Carol Anne: That Value Village is precisely the place that prompted this question. My wife and I shop there frequently, and we're always wondering what causes that particularly pungent odor.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bokinney at 7:55 PM on February 25, 2008

Yeah, unfortunately none of them are very helpful. That's how I found the reference to the Winslow Liferaft Company, but none of the other hits on Google turn up anything explaining where the phrase comes from or where it's been used.

Incidentally, this is a good example of how inaccurate Google's calculations are of the number of results it finds. The first page of results says "about 35," but if you click on the second page, it jumps down to 19, and the link... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by bokinney at 10:54 PM on June 5, 2007

>04TA40/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-1109213-0348769?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1181104241&sr=8-1">"Ascension" by John Coltrane
posted to Ask Metafilter by bokinney at 9:31 PM on June 5, 2007

Whoops, that link pasted weird. Here it is again.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bokinney at 9:32 PM on June 5, 2007

If it's stale, sprinkle it with water and put it in a 350 degree oven for 5-10 minutes. No longer stale.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bokinney at 10:57 PM on March 14, 2007

When we first got our two cats, it took a long time before we found toys they really liked. Their current favorite is a piece of elastic with a few buttons tied in the end of it. We hold it and bounce it around for them, which they like, but we also hang it on a doorknob and they will play with it by themselves.

They tend to like the cheap (or homemade) toys better than the ones we've spent lots of money on, which was only frustrating until we stopped spending lots of... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by bokinney at 10:54 PM on March 14, 2007

Kronos Quartet -- some, but not all, of their stuff is considered classical. Their CD with the Tiger Lilies, "The Gorey End," is a setting of some of Edward Gorey's verse to music.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bokinney at 4:46 PM on March 14, 2007

Vegemite or Marmite (which are both yeast extracts).
posted to Ask Metafilter by bokinney at 4:29 PM on March 14, 2007

According to this BBC article, Harry Potter (at least book 4) should be counted as one of those books people own but don't read thoroughly.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bokinney at 4:23 PM on March 14, 2007 marked best answer

Thanks for the advice. This may be a stupid question, but I've tried doing the same thing in Access without much more luck. I tried adding an auto-number field and then grouping the report in fives using that field, but the auto-numbers don't change if you add or delete rows (I need to be able to add new rows in the middle, not just at the end.) Any advice for dealing with this?

The data I'm dealing with is very simple: just a list of names and id numbers.

Thanks again!
posted to Ask Metafilter by bokinney at 4:55 PM on March 12, 2007

This isn't a direct answer to your question, but Mixxer is a cool site that uses Skype to connect people who want to learn languages with people who know those languages. So you would pair up with someone who speaks Spanish but is studying English. I haven't used it myself, but it looks like it might be a good way to get back some of that daily, or at least regular, usage.

Good luck.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bokinney at 6:32 AM on March 8, 2007

Check out the writings of Ivan Illich. Like Foucault, he will also change the way you think about institutions. (I think he's a little easier to read than Foucault, too.)
posted to Ask Metafilter by bokinney at 9:06 PM on March 6, 2007

I second checking out Svenonius. (Her book refers to the field as "Information Organization.") "Bibliographic Control" is another term that's used (although, etymologically, that does seem to give preference to books).
posted to Ask Metafilter by bokinney at 9:49 PM on March 5, 2007

A good book:

Freeing the Natural Voice by Kristin Linklater
posted to Ask Metafilter by bokinney at 9:09 PM on January 29, 2007

If you want local eggs (or produce in general), why not go to your local farmer's market? Then you're pretty much guaranteed that it will be fresh.

This site has a good tool for finding local farms in the U.S.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bokinney at 8:57 PM on January 29, 2007

Don't listen to all the people telling you not to do this. There's no reason why you couldn't do it, love it, and make it work.

A good book you should check out from a library is Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon.

It might also be worth your time to read Walden, if you haven't already, or re-read it, if you have.

In terms of spending lots of time in a public library, go for it. Whether or not it will bug the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by bokinney at 8:49 PM on January 29, 2007

There was a great essay by Michael Pollan in yesterday's NYT Magazine on healthy (as opposed to merely nutritious) food. That article is here.

Pollan ends with 9 recommendations for healthy eating:

1. Eat food....Don't eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.

2. Avoid even those food products that come bearing health claims.

3.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by bokinney at 8:23 PM on January 29, 2007 marked best answer

I'm not a big fan of brighthive--I had to read it a couple times before I figured out what it was supposed to say. (I wanted to pronounce it Brig-h-thive at first.)
posted to Ask Metafilter by bokinney at 8:13 PM on January 29, 2007

There's a terrific (and very popular) post here by Steve Palina on his method for training himself to become an early riser. Essentially, the method is to go to bed whenever you feel tired, whatever time that might be, but to get up at exactly the same time every day, religiously.

The comments on this thread, and the comments in response to the blog post I linked to, make me think that there's probably not one method that will work for everybody. It really depends on... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by bokinney at 7:14 AM on January 26, 2007

Stephen King says, "Kill your darlings,"

Faulkner said it, too :)

Actually, the origin of the quote is Arthur Quiller-Couch, from On the Art of Writing, 1916. Here's the full quote:

"if you here require a practical rule of me, I will present you with this: ‘Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by bokinney at 7:32 AM on January 24, 2007

Whitley Streiber's Communion is a classic. It's here on WorldCat and here on Amazon.
posted to Ask Metafilter by bokinney at 7:47 AM on January 23, 2007

In The Inner Game of Music (available here on WorldCat and here on Amazon), Barry Green suggests an approach to performance anxiety that I found incredibly helpful when I was playing the saxophone regularly. According to Green, it's a matter of turning off the regular commentary from the logical/analytical side of your brain that's constantly reviewing and critiquing your playing, and letting yourself be guided more by the creative side of your brain which actually does a... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by bokinney at 7:40 AM on January 23, 2007