I'd say press charges, at least there's a hope that some change will happen.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 8:45 AM on July 4, 2008

I live in Arizona, where it once reached 123 freaking degrees and no such thing exists.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 8:33 AM on July 4, 2008

The Frightened Rabbits' "Old Old Fashioned," in the first line: Turn off the TV/It's killing us, we never speak
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 1:33 PM on July 3, 2008

I just signed up for T-Mobile pay-as-you-go, sounds similar to the Virgin plan others have mentioned - best feature being minutes that don't expire for 90 days, whereas many other plans expire in 30. If you prepay $100 the minutes last for a year and you get a discount for additional minutes purchased after that.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 10:10 AM on July 3, 2008

Allergies? Anaphylactic reactions can definitely make you yak.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 5:27 AM on July 1, 2008

Reminds me of this story on NPR, although I found the earnest folkiness of the song grating, there was some interesting discussion of the 'universal appeal' of the chord progression.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 2:23 PM on June 26, 2008

Oh! An opportunity to use the phrase I coined, "Pearl-Jamification". I think it all flows from the Pearl Jam sound and somewhere along the line it became the standard sound for generic mainstream rock.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 2:17 PM on June 26, 2008

As others have said, who cares? You are what you are. If you want to tell people you're a vegetarian for convenience, so what? You're just getting hung up on semantics. Anybody who would go into a tizzy over the definition you're using is a douchebag you'd do best to avoid anyways.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 5:59 PM on June 25, 2008

'Irrational Exuberance' is always fun. I'm always looking for an opportunity to tell people that I'll be out 'taking my evening constitutional'. Also when I have company over I enjoy offering them a beverage from a list of obscure sodas - "Can I get you a Fanta, Shasta, Faygo, Slice, Pepsi Clear, Tab?" Don't even get me started on the word 'fisticuffs'. I never get to use that.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 12:25 PM on June 25, 2008

OK, Cactus Cooler is not really an Arizona thing, I think they make it in New York. One delicacy you'll find here and not many other places is 'Mexican Coke', this is Coca-Cola made with real cane sugar as opposed to High-Fructose Corn Syrup that is imported from Mexico. It can be found at quite a few convenience stores and I would imagine at Mexican groceries as well.

Another thing that would be fun to pick up are tequila suckers that have the worm embedded in the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 5:12 AM on June 25, 2008

Been a while since I researched this topic in depth, but a year ago the 'gold standard' was Taiyo Yuden. I bought mine from supermediastore.com, they have some good deals from time to time.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 11:53 AM on June 24, 2008

Coulton mentioned that he took his inspiration for 'Still Alive' from a song in Skullmonkeys.

Also see the delightfully bizarre You Have to Burn the Rope.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 10:59 AM on June 24, 2008

You can listen to the song from You Have to Burn the Rope here.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 11:08 AM on June 24, 2008

I think it's just out of fashion presently. Have a look at some cookbooks from the 50's, there were savory gelatins galore!
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 8:06 PM on June 23, 2008

Nth recommendation for meetup.com. And I would add, just make it your goal to show up. Don't worry about saying a thing, there are lots of 'quiet' people out there. If you can just keep showing up, you will become more comfortable with people and the talking will just happen. I do not agree with people who say you've just got to get out there and force yourself to talk, because most of the talk you will encounter in the typical places (bars, clubs etc.) is inane drivel... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 7:50 AM on June 23, 2008

A "slight attraction"? Most men wouldn't even notice.

True Dat. After experiencing a few instances of what seemed like intense flirting only to turn out as "hold on there tiger, I'm just being nice!" when trying to reciprocate, I think some (a lot?) guys are unable to figure out what constitutes 'slight attraction'. Or I'm just very dense, which is certainly possible.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 5:41 AM on June 21, 2008

To add to what others have said, since this could only be paid with a balance transfer or a cash advance, I guarantee that your friend is not getting 'grace' on the transactions, which means interest starts accruing on that amount from the moment the BT or cash advance is made, and at hefty interest rates. It doesn't matter if he pays it off 'on time', because the interest has already accrued -- not to mention any additional fees he is likely to be charged with.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 2:22 PM on June 15, 2008

Firefox, firefox, firefox. Did I mention Firefox? Easier to use, greatly improves security.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 3:36 PM on June 11, 2008

Using alt-tab to switch between open windows applications -- I'm always surprised at how many people don't know that.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 3:50 PM on June 11, 2008 marked best answer

Ditto what loiseau said. It sounds like there are some very unreasonable people involved struggling at polar opposite ends of the issue. Essentially what has happened over the last decade or so is that ADD has been wantonly overdiagnosed in people who do not have it and the detractors have taken this to mean that ADD does not exist. The truth is that is both overdiagnosed in the general population and underdiagnosed in those who actually have it. The suggestion to take 1/2 pill as a... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 10:31 AM on June 10, 2008

I specifically remember a commercial in the 80's that touted those bases as providing more strength in case the bottle was dropped. There was a scene that showed a mom putting stuff on a kitchen table and a slo-mo shot of her dropping the bottle and it it hitting the floor and doing a slight bounce rather than splitting open. I seem to remember my older brother saying that they added those bases to strengthen the bottle. I always assumed they came up with some sort of higher quality compound... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 2:22 PM on June 5, 2008

Well, I don't need to say Kind of Blue at this point, but I want to, so there. Go get it. Another one that was a great introduction for me was Branford Marsalis' Crazy People Music which has a wide variety of modern jazz styles on one album, and is a lot of fun to boot.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 8:10 AM on June 3, 2008

The Apple 1984 ad was seen by very few people in its initial broadcast. Can't find the article any more, but when it was 'properly' aired as a commercial it was only seen on one regional TV station at an odd time. Subsequent airings were mostly on news shows commenting on the ad. Maybe someone else here can locate the article.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 6:39 AM on May 23, 2008

