Most of coffeegeeks I know--myself included--don't actually drink huge amounts of coffee. It's about quality, not quantity.

My normal consumption is a trad cappo in the morning (I make mine at home with my Elektra Leva, which is a recurring treat- it's a spring-piston lever machine and it also steams milk better than any domestic machine I've sampled), a macchiato after lunch (lately at a superb local coffeehouse called Kawa Espresso Bar, which brews 49th Parallel beans... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 10:45 AM on July 22, 2008

Justinian- I'd go on to say that he looks like he COULD be a good example of a fiscally conservative public servant, and he should focus on that... but half of this thing is gay bashing.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 9:24 AM on July 19, 2008

It delivers what it promises.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 10:31 PM on July 17, 2008

Frist!
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 4:01 PM on July 17, 2008

What kind of fucking provincial moron doesn't know what a Cornish pasty is? This guy is supposedly educated and not only has he never come across one (they LITTER Wisconsin and upper Michigan and I'm sure they're available all over North America- right? We have pasties in supermarkets here in Alberta), but when he sees the word he doesn't even bother to look it up?

Myles Teddywedger is spinning in his grave.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 9:25 AM on July 16, 2008

On competitive reality shows, it seems that a good strategy IS to "make friends." The Apprentice is a superb venue for networking, and "making friends" is the most beneficial of beneficial externalities a contestant can find on that show.

This reminds me of grad school. I thought (not in so many words, but still) that I was indeed there "not to make friends" but to get my degree. I was too focussed and short-sighted to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 5:02 PM on July 12, 2008

"so" not "to."
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 5:02 PM on July 12, 2008

Pine beetles==>fires==>FIRE MORELS. One reason to love pine beetles.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 9:25 AM on July 9, 2008

He kicked bucket number six, to be exact.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 3:27 PM on July 3, 2008

exparrot: Don't forget BJ and Dirty Dragon.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 8:13 PM on July 4, 2008

Singers might be pretentious. Songs are not pretentious. This cover proves this.

This is a great find, thanks!
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 9:09 AM on July 1, 2008

You learn "facts" in almanacs and in email forwards. University isn't about learning "facts" any more than it's about learning the alphabet.

Sociology, which I teach, is largely concerned with getting students to unlearn the "facts" they've imported into class with them. They all walk in as experts in, say, juvenile delinquency and they leave, if I've done my job, not "knowing" a fucking thing.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 2:09 PM on June 19, 2008

Loving Canada and everything, but it's interesting that Halifax, which absorbed the greatest number of black refugees, also instituted rigid racial segregation policies and was and still is the only Canadian city with anything approaching black ghettoes. Montreal and Toronto have "black" enclaves comprising West Indian and African people, but in Halifax, segregation was forced.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 10:08 AM on June 16, 2008

Given a choice between a hideously facially deformed goat and a hideously facially deformed Persian cat, I would choose the goat, because at least I can eat the goat.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 1:18 PM on June 15, 2008

Oops, reflection on goat eating here.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 1:20 PM on June 15, 2008

In effect, wealthy hetero westerners got a lot of money spent on them they didn't need, that could have been spent on other groups at much greater risk that needed it more.

AMEN. A-FUCKING-MEN.

I came out in 1983 having read that story about "the new gay cancer" in Rolling Stone. Within two years (give or take) I saw a PSA from some AIDS-prevention group that did not feature a single MALE actor, never mind gay men.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 10:03 AM on June 12, 2008

rtha, Caribbean men having sex with other men lie about it. There is horrific stigma surrounding homosexuality.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 2:18 PM on June 12, 2008

A swirling chocolate malt of angy liquid

hal9k beat me to the "swirling chocolate malt" part, but "angy"? And even if the writer meant "angry"- then, well, "angry"?
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 6:09 PM on June 9, 2008

I just want to be reassured that House on the Rock was destroyed.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 6:10 PM on June 9, 2008

Punny names with "thai" are just too cheap to be funny. No challenge at all, and every city has a handful of those idiotic examples. How any got on a "50 best list" shows how moronically lazy the list is.

We had a place called "curl up and dye" in my very unfunny hometown (Hammond, Indiana) that advertised in my high school's yearbook, and I graduated in 1982. So maybe this list is really for the most uncreative puns?
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 3:18 PM on June 6, 2008

I'm not saying Luttwak is correct (I'm sure he's not) but statements like this, from the ombud's response, are just astonishingly ignorant:

Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, a professor of law at Emory University, said that Sharia, or Islamic law, including the law of apostasy, does not apply to an American or anyone outside the Muslim world.

