You could try doing handstand pushups with the feet against a wall...then doing normal pushups afterwards. That would be very difficult.
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 3:35 AM on September 22, 2008

Have you been to a doctor for any of these things? Have you gotten a diagnosis for anything? Because I suspect it's hard for anyone to advise you at all unless we know what kind of injuries we're talking about.

The pain always comes up quickly, but not immediately. It is not that I feel something snap or crack and immediately stop playing, the pain starts a few hours afterwards.

The pain does usually go away rather quickly. It is... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 7:44 AM on August 27, 2008

Note: it seems, on googling around, that iron deficiency as well as magnesium deficiency can lead to increased muscle soreness. But I am not a doctor, yours or anyone's.
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 8:07 AM on August 27, 2008

I slouched until I was 27 and took up weightlifting. My parents told me not to slouch when I was a teenager, but I had better things to than fiddle around with something that felt so natural and normal to me. I was a good runner when I was 15 and still slouched. I think it was deadlifting that forced me to pay attention to spine position. Anyway, I don't think I suffer any ill effects from my 27 years of slouching.
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 11:09 PM on August 17, 2008

The German in the story isn't necessarily correct. Beuteratte is an opposum. Deaf-mutes are called "Taubstumm" -- "Stottertrottel" translates roughly to "stutter-idiot", and if you google it the only hits are for this story. I've never heard cages called "Kotter", to me they're "Käfige". A screen is really "Gitter", not "Lattengitter" -- I think "Lattengitter" would be a meshwork of wooden slats.
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 12:58 AM on August 16, 2008

Didn't the astronomer Tycho Brahe basically just build a gigantic compass and hold it up to the sky so he could measure the angles between stars better? At any rate it had something to do with just building a much bigger instrument and being very methodical. He also a pet moose, and one day he brought it over to a friend's house and it got drunk and fell down the stairs. He also lost his nose in a duel and replaced it with a gold nose. There are rumors that he died from bladder explosion because... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 1:10 PM on August 15, 2008

My girlfriend tells me it wasn't popular in Spain until one of the princesses started dating a handball player.

It's also not that popular here in Germany either. People are vaguely aware of it, but no-one cheers on the local handball team in sports bars or anything. I guess I'd say it's like lacrosse in America -- everyone knows what it is, but no-one cares. They only show the games on Eurosport, not on any of the major channels.

fixedgear: it... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 1:04 PM on August 15, 2008

It depends what you mean by "torso". If you mean "stomach" you should know that targeting your gut will not help you lose the weight off your gut. You can't choose where you burn fat. Also, it's hard to do "core" work without using your hips and ass muscles.

You can use dumbells to do this and this. But because you're off-balance, they work "core" muscles as well as arms -- so they might bother your injury, I can't really say.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 2:10 AM on August 11, 2008 marked best answer

Happy belated birthday.

Here's what I know about friends and birthdays: I don't have a hundred friends, but I could have an active social life if I wanted -- there's maybe around 30 people I would call acquaintances, who I could be friends with if I just went out and spent more time with them in person. Maybe 10 people I would call friends. In the past I lived in a different country and had a whole other set of people I would call friends, who I now have sporadic email... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 1:29 AM on August 11, 2008

Her dictatorial "we WILL talk again" is pretty fucking presumptuous. As others have said, there's no reason for you to accept it. What do you want -- do you want to talk to her? If so, why don't you call her? And if not, then make the decision not to take her call in the future should she ever get around to it.

If all you want is closure, why don't you call her and tell her, pre-emptively, that you are not interested in any contact with... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 12:44 AM on August 11, 2008

Berlin has great museums but no beaches that are not on lakes. It is cheap. I usually recommend it on general principles, but it may not be right for you. Croatia is cheap and is beautiful, but all the beaches are stone, not sand.
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 12:26 PM on August 5, 2008

The w in Walter is pronounced like a v.

Your biggest difficulty will be getting the r right. It's a soft r. But yeah, "de Groiter" or "de Groyter", like "toy", is right.

