Your friend presumably wants an Irish bank account because the Irish government has just guaranteed all Irish bank accounts - with no cap on deposits. If you believe that the Irish government could actually cover all of those deposits, than you can't really find anywhere safer to keep your money right now.

Ireland was the first European nation to declare itself officially in a recession, and France only just followed. The Irish government guarantee... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 9:38 AM on October 6, 2008

Smashing Magazine has a review of 25 font management tools, which is how I ended up picking the one I have. I am also on Windows but they are covering both types. I found the screenshots and features lists to be helpful.

That link currently appears to be b0rked, however, which is odd as Smashing seems reliable in general.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 5:57 AM on October 6, 2008

Greedy people foolish enough to think mortgage brokers have the customer's best interests in mind buy houses way beyond their means.

But the "stuff" was also easy-come as they didn't work hard to buy it.

And these assumptions come from where, backed by what?

I think a lot of people who hopped on the sub-prime mortgage bandwagon were people simply trying to live the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DarlingBri at 11:07 PM on October 5, 2008

The decline in the value of the properties is only relevant if you want to sell them. The more pressing issue seems to be that the rental income is not covering the rental outgoings. If you can address that issue, then simply sitting on the properties long enough will mean the value bounces back. Do you have a spreadsheet for each of the properties showing the rental income vs. monthly maintenance and the annual taxes proportionally divided between them and allocated monthly?... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 10:38 PM on October 5, 2008

They are not actually identical. Mr. Redpath clearly ended up with a better template-using web monkey than Ms. Parker, who's site is vastly more revolting.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 10:25 PM on October 5, 2008

This is what RSS is for, and why it is called Really Simple Syndication. As long as the site has a feed, you can pull it into your blog. You can also format the output, if for example you just want headlines, or only the first 250 characters of a post, etc.

Be warned that people are less attentive than you might hope. It is common for people to publish full entries via RSS and then freak the fuck out when you republish... their full entries. There has also been extensive... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 11:48 AM on October 3, 2008

Yes, it is possible. You need to scrape the data; a MeFi search for the scraping tag isn't a bad place to start.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 4:12 PM on October 5, 2008

There are several thousand free contacts databases out there that run on Access on shared hosting. They will offer you different data sorting, input and lookup options and features. Your best bet is to go through a dozen or so, choose one, and then do a simple data import from your existing database into the new one.

The contacts DB you choose with probably depend to some extent on what your current data is modelled, but your database wizard friend should absolutely be... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 4:08 PM on October 5, 2008

This thread is making me very uncomfortable.

Unless you are all specifically engaging in power exchange, then the person who should be in control of being banged by two men is the woman being banged by two men.

If, on the other hand, you are engaging in power exchange, then you sort it out with whichever of the two is in the dominant role.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 3:54 PM on October 5, 2008

Snow Crash might appeal.

That is as depressing as I get. 1984 made me want to slit my wrists. I'm not good with hopeless.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 2:24 PM on October 5, 2008

There are some more nun links in this previous MeFi post.
posted to MetaFilter by DarlingBri at 8:29 AM on October 5, 2008

Seconding lunch, and adding that the best approach to take is "I know you're having a hard time personally, and I think other people know something is up from your work, and I want to know what the best thing we as a team can do to support you."
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 10:57 PM on October 4, 2008 marked best answer

It is tempting to assume that a woman will make me happy or complete!

It is probably more accurate to assume that a women will find you attractive when you are already happy and complete, actually.

Anyway, I wanted to ad another perspective in case it is relevant to your case. I broke up a perfectly grand relationship with a great catch because he was attached to his family. Like, really attached to his family. He too had... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 4:50 PM on October 4, 2008

Regarding DarlingBri's point about the needs of an eventual partner and children... that's one of the reasons that it makes sense to settle near family. As you move into that phase of your life, having family around will be invaluable.

That's a pretty big blanket statement there. The only known quantity at this juncture is speedoavenger and his family. The personality, lifestyle preferences and family situation of the putative Mrs Speedo are unknown,... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 7:53 PM on October 4, 2008

Kid Rocket looks nifty, seems very safe, and would keep me entertained for a good long while wre I four, but geeze, Pac Man is way more stressful than I remember it being. Those ghosts are fast!
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 2:59 PM on October 4, 2008

It looks like your blog buddy there was originally going to use your photo for #23, but changed his mind and used the indoor stadium shot instead and didn't know how to properly remove the call for your photo.

Since he also has links to photos on his hard drive (Hi, C:/Users/Nick!), I am casting a very confident vote for Door A: Incompetent.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 9:46 PM on October 3, 2008

In the US, there are two real keys to voter turnout. One is voter registration, and the other is voter transport to polling stations. If you can organise both of those things, you get your voters into their booths.