Maybe not to Muslim "scholars" (and if a law professor is a Muslim scholar, then I... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 10:23 AM on June 2, 2008

I didn't know he was real. And now he's dead. How sad.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 8:55 PM on June 1, 2008

There are many things that are "genetic" but are still stigmatizing. Black people are "genetically" black. Fat people (many of them) are "genetically" fat. Red-haired people are "genetically" red-haired. Saying that sexual orientation is, at least in part, inborn (based on "genes" or some other biologically ascribed thing) has nothing to do with stigma. Being gay will always be stigmatized in the same way having Down's Syndrome will be... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 1:46 PM on June 1, 2008

Openly "homosexual"? As long as he wasn't openly negroid.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 3:29 PM on May 27, 2008

Call me ... idiosyncratic, but I thought he was completely, devastatingly sexy. Hotter than hell.

.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 9:19 PM on May 26, 2008

'Why can't PEOPLE get along like this"?

They do. Some people get along fine with dogs. Some get along fine with cats. Some (so I hear) get along fine with rats. Some get along with all three.

Try stacking three cats and you'll wonder why they can't get along- you know, like people.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 7:09 PM on May 22, 2008

The simplest measurement that indicates anything about (very) general overall health is Body Fat Percentage.

Where in the hell did you learn this? Body fat %age says nothing at all about "general overall health." It's completely possible to have good metabolic fitness and be fat. All body fat %age tells you is how fat you are, which has little to do with "health."

Get a "simple" blood test and... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 12:09 PM on May 22, 2008

There's all sorts of unspoken rules as far as walking down the streets goes

That's true in every city.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 4:21 PM on May 20, 2008

New Yorkers often seem rude to non-New Yorkers because they appear to be obsessed not only with themselves, but also with how awesome they are for being New Yorkers-- and non-New Yorkers can't possibly understand how awesome and superior they are for being New Yorkers.

I never realised this before, but it's Vancouver, and not Toronto or Montreal, that's the New York of Canada. Though I doubt that New Yorkers have an additional sense of moral... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 4:26 PM on May 20, 2008

Loved Berlin when I visited in October ('07)- spent a week and a half in an apartment in Prenzlauer and walked all over the place. The overwhelming crush of hipsters was tiresome after a while, but at least these were (in many cases) the real thing living in relative penury (you can get an apartment in, say, Kreuzburg for 200 euros a month- you'd pay 10 times that in Amsterdam or, God help you, London); they aren't the trust-fund asshole poseurs you see in NYC. I'd move there in a heartbeat if I... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 9:46 AM on May 20, 2008

Also- when Germans laugh about JFK's "Ich bin ein Berliner," it's NOT because they are so stupid (like those apocryphal "No VA!" Mexicans) to not be able to tell when somebody is saying "I am a resident of Berlin" in the context of a fucking speech about supporting West Berlin after the fucking construction of the fucking Berlin Wall. Germans are (mostly) not morons, they KNOW what he was trying to say. What they giggle at was his ACCENT, and oldsters love to mock... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 9:51 AM on May 20, 2008

More health care innovation that doesn't do anything to actually provide care to anybody.

This isn't available in Canada, which is fine, because there is no use for it.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 5:52 PM on May 19, 2008

About the only picture I would say "pos", with any confidence, would be Goatse.cx

Are there people, in 2008, who seriously have (A) never seen a man (and yes in 99% of cases it's a man) with facial wasting, and/or (B) wouldn't recognize facial wasting in a picture? Is this something that only gay men are aware of?

There are cosmetic treatments for facial wasting but not for the fat-wasting effects on other parts of... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 12:42 PM on May 19, 2008

Yep, rtha, agreed. In fact just today I read a little narrative on a never-you-mind discussion forum from an 18-y/o kid who had sex with a guy in a gym shower- guy entered him and pulled out after a few thrusts without coming, and that made it, in this youngster's mind, "not barebacking" because the guy didn't shoot off inside him. When somebody mentioned tat the virus is in pre-cum, the kid says, "we were in the shower, so the pre-cum got washed off.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 4:04 PM on May 19, 2008

ethnomethodologist, that's one of the more depressing stories I've heard lately. And all the more depressing because I'd bet it's quite common.

The weird thing is that this "it's only barebacking if he comes inside you," or "you come inside him," sounds exactly like the "I'll put a rubber on if it looks like I'm going to come" that I heard more than once after I came out- in 1983. And that I learned was unsafe- in 1984.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 5:37 PM on May 19, 2008

Madonna is an inexcusable hypocrite and nothing she says or does should be taken as even remotely seriously.

Wow, you really hate Madonna.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 9:18 PM on May 16, 2008

The man was simply gorgeous.