Mouton is not German at all, so if it were up to me I would attempt a French pronunciation. But that is beyond my expertise.
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 12:18 AM on August 5, 2008

I've probably heard the name "de Gruyter" pronounced a bunch of times, although I don't remember it specifically. I've definitely been in colloquiums here where we're discussing de Gruyter books. I'm almost certain you ignore the Dutch origin and speak it like it's German. As for Mouton -- I'd never heard of that subsidiary, but since there is no German pronunciation of "Mouton", then yeah I'd try the French pronunciation with a German accent insofar as that's possible. I'm... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 6:05 AM on August 5, 2008 marked best answer

I don't have any insight into your heel, unfortunately, but your running habits sound strange to me and I would expect them to lead to injury. It sounds like you don't do any running for up to a week at a time, and then you run 15 miles at once? That sounds crazy. When I was in cross-country in high school we would run upwards of 40 miles a week, but I never heard of any one of us running more than 10 miles at once. I'm pretty sure you have to work up to longer distances gradually. ...just my... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 3:27 AM on August 5, 2008

Indeed you did. Sorry for the derail.
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 5:41 AM on August 5, 2008

My mother would always boil zucchini for a few minutes to make it a bit soft, and then marinate it in olive oil, garlic and rosmarin, and then put it on the grill. I've done this too and it's delicious.

Also you can always wrap potatoes in tin-foil and throw them in among the coals. Then fish them out at the end. Be careful, they'll burn the shit out of your mouth when you eat them.
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 7:35 AM on July 25, 2008

People have always had choice, for as long as recorded human history extends (or, if you're a certain kind of determinist, people have never had choice, but it's always seemed as if we had choice). Given two rabbits in the field, you choose which one to chase. People have always been able to make decisions about trivial matters.

It seems to me that the existentialists are primarily concerned with greater decisions like choice of lifestyle, choice of moral code, etc,, not... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 2:33 AM on July 22, 2008

"Grosses Malheur" counts as German. It means a big piece of bad luck.
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 11:40 PM on July 15, 2008

According to this, you use ß after a long vowel, ss after a short one. So "groß" is correct, even post-1996.
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 1:48 AM on July 16, 2008

It's confusing, though, because the cat says "me az" instead of "me haz", which seems to me a parody of a French accent. It's definitely not German. So maybe it's a German person making fun of the French in lolcat. He uses the borrowed French word "Malheur" and imagines to himself the cat saying the German phrase "Großes Malheur" with a French accent, and then he switches to lolcat English with a French accent because there's no tradition of lolcat in... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 4:12 AM on July 16, 2008

There was a thread about combining weightlifting and swimming here. I voiced the opinion that in my experience it was difficult to combine the two, and I got overruled by everyone else. In the meantime my swimming style's gotten a lot better and now I have no problem swimming between lifting days. So I would still maintain that if your style is poor and you exhaust yourself with a couple of laps, you will have difficulty.

Nowadays everyone likes High Intensity Interval... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 10:54 AM on July 8, 2008

Demnach werden hohe Anforderungen an die Wahrscheinlichkeit und Bedeutung des Erkenntnisgewinns eines Projekts der Grundlagenforschung gestellt, damit dieses einen Tierversuch zu rechtfertigen vermag, während bei angewandter Forschung im medizinischen Bereich ein "einsehbarer" Zusammenhang zwischen dem Tierversuch und dem Schutz der Gesundheit genügt. Dass Forschungsuntersuchungen an Tieren "allen Regeln der Wissenschaftlichkeit genügen" müssen, wird als unabhängige weitere... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 2:40 AM on July 4, 2008

If you aren't getting results from your abs work, you probably aren't doing the exercises correctly. it's hard to describe proper form, but basically you want to draw in your gut (as if you were trying to suck your navel into your spine) as you contract your muscles so you engage your deep abdominal muscles. that's what will trim your waist.

Untrue. This might well be a description of proper form, but you cannot decide where to burn fat, i.e. you... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 3:24 AM on June 30, 2008

First of all, you've got a problem with your "as beautiful as supermodels". It's not the case that there is one thing called beauty and that supermodels have the most of it. To me they look boring and anorexic with faces that lack all character. I see more beautiful women every day. But beauty is relative. And even if it weren't relative, there are still many different ways to be beautiful, and the monolithic supermodel look is just one of them.