If you're limiting your efforts to the expanse of your office door, I think the most helpful things you could do would be:

1/ A tear-off pile of voter registration forms nailed to the door.
2/ A car pool or "walk the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 9:38 PM on October 3, 2008

If you're keen on mumstheword's advice, I would suggest updating it to buy both children a babydoll regardless of gender. Unless there's been a moratorium on teaching males to nurture and I didn't get the memo.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 7:06 PM on October 3, 2008

Women regularly lose this amount of blood on a daily basis for the duration of a normal period, virtually all with no ill effects. Back in the day, I had Norplant and bled every single day for three years and was absolutely fine.

I'd worry about what's causing the bleed, but not the bleeding itself.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 7:47 PM on October 2, 2008

When my youngest sister was three, we had trained her like our personal one trick pony to answer this question in the following manner:

Q: What are the three most important words in the English language?
A: Moisturise, moisturise, moisturise!

I would add that your neck and declotage should be treated just like your face and moisturised just as religiously. I skipped this bit for a few years and I regret it already.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 12:09 PM on September 29, 2008

I'm sorry, are you marrying an equal partner here or a punitive parent? Because from your description, it's a little confusing.

Anyway, listen. In the big picture of a 30 or 40 or 50 year marriage, this is small beer. It's nothing. It's a thing, a token, a replaceable symbol. Losing it doesn't mean you're going to be careless with money, leave a kid behind in Ohio, or forget that you're married when you meet a stripper named Honey. It doesn't mean you don't care or that... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 11:41 AM on September 29, 2008

You want whatever the US equivalent of Umbrella Art is, although she's happy to ship to the US.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 2:01 PM on September 28, 2008

I admire Matt's recent-ish redesign. I like the typography on Tilly Moss but prefer the old header. I think Colour Lovers does an admirable job of laying out a massive amount of non-standard content. The Resume Girl isn't going to set the world on fire but is personable and charming and does an excellent job of positioning the service.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 2:56 PM on September 27, 2008 marked best answer

It's not odd really. If you think about it, when a designer does his or her own site, it's one of the few opportunities she or he will have to splash out. Most corporate clients are looking for some flavour of "what everyone else says" and few really want to push out of that comfort zone. Most of the web is filled with this kind of workaday design.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 11:10 AM on September 28, 2008

I like these.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 5:27 PM on September 27, 2008

Rebekka Gudleifsdóttir? Aside from her interesting work, much of which is on Flickr, she has reasonable press coverage to at least begin working with, and there's always the metafilter brewhahahas about her/her work.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 3:47 PM on September 27, 2008

For the love of God, skip Mount Rushmore. It looks exactly like it does in the photos and you cannot get any closer than the spot where ALL those photos were taken. It is both stunningly dull and inconveniently located.

My sister and I drove across country from New York to LA via Seattle and made a point to stop at Mount Rushmore. We treked up the thing to the point, batted away 27,000 other tourists, looked up at the mountain, turned to each other, and said "So.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 2:04 PM on September 27, 2008

I don't own a penis but I can't imagine that dousing your wedding tackle in rubbing alcohol would be bad in the way bleach would clearly be bad. If you don't have an open wound, it should be fine.

And dude... owwww.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 1:54 AM on September 27, 2008

I would add that unless you have very small hands, while using the Eee as your only PC is entirely possible, I don't think it's a great idea. The keyboard is really, REALLY small and over time, I'm concerned about strain injuries. I'm no kind of ergonomics freak, but even I know that the hand position for that keyboard is entirely unnatural.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 2:36 PM on September 21, 2008

He was surrounded by so many female admirers that his inner circle called them the "Thousand Virgins". He hardly needed to rape anyone for sex...

People don't normally rape other people simply because they lack a willing sex parter.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 3:01 PM on September 14, 2008

You all have an equal share, so it seems logical you all have an equal vote. I'd be inclined to run it like a coop, with monthly dues per shareholder. Something fairly small like $75 per month per shareholder will give you $5400 at the end of year one. Assuming the house is in reasonable repair right now, at the end of two years you should have a kitty large enough to deal with roof repairs, etc, as they arise. In addition, people can turn in receipts for things like repairing a broken window... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 10:12 AM on September 14, 2008 marked best answer

On futher thought, there are two other things to keep in mind.