To each his/her own- I watched Barabarella for Ugo Tognazzi- yes, especially for the (fake) hirsutism. Hated pretty boys even as a little gay kid.

Ugo (from La Cage aux Folles) died in 1990 ... for him and all the sexy rugged types who get/got upstaged by Mr High Cheekbones and hairless bods:

.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 9:55 AM on May 15, 2008

A record of 1970s "working class life" might be a photo essay about the White Hen Pantry at the corner of 169th Street and Calumet Avenue in Hammond, Indiana. Unfortunately none of my teachers was prescient or brave enough to do it. This collection is a record of "pavement." It's not ugly, but it doesn't do what the photog or OP thinks it does.

As a living, breathing product of the actual working class (in the US rust belt, but still), I'm often... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 9:18 AM on May 14, 2008

Why didn't the blogger call them "nigger mcmuffins"? Does the moron even know what a "ghetto" is?

Fuck, it pisses me off when middle-class white (or non-black, whatever this tool is) people throw "ghetto" around. If the blogger weren't obviously American ($5 Subway subs and pretty much every other reviewed product is American) I could almost look past this, but no, American and as usual completely unreflective about this racist bullshit.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 2:41 PM on May 10, 2008

Does the ethnomethodologist even know what a ghetto is?

What's with the ad hominem bullshit? I'm a sociology professor, of course I know what a "ghetto" is. Do you have some disability that doesn't allow you to read profiles on here?
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 1:31 PM on May 12, 2008

Yankees suck.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 7:03 AM on May 6, 2008

I've re-read the series too many times to count since 1986, and having recently read (and re-read) Michael Tolliver Lives, I have to a couple of serious questions:

1. Why have all of Michael's boyfriends been so Richie Cunningham BORING? A clean-shaven preppy blond followed by two clean-shaven preppy redheads (and grating characters too). All "regular guys" from nice WASP families and all just so 1970s "look at how normal we are" boooooo-ring. I never... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 6:16 PM on May 4, 2008

I've suffered a lifetime (almost, I started shaving at 13) of painful and ugly ingrown hairs on my neck because of the 360 degree direction those hairs grow, and even though I sport a (completely gorgeous) full beard I still have to subject myself to shaving there (i.e., my neck) unless I want to look like a homeless wolfman. So I like to get advice on shaving, I really do. What I DON'T like is the DOUCHEBAG MACHISMO in this fucking horrible narrative. Not only that, but the ...... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 9:05 PM on April 28, 2008

but the second most horrific part is that it could happen anywhere.

This is just ridiculously glib. It could not "happen anywhere." Not every father is this sort of monster. The vast, vast, vast, vast majority of people could never, in a thousand lifetimes, do something like this. The fact that it's rare is part of what explains its enormity.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 5:11 PM on April 28, 2008

You know what kills me?

If you look at the photographs of the bathroom and the passage leading to the bedroom, it's obvious that she had tried to make things a little nicer, a little homier, for the children. There are pictures on the wall, and a plastic flower, and paintings of an octopus above the bathtub.

I see this as the only thing that can redeem this whole horrible story in even the tiniest way. It doesn't "kill... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 6:08 PM on April 28, 2008

Since housing prices in T.O. are still pretty nuts

Not even a little nuts. You get what you pay for in TO and as far as I'm concerned it's a ridiculous bargain. Vancouver is twice as expensive and even Calgary and Edmonton- yes Edmonton- are now more expensive than Toronto. And what's amazing is that when you tell Torontonians this, they refuse to believe it.

You have it good. Not Montreal good, but good.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 5:05 PM on April 28, 2008

Hardee's =/ Harvey's for you Canadian folks.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 3:47 PM on April 18, 2008

You know what else doesn't work? Pressing the elevator call button multiple times or after someone else has already pressed it and it is lit up. People like that should be sterilized. It's like the people who still walk around with their umbrellas open when it's not raining anymore.

What a douchebag comment. These people affect you how, exactly?
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 9:52 AM on April 15, 2008

Moncton, but not the TTC or the most successful light-rail line in the Americas, Calgary's C-Train?

I sure hope this is going to grow.
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 11:43 AM on April 8, 2008

I couldn't disagree more. It is a class protection system, plain and simple.

Seconded. Legacy should count for absolutely nothing. In fact I'd give preference to first-gen college applicants if they've performed as well WITHOUT the outrageous social- and cultural-capital advantages of well-educated and/or rich parents. And I'm not talking about affirmative action here- far from it. I'm talking about kids like me, first-gen and the youngest kid in my... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ethnomethodologist at 12:33 PM on April 7, 2008