You should ask,... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 3:16 AM on June 29, 2008

As others have said, there's no way you need 13 of them. Because they are compound, they cover a lot of ground. Look at the Starting Strength program.
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 3:12 AM on June 28, 2008

I would tell the guy in the mushroom store that it's your first time and ask him for advice. He'll tell you which kind and how much of it is best to take for your first time.
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 6:17 AM on June 26, 2008

I don't think there are very many jobs in Berlin. I would look for a job first if I were you. Aside from that, it's a great city. You can learn German gradually once you get here; you'll definitely be able to get by with English. There are Americans who have lived here for years and still speak no German. It is easy to find an apartment. If you have money you can buy an apartment for around 1000 Euros/square meter in Kreuzberg or Treptow, 800 Euros/square meter in Neukölln...in other districts... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 1:36 AM on June 13, 2008

You might want to look at this guy's case. He got really trim by lifting heavy weights and eating a high-protein, low-carb diet. You can find most of the exercises he did by googling or do approximately the same things at least. He also takes lots of supplements but I wouldn't worry about that too much; the web-site sells supplements.
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 11:32 AM on June 12, 2008

There's no reason it shouldn't work. You should try to get dumbells where you can easily adjust the weight by adding more plates. Increasing resistance is what increases strength and muscle size -- that and adding enough protein to your diet. Eventually as you progress the dumbells may not be heavy enough for you to really work your lower body, but that's not important now.

You could start by doing goblet squats, standing shoulder press, bent-over row, chest press, and... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 12:22 AM on June 2, 2008

Crossfit's not really geared to build size/mass, you know. If that's what you're interested in, check out t-nation. They don't have workouts of the day but they do have lots of examples of bulking programs if you look around. I think you'll find that people interested in size/mass don't have workouts of the day, they have regular programs they stick to for 6 weeks at a time. Here's one program.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 9:41 AM on May 27, 2008

I seem to remember Austin also throwing out the suggestion, although not arguing for it, that there may be no such thing as pure description, that all language might be performative to some extent. This would fuck with other subjects in philosophy like truth and rationality and science that often seem to rely on the possibility of pure description of the world. Anyway, yeah, the book seems like small change because he's just talking about different types of linguistic utterances, but that's what... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 12:27 AM on May 21, 2008

Your biggest obstacle at this point is a psychological one -- either that you think you need to go out and get this thing done, or that it's something that's just not going to happen. Either one puts too much pressure and significance onto every chance encounter with women.

When I've been single, after a couple of months I've gotten into the habit of thinking "boy, I need to go get laid". Which leads to a disastrous sex life, because when you are clearly on the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 1:49 AM on May 18, 2008

This used to happen to me a lot and it still does sometimes. For years I solved the problem by getting drunk every night. I still usually drink a glass or two of red wine with dinner, and in all seriousness I would recommend trying this: one glass is good for you anyways, and it won't solve your problem entirely but it will put you into more of a retiring mood and it might also start to function as a psychological signal that your day is over and it's time to relax. Also make sure you're not... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 9:25 AM on May 13, 2008

Herman Hesse and Max Frisch are easy to read. Kafka and Goethe's Faust, not so easy. Also Birgit Vanderbecke writes some good novels nowadays ... I enjoyed "Das Muschelessen".
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 6:20 AM on May 13, 2008

From what language to what language?
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 10:51 AM on May 8, 2008

Yeah, we won't be able to tell you much until you tell us what you mean by "fit". Can you walk longer than her? Can you swim faster than her? Can you climb up a rope quicker? And if yes to any of these: did you do sports when you were younger? Did you take more swim lessons? Did you grow up with a better diet? Do you have longer limbs? Do you eat a better lunch? Do either of you smoke or did you used to smoke? Etc.

ewkpastes: that strikes me as an unbalanced... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 7:47 AM on May 6, 2008

Don't bother with a machine. Buy a good dumbell set or just use kettlebells. You can do weighted lunges holding two dumbells to build up muscle so you avoid injury and to get a little more flexible. Or "goblet squats". And you can try dumbell swings to improve your posterior chain. As for your upper body, dumbells give you all kinds of possibilities. Just look around fitness sites like crossfit and t-nation for exercises or post another askme question asking about them. Free weights... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 8:36 AM on May 3, 2008

PS: and a chin-up bar isn't a bad idea either.
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 8:42 AM on May 3, 2008

