The Best Awful by Carrie Fisher is exactly about this. It seems to split people into haters and fans. I was sat firmly in the fan seats. Her description of the characters descent into madness is breathtaking, heartbreaking, funny and terrifying.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 5:57 AM on September 2, 2008

I kept a pre video generation ipod with the same symptoms as yours going for another year and a half after first getting the problem by doing the following;

1st try plugging your ipod into it's power supply (not the USB power from your computer but the wall supply), then do a hard restart (togglke the lock on and off then hold down menu and the centre button until the ipod resets. Either it'll come back good to go or give you a sad ipod icon on the screen or the disk... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 1:01 PM on August 31, 2008

Honestly get in there and reseat the cables. It's a known issue with this generation of ipods that the cable connectors are flakey. I'd say it was wayy too early to be considering spending money on a new one.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 4:26 PM on August 31, 2008

Nicotrol Inhaler. It sits in your hand like a cigarette, you suck on it like a cigarette, it contains nicotine, but it's not a cigarette. It's the most obvious way to quit I've found because you don't have to change your behavior drastically.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 6:30 PM on August 25, 2008

I recently had a similar problem with a WD drive which was fixed easly with this free Testdisk software. Make sure you follow the instructions carefully.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 11:17 AM on August 19, 2008

What Dreams May Come and A life Less Ordinary both might fit your bill
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 7:24 AM on August 10, 2008 marked best answer

You could go older with the wonderful A Matter Of Life And Death or Bell, Book and Candle.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 8:16 AM on August 17, 2008

Fruity Loops all the way. I used to spend hours making tracks on Octamed and when I got back into it, Fruity Loops was definitely the most similar experience (only without trying to cram everything into the tiniest space possible!).

This time the tracker goes sideways instead of upwards and each instrument is a track on its own (the luxury!). Other than that you still make tunes by stringing together blocks that you can reuse whenever you like in the song just like... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 5:49 AM on August 16, 2008

I've not used a firewire audio interface but I do have a chunk of experience with USB ones. Much of your performance will depend on the specs of your computer and what USB things you have plugged in to it additionally. Watch out for printer drivers that constantly query your printer to find out if it's OK and create hiccups for your audio card etc. As ian1977 suggests there's a large amount of info and advice out there for tweaking your system to get best results. That said, I have an old Tascam... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 4:42 AM on August 12, 2008

O2 are fine for coverage and also offer a prepay plan that includes cheaper international calls which might work out useful if the family wants to call home conveniently. My experience of Vodafone customer service has been nothing but awful so I refuse them money on principal.

If you go for a provider that doesn't give cheap international calls there are services to get cheap international calls without having to be stuck trying to choose a phone card and dial a 30... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 5:26 AM on August 11, 2008

I've done this using J River Media center and a copy of XL. You just use the media center program to browse your tunes on your HDD, select all and copy the contents of the pane into XL and then do the same with the contents of your Ipod. Sort the two lists side by side alphabetically and Bob's your uncle.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 3:55 PM on August 5, 2008

The ultimate song of this genre is of course "heroes" by Bowie.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 1:35 PM on August 5, 2008

You could put your web address in your mefi profile so that we can have a look. I make eclectic music and would be interested in seeing what you're up to.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 7:11 AM on July 23, 2008

Pizzicato Five
New Radicals
McAlmont and Butler
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 7:21 PM on July 16, 2008

Any option to move closer to the dream job? If you're only renting then can't you stop renting the place you have now when your lease is up and rent one nearer? I'd say go for dream job but I know the pain of a painful commute too. Why not make the painful commute a short term thing whilst pursuing your dream? And in your situation I'd take the pay cut in a heartbeat.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 7:03 AM on July 9, 2008

In answer to the Maiden vs Pearl Jam aspect of your question, Maiden are a harder, faster rock and don't sit well amongst the AOR rock format of the classic rock stations. Same reason you won't hear Motorhead on there really. It's a different style of music. Classic Rock as meant by these stations describes a certain mid-paced, somewhat tuneful, more easy listening sub-genre of rock, and those faster, harder bands don't fit into that sub genre.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 6:51 AM on July 7, 2008

You're missing a piece of information as to the dpi you want to print at. 640x480 at 300 DPI which is a pretty standard low print setting for images will be just under 2 1/2 inches wide for example. The same 640x480 at 72 DPI (monitor resolution) will be considerably wider (like 9" wide)
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 3:15 PM on July 6, 2008

