercs are the same guys who used to bring throwing stars, bowie knives and M-80s to middle school

Likewise, I'm picturing the terrorists bribing them with a bounty of cigarettes and Journey tapes.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 8:45 AM on October 5, 2007

Might this news be a well-placed press release to jump start sales there, even if a bit cheap?
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 6:41 PM on October 4, 2007

I'm wondering if the intent of the absurdly low "normal" category is to fuel the multi-billion dollar diet industry (i.e. tax revenue and health spending). The health industry/regulatory agency is no stranger to corruption.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 9:08 AM on October 3, 2007

I'm gonna have to call you on that "horny" toad spelling error.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 10:04 AM on September 28, 2007

Oh the irony of the detailed get a life article.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 9:59 AM on September 28, 2007

Good grief, I remember when I lived in Dallas in the late 1980s hearing about the controversy over the V-22 on TV. I can't believe that's exactly 20 years later and this thing is just now making it into service. This needs to be under "white elephant" in Wikipedia.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 4:01 PM on September 27, 2007

I agree with everything DU said. I think Wikipedia works. In many cases it is the ONLY resource for obscure material. It's not where I go to find information about Dick Cheney or Thailand.

My main beef with Wikipedia is they're about as ineffectual against vandals as a baby with a pack of pit bulls. If someone replaces a page with profanity, you get to put one warning on their talk page. Oooh!
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 12:33 PM on September 27, 2007

Is there a trading ring for pre-1984 MTV tapes? I sure would like to join.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 11:47 AM on September 23, 2007

Seems about as NSFW as Tuesday evening on the Spike Channel.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 9:12 PM on September 11, 2007

Subject of this FPP, for anyone who's been in a cave lately: Dick In A Box. It clocks in at 26,227,744 views, #6 for all-time views on YouTube.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 6:50 AM on September 10, 2007

Are we searching 2001 satellite imagery for a 2007 crash?
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 7:57 AM on September 9, 2007

For all the masturbatory applause given to Spector's Wall of Sound and its influence on contemporary music, I have yet to even see a picture of the damn thing.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 6:35 PM on September 8, 2007

Remember, you can't go and do these stunts dressed up as an Arab without carrying a World Almanac.
posted to MetaFilter by rolypolyman at 11:44 AM on September 6, 2007