You are purposefully estranging the word from any and all context of use, and that is why it seems strange. This has parallels in the art world. If you take a photo of your hand, it looks stranger than it does normally -- because normally you look at your hand while doing something with it, but in the photo you've estranged it from these contexts, hence it seems strange. Anything can be made to seem strange if instead of doing stuff with it you contemplate it long enough.
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 2:36 PM on May 1, 2008

The joke is not inherently racist, but is likely to be more funny to a racist audience, since they will relate to the white guy's sexualized fear. It was also probably a lot funnier in the 1950s. In any event the joke certainly lives from racism, and while it may undermine the stereotype by disarming it and making the white guy's insecurity the butt of the joke, it may also perpetuate the stereotype by mentioning it one more time, thus keeping it alive in the public consciousness. The moral of... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 8:00 AM on April 29, 2008

Btw, I don't really see how the joke is homophobic. The butt of the joke is that the guy doesn't want to be raped and he immediately assumes himself to be the sexual target of a physically powerful black man. But the first part -- not wanting to get raped -- does not make the guy homophobic in any way.
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 8:04 AM on April 29, 2008

Jaltcoh, being afraid of getting raped doesn't equate to being afraid of gays, the black guy in the joke isn't identified as being gay, the imagined threat of rape has much more to do with a power dynamic than with sexual orientation, the joke doesn't play to gay stereorypes, etc...in my view the joke is far from being homophobic. It also doesn't fit into the category of "gay panic" jokes since the guy in the joke isn't afraid of being gay.
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 8:33 AM on April 29, 2008

Jaltcoh, being afraid of getting raped doesn't equate to being afraid of gays

Yes it does, if you're a man afraid of getting raped by men.

No, again, it doesn't; it equates to being afraid of rapists and getting raped.

Also, men who are inordinately afraid of being raped by men are homophobic as long as they're subjectively envisioning male-male rape as something perpetrated by gays, even if... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 10:16 AM on April 29, 2008

If you have money to burn then drive. Driving in Germany is sweet. Germans are very safe and predictable drivers and on the highway you can usually drive just as fast as your heart desires. However, as everyone else has said, it will be expensive. I was told that I could drive on my American license for the first 6 months of living here.

And yeah, German drivers are nothing like NY drivers. They drive very fast but well. If you drive be prepared to stay out of the left... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 11:29 PM on April 23, 2008

Maybe, possibly, you just don't have the right kind of muscular endurance to jog for a while and that's why it's overtaxing you. Endurance is specific and from swimming and biking you get endurance in different muscle groups than from jogging. Maybe if you tried jogging just 500 meters several times in a row, regularly, eventually you would get more jogging endurance. But I am not a doctor or a fitness professional.

I have a similar problem with swimming crawl. I do lots... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 9:53 AM on April 22, 2008

Btw, my girlfriend also can't jog more than 2-3 minutes, although she's perfectly capable of walking long distances and is a good swimmer. She has wide hips and also has never consistently tried to jog at all, so I suspect it's due to body mechanics + lack of specific muscular endurance. But I am a translator, not a running coach, so you might want to hang out for a while and listen to more answers.
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 9:58 AM on April 22, 2008

Just last night I saw Arsenic and Old Lace. I couldn't imagine anyone not being entertained by that.
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 3:29 AM on April 20, 2008

I'm doing hindu pushups once a week now, and I used to do 10 at the beginning of each workout as part of my warmup. I find they work mostly my triceps, shoulders and upper back; and the front of my hips too, but I see that as more of a side-effect. Yeah they're good. Doing sets of lots of them will give you good conditioning and muscular endurance in your upper body. You could alternate sets of them with sets of pullups for a complete upper-body workout. There are a whole bunch of fancy... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 6:47 AM on April 17, 2008 marked best answer

OK, I just managed to watch one of the videos with the video youtube downloader and the vlc-player. You're right, it's absolutely not worth watching. I'm still surprised that anyone bothered to censor that, and I'm still curious if anyone knows what legal mechanisms are at work here...also I still don't really understand how youtube knows that I'm in Germany.
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 12:56 PM on April 15, 2008

ericb: thank you! Interesting...so I suppose now youtube is responding by cracking down on Hitler-related questionable material...I wonder if they respond based on complaints? There's an interesting FPP in here somewhere.
posted to Ask Metafilter by creasy boy at 1:01 PM on April 15, 2008