Also Barcelona. Magical.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 5:40 AM on July 4, 2008

Well according to wikipedia, following his death she delivered some papers to Mark Anthony, never remarried and died. That's at least three things that Umberto missed!
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 8:21 AM on June 28, 2008

Languagehat, I answered an ambiguously worded question. The Eco quote makes no reference to scholarly sources and I wasn't quoting wikipedia as a scholarly source on Calpurnia but simply as one of the "websites dedicated to her" as specified by Eco. There's no need to add detail that isn't there to a question in order to make a sniffy point about wikipedia's credibility.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 9:27 AM on June 28, 2008

There's always "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart" by the once mighty Manic Street Preachers.

Altogether now, "Big mac, smack, phoenix r, please smile y'all. Cuba, mexico can't cauterize our discipline..."
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 3:17 PM on June 27, 2008

The "ahh wo oh" girl vocal? Sounds like Aqua doing Barbie Girl to me. Sounds like Lene at 1:31 but down sampled a couple of keys.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 6:07 AM on June 27, 2008

I'd posit that music is an older form of expression than the other media you mentioned. In it's rawest, earliest form it was a communal experience and being a part of the music perfomance albeit banging sticks against rocks etc. glued groups of people together. Anyone who's ever played as part of a band or even sat on a beach with some friends and a few sets of bongo's or sat around a campfire singing songs knows that feeling that you get after a while of being a part of something and losing... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 10:04 PM on June 24, 2008 marked best answer

Cowbellmoo, using the print with preview gives the same result a 10 1/4 by 8 1/4 image despite everything being set to 10 x 8

MegoSteve, looks like you nailed it, I switched off the borderless printing since the image was being printed on 11 x 8 1/2 anyway and out came an exactly 10 x 8 image.

Thanks for the answers and thanks for the screwy drivers Epson.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 11:03 AM on June 24, 2008

Yay for closure.

I also discovered that when you set the print options to borderless, a slide bar marked "expansion" becomes available on the page set up tab. It defaults to "maximum". Setting it to the minimum setting reduces the bleed problem but still doesn't quite get to exactly the size you intended.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 1:23 PM on June 24, 2008

Seconding Lou Reed and Nick Cave and throwing in Placebo (seen here live with Bowie). Brian Molko seems to split people into camps of lovers and haters.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 12:20 PM on June 22, 2008

I've been happy with a Tascam US-122 which is a USB card and has been solid as a rock. USB can be tricky in terms of bandwidth as bunnytricks mentions but as with so many other things much depends on your laptop specs and what you have plugged into it. I have a dell 8600 laptop running XP with 1.7 Ghz processor and 2 GB of memory which is fine and you should be fine with way less memory than that too. The trick is to unplug other USB devices and to kill anything like stupid printer applets that... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 7:45 AM on June 16, 2008

I use a program called startupcpl.exe, google it, it's free. It gives you a good list of what is being run at startup and the easy option of switching them off. Honestly though just unplug your other USB doodads and you should be golden if you're just doing 2 channels at cd quality. Your set up sounds like it should be able to deal easily with this. (Spoken as someone who used to record multitrack music on a pentium 3 450 ghz machine!). If you need any specific advice feel free to memail me.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 2:17 PM on June 16, 2008

So much for my attempts to replicate my charcoal drawing technique electronically then! Back to paper and black fingers I go.

Thanks to everyone who answered.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 11:20 AM on June 16, 2008

An English person here weighing in that there's a European fascination with Native Americans. As a European living in the US I'm always surprised that that fascination isn't shared by by US-ian's I meet. Growing up me and my peers were obsessed. You can see it in the music of the early 80's with Adam And The Ants, The Cult, and Bow Wow... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 7:57 AM on June 11, 2008 marked best answer

Seconding Will Self, great stories and lots of dictionary time.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 7:42 AM on June 11, 2008

A word of caution, some people hate the ending of Girlfriend in a Coma although I love it hugely. It really seems to polarise people. Nevertheless it's my favourite by him and probably in my top 5 books of all time. Maybe start with Life After God, as meerkatty says it's a quick afternoon read (it's a collection of short stories) and it's basically crystalised Coupland.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 7:39 AM on June 11, 2008

We just used Shleppers to move a couple of blocks but with the same problem of being walk ups. They were professional, efficient and reasonably priced. The actual price was also cheaper than they quoted because they charge by the hour and did it quicker than planned. Can't argue with that!
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 9:06 PM on June 3, 2008