Games are more complex than ever these days and I would suppose that adding 'God Mode' would require at least some additional testing to ensure it didn't cause an unrecoverable crash. With the tight deadlines developers are under they probably just don't have time for these kinds of perks.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 10:32 AM on May 18, 2008

A Pol Potluck?
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 12:37 PM on May 8, 2008

The highest quality CD-Rs are made by Taiyo Yuden. Google should find you a number of places that sell this brand.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 4:37 PM on May 6, 2008

Lifehacker recommends it -- also has a list of things it has/has not worked with.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 9:13 AM on May 6, 2008

You don't have any of this stuff on your Ipod, do you? Because you can copy the files from that back to your computer with a number of freeware tools like yamipod.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 5:36 PM on May 4, 2008

trbrts, I think some people will go berserk about that recommendation, but this is all a matter of opinion anyway. And I never get much further than 2-3 songs into that particular Fugazi album before I skip ahead, so I say it's a good suggestion even if I already know it.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 2:01 PM on April 22, 2008

Good suggestions so far -- to clarify, I don't mean 'hits' as in popularity but rather really good songs on an album full of mediocre or poor ones. And yes, I realize that the 'point' of indie rock is to make great albums rather than great singles, but not everyone reaches that goal.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 2:29 PM on April 22, 2008

the christopher hundreds, I don't care whether the song was a 'hit' in terms of popularity. I care only if it was 'great'. Maybe you're the only person that ever heard it, but it rocked your world. Then you listened to the rest of the album and it was significantly less world-rocking. Yup, it's totally subjective but I trust the taste of MeFites. Since I'm looking to add to my collection, something like 'Natural One' by Folk Implosion is not a great recommendation since I've already heard... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 5:19 PM on April 22, 2008

I really love connections. Please check it out, you will love it!
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 4:33 AM on April 20, 2008

Seconding VLC. It's lightweight, loads fast and stays out of the way, and you can be certain it will handle any file type you throw at it.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 4:32 AM on April 20, 2008

One of those bead seat covers that taxi drivers have.

See this previous AskMe thread.
posted by The World Famous at 11:46 AM on April 3 [mark as best answer] [+] [!]

I have thought about those, but I've heard too many comments from people that they are very uncomfortable.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 11:49 AM on April 3, 2008

just get one of those super sexy sheep's-hide things.
it has the benefit of being cushier, too.
posted by Acari at 11:48 AM on April 3 [mark as best answer] [+] [!]

Thanks for the recco -- but unfortunately I tried one of those before and they don't really provide any ventilation since your body just crushes the (fur? hair?) down.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 11:53 AM on April 3, 2008

I also heard the message from All Songs saying that they were aware of the problem and 'working on it'. So you're definitely not alone, but it may be another week or two before it gets straightened out. I share your frustration!
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 11:35 AM on April 3, 2008

Ditto on the reasons for asking for the background check. If they're working with children, you can call it 'civil disobedience' all you want but it's really failure to take reasonable precautions to protect those children. If there's no apparent reason other than to snag Illegal immigrants, you may be 'right' in some sense but that doesn't make it legal.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 9:30 AM on March 22, 2008

Another article from MSNBC on the current situation comparing to the much worse S&L triggered recession of the late 80's/early 90's.

The dollar has not 'failed' as you phrase it in your question. It is devalued, for sure, but you might want to look at economies in the past where currency has crashed and become essentially worthless -- a little Googling will take you there.

It seems to me (and IANA economist, or expert of any other kind)... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 9:24 AM on March 22, 2008

This article makes a compelling case for Jonathan Ives' inspiration coming from Dieter Rams, an industrial designer for Braun in the mid 60's.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 5:57 AM on March 19, 2008

Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 6:03 AM on March 11, 2008

I should clarify, I have several UMD games that I want to be able to continue to play, and I'm planning on getting some titles coming out in the future that I want to be able to play - not sure if they're tweaking the UMD games in some way so that they won't work on custom firmware.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 1:06 PM on February 27, 2008

I use something called floola occasionally. Its worth a look. I use it mainly to play my iPod (Classic 160 GB) through my laptop speakers when I don't want to use headphones, and because my laptop isn't my primary iTunes library source. I've got it installed right on the iPod hard drive, so it goes with you anywhere.

It claims to handle all iPod library management. It isn't really fast and I have noticed some odd behavior, like making multiple copies of existing... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 8:45 AM on January 23, 2008

mattoxic, thanks but the website says: "iPodLinux currently works on all iPod generations except on 2nd/3rd generation iPod nanos and 6th generation iPod classics"
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 8:47 AM on January 23, 2008

Sufi, anapod does not show the Classic in its compatible devices list. But thanks.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 8:50 AM on January 23, 2008

Kaizen, this is a great question and I would repeat the suggestions to start your own salon with an ad in Craigslist or elsewhere. Hopefully you'll meet folks like parmanparman, who sounds like a real charmer!
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 12:06 PM on December 31, 2007

fisticuffs
ululate
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 2:41 PM on December 6, 2007

Also, forgot to mention that I realize there is a lot of information out there on custom firmware but my research in Google and Wikipedia led to an overwhelming amount of info so I wanted to get advice from folks here who have had experience with it.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 11:03 AM on November 26, 2007

Smilla's Sense of Snow.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 6:10 PM on November 12, 2007

Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and Katamari are all strong contenders. I've heard a lot of raves about Persona 3 (PS2 game) which is an RPG that takes place in a Japanese school.
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 6:03 PM on November 12, 2007 marked best answer

And oh dear, how could I forget Okami??? I strongly urge you to get that one!
posted to Ask Metafilter by mattholomew at 6:04 PM on November 12, 2007