No matter how you set it up, the largest issues are going to be both the tiniest and the boggest. On the tiny side, leaving the house messy, with no toilet paper and no extra bulbs will piss off the next visitors. You need check in and check out lists. If there is someone locally who can be hired to clean, you can make it compulsory that the departing party pay the cleaner to clean for the next party. Since... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 2:43 PM on September 14, 2008

Elmore Leonard's Get Shorty is the classic example here, I think. It's been a while. But the Ludlum suggestion is great too; The Bourne Identity is nifty. Le Carre seems to have fallen out of popular favour, but I think there are some nice examples in his brilliantly written body of work, too.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 5:47 AM on September 14, 2008

Odd. Except for the weather issue, I would have said Boston, Philly or Chicago for election night. Having said that, if what you want is a vacation with election on top, it is harder to find a better, warm weather, urban vacation spot than Miami Beach, so I think that's a brilliant choice.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 7:11 PM on September 13, 2008

If you don't want to use PhotoShop, fine, but checks don't need to be elaborate. Is there some reason you can't just set up a template in Word or whatever your Mac fanboy word processor is, and do a mail merge to populate the bits of the checks with data that will change or increment?

You could use plain paper, your own paper and get three to a page no problem.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 5:11 AM on September 13, 2008

The lack of anonymity in replying is going to skew the answers you're going to get in favour of those against. Very few people are going to pop in to say "Oh, yeah, I do the fake reference thing for my friends whenever they ask."

I will say that this is far, far less rare than you might imagine. By definition, this sort of thing runs under the radar but it is done all the time.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 7:01 PM on September 12, 2008

"Unfortunately, I have no immediate plans to travel to London. Perhaps we could conduct a phone interview before either of us commits to the expense of airplane fare."
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 5:40 PM on September 12, 2008

parmanparman, in case you're interested, the US Constitution with all 27 amendments is only about a dozen pages and doesn't take long to read. It's also really interesting.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 5:24 PM on September 12, 2008

In 1995, MSN (which was like AOL but with less sex) was $25 a month, if I remember correctly.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 2:46 PM on September 11, 2008

Seriously, he needs to get the exact dates and figure out of the kids - ANY of the kids - are contagious. He does not want to get this as an adult. He may begrudge missing this one weekend, but if he doesn't and ends up with pox, the chances are very high that he'll miss at least one, different weekend anyway. Oh, and a ton of work days, too.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 12:52 PM on September 11, 2008

Just as a note on this, any US online retailer shipping food, beer etc may well only take a US credit card. In those cases, I change my credit card address online to a US address, place my order, and then change it back.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 5:37 PM on September 10, 2008

Damn. Manchester, NH is calling my name. Or would be, if my husband and I hadn't already removed each other from the map.
posted to MetaFilter by DarlingBri at 1:06 PM on September 10, 2008

I think that more than anything, you need to go in there with a strategy. Were it me, the strategy would be something like "I understand this most likely acute inflammation, but since it isn't better after a week, can you tell me when and how we'd rule out things like frozen shoulder, trapped nerve, disc issues or Parsonage-Turner?"

Doctors are people too and although you are entitled to competent care at a minimum, asking questions like... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 11:33 AM on September 10, 2008 marked best answer

With all due respect to turgid dahlia, love is not all you need. You can desperately love someone with whom you are grossly incompatible, and at the end of the day, you're still incompatible.

The issue with your boyfriend being uninterested in your work very likely boils down to you feeling that he doesn't have any understanding of or appreciation for a major part of your self-identity. That isn't about loving your job more than your boyfriend; it's... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 12:06 AM on September 10, 2008

I am seriously baffled by people in this thread not understanding why asexual people would want to get married. From Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health, the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision on same sex marriage:

Marriage also bestows enormous private and social advantages on those who choose to marry. Civil marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by DarlingBri at 4:07 PM on September 9, 2008

Honestly, you have to be willing to reach out, and then you have to be willing to follow up by taking risks. Reaching out means: organising a local MeFi meetup, seeing what's going on around you on meetup.com even if you're only barely interested, seeing what's up on your local CL, and joining a club or group or something like a book group.

And then you have to follow up - you email or call anyone you exchanged more than hello with and ask them if they want to get a... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 7:52 PM on September 8, 2008

Search the boards at Etsy for "wholesale" and you'll find good tips from many women who have done this before you. Before looking at hiring a sales person (which is a silly thing to do when you're dipping your toe into wholesale - you can hotfoot it around with samples and an oversized postcard to leave as a calling card) you need to critically assess your pricing. Most people making this transition fall over because wholesale at this level is often 50% of what she's charging for... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 5:13 PM on September 8, 2008

Hot pink Docs, obviously.
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 4:02 PM on September 8, 2008

I would suggest building in an appreciation for eggs in your budget. They are cheap and flexible - scrambled eggs on toast is an easy breakfast, and you can learn to make fritatas or omelettes with veggies for lunch or dinner. You can also learn to make bread pudding with eggs and stale bread, which is fabulous.

Also, you can learn to make dinners that stretch over many meals. If you're learning to cook, than I think that meal mixes, even though they are maybe $2.50 each,... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by DarlingBri at 4:51 AM on September 8, 2008

That is a list of 1,000 songs and videos that actually were totally bogus.
posted to MetaFilter by DarlingBri at 3:11 PM on September 6, 2008