The Long Firm trilogy by Jake Arnott gives some excellent background on British history through from the 60's to now.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 3:05 PM on June 2, 2008

Wikipedia backs up the theory that it's pretty much a U.S. phenomenon. We had school spelling tests in the U.K. but nothing of the cultural significance of the spelling bee. My theory FWIW is that the U.S. is an immigrant culture so there have historically been a larger amount of people being taught the nations primary language as a second language in the US compared to other less immigrant cultures. Maybe that would drive more of an obsession with spelling? (preys thut evryfink iz spelted... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 9:05 AM on May 31, 2008

What Katie Did. It doesn't come much more authentic than their stuff and my wife thinks they're adorable.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 6:47 AM on May 30, 2008

I always thought "Yoda" a great name for a pug :-)
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 12:30 PM on May 28, 2008

The film is English not German. It's directed by Nic Roeg of Performance, Walkabout etc. fame and stars David Bowie, Rip Torn and Candy Clark.

It's an excellent film if you haven't already seen it.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 7:46 AM on May 24, 2008

I never had any trouble finding it in the big supermarkets (Sainsbury's etc.) in the south or even in Boots. It's usually hidden amongst the smokers toothpastes.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 1:24 PM on May 14, 2008

Yup, Zara has it for good fashionably cut menswear in New York that looks way more expensive than it is. Being a Spanish chain you get the IMHO better looking European cuts too.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 6:36 PM on May 9, 2008

I'd thought of the Moonlight Sonata but the thing that gets me about this it's just piano and doesn't go as dark or dramatic and thumpy as the Beethoven piece. It just stays whistful rather than miserable! It's much more like some of Messiaen's stuff that I like in that way. There's a longer YT version here so you can see what I mean.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 12:54 PM on May 8, 2008

Thanks everyone. Some great recommendations here some of which I already have and have forgotten about and some of which are new to me and I'll check out.

(And yes I know that the original piece I linked owes a lot to Moonlight Sonata, but it's different in a way that is very appealing to me. I think Jaltcoh nailed the feeling with the use of the word "Slinky". Seems I like slinky ;-)
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 2:48 PM on May 8, 2008

Here's another guy who, with friends, used piles of these things as lightsabres as a 9 year old, "use the force" KERSHATTER etc... worry not.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 6:07 AM on May 5, 2008

I also use them and have nothing but good things to say. They are responsive to help queries and seem to be ethical on top of that. I had one minor issue with their spam filter for their email forwarding but have since found out that this is a problem with email forwarding in general rather than NFS.

They are great!
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 7:21 AM on April 30, 2008 marked best answer

pretty sure I used to do this with Blogger too.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 8:44 AM on April 29, 2008

I'm with Sully75 on this. It's not easy but you need to learn to distract your own brain. As soon as you feel that damaging thought spiral beginning, immediately do something completely different that takes your attention away from the issue at hand. Take a shower, go make something to eat, if you have a hobby that you know distracts you then go do that, if you don't have a hobby that distracts you get one. Start learning to play an instrument or draw or something that requires your full... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 8:34 AM on April 29, 2008

Friends of mine did somethng similar but hired a big wurlitzer CD jukebox that they then filled up with compilation CD's that they made (and they had me make for them). Then guests went up and chose the tunes from the bif jukebox they wanted to dance to but the only choice they had was songs that the bride and groom wanted to hear themselves so everybody was happy.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 8:55 PM on April 27, 2008

Nthing making space for her and make it real space not just a draw. She's not living with you, you're living together so make things as equal as possible. Also make sure you keep open communication about mess and cleaning. Even the most sane people get freaked out by this stuff so make sure it's all talkable about. Good luck!
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 1:40 PM on April 27, 2008

Using just the secured credit card I got myself up to and excellent Experian credit rating within 6 months. The trick is to pay everything off but for a dollar every month. The fact that you use it every month, pay off the majority, but carry a small balance seems to do something good.
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 7:05 AM on April 21, 2008

Yeah done B, successful but sucked the life out of me, go with A. Friends, family, love interests vs a job title? Job title loses so heavily it's laughable. Remember also that somewhere round the corner are unexpected jobs c thru z and any number of permutations of friends, family and love interests so this decision isn't as make or break as it might feel right now. Good luck!
posted to Ask Metafilter by merocet at 7:48 PM on April 17, 2008