I'm probably being a bit partisan here, but I think Australia's national team are pretty well regarded for fair play.

(There was a bit of a scandal back in the '06 World Cup - Italy were awarded a dubious-at-best penalty against Australia and knocked us out of the round of 16 - that led a lot of Aussies to ask "surely we don't do that, do we?".)
posted to Ask Metafilter by The Shiny Thing at 4:12 PM on June 22, 2008

The NTSC games won't work on an NTSC-J system, unfortunately (here's an MS KB article which covers it).

Region coding is no fun.
posted to Ask Metafilter by The Shiny Thing at 7:22 AM on June 15, 2008

I have the Charles Dutoit/Montreal Symphony Orchestra version, which is pretty good.

(Disclaimer - I'm not exactly a classical guru, so I have to defer to Class Goat on this...)
posted to Ask Metafilter by The Shiny Thing at 6:32 PM on May 15, 2008

Weeellll...

The US Dollar Index is a trade-weighted index of the strength or weakness of the dollar, and it's dropped about 19% in the last two years.

NYMEX cash crude in dollar terms is up about 55% in the past two years.

So, as a very quick and dirty number, a bit less than half of the increase in the crude price over the past two years is due to the drop in the dollar. Give or take. Call it 40% and you wouldn't be too... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by The Shiny Thing at 5:47 AM on May 2, 2008

Dan's Data has covered "oxygenated water", and found it lacking. (I could've sworn he also wrote about canned oxygen at one point, but I can't find it.)
posted to Ask Metafilter by The Shiny Thing at 9:00 PM on April 28, 2008

Shemozzle?
posted to Ask Metafilter by The Shiny Thing at 7:29 PM on April 17, 2008

(Disclaimer: I shoot Canon, I'm biased.)

You can do a surprisingly large amount of shooting with a Rebel body (aka the 400 or 450D if you're in Europe/Asia/Oceania) and the thrifty fifty or the nifty fifty.

I'd second the Canon Rebel body recommendations. If your budget stretches to it, there's a kit available with the rather good 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS lens - if not, a 50mm prime would be a good place to start.... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by The Shiny Thing at 8:22 PM on April 8, 2008

Jeez, is there anyone on here who isn't 5′11.5″?

I'm that height as well... but to answer the OP, I've never had that reaction from anyone. I imagine you'd be able to defuse it with a joke or two.
posted to Ask Metafilter by The Shiny Thing at 8:12 AM on April 6, 2008

A lab coat, and an Erlenmeyer flask full of something green and toxic-looking?

(Also seconding Five-Toed Sloth's idea of henchmen.)
posted to Ask Metafilter by The Shiny Thing at 8:05 AM on April 6, 2008

Seconding KrisJohn; look in your pharmacy for some stuff called SM-33. It's a topical anaesthetic (containing lignocaine); you dab it on a mouth ulcer, and it stings for five seconds, then does a terrific job of anaesthetising and curing ulcers.
posted to Ask Metafilter by The Shiny Thing at 4:54 AM on February 5, 2008

Jerilderie's a nice place to stop off for a bit - Ned Kelly famously held up the bank there back in 1879, so there's a few obligatory Ned Kelly displays, and there's a museum or two in town that might be worth exploring. (I used to live around there, but haven't been back in ages, so take this with a grain of salt.)

As far as overnight stops go, though, it's not great - there's a few motels there, but that's it. You might be better off to push on to Narrandera, which is... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by The Shiny Thing at 3:42 AM on January 27, 2008 marked best answer

Nthing "Buy it Now" listing as being the best bet. For something like a cable, you'd want to just go "yup, I'll buy that, you're done" - why wait seven days for an auction to close when you could get it off Amazon?

(For one-off items, my standard rule of thumb is a ten-day auction, timed to close between 6:30pm and 8:30pm on a Sunday or Monday night - that way more people are at home to snipe it. I forget where, but there was actually some research... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by The Shiny Thing at 4:27 PM on December 30, 2007

There are two main ways to drive from Sydney to Melbourne.

First, there's the coast road (highway 1), which is about 1000 km, and fourteen hours of solid driving. It takes you through lots of wonderful little coast towns in NSW, all of which have something interesting to do, and there's some interesting mining towns on the Victorian leg of the trip. The downsides: it's a difficult drive, with not much in the way of straight-as-an-arrow highway driving; and you wouldn't... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by The Shiny Thing at 7:04 PM on December 29, 2007

Air NZ might be the best best - if you hit their website right now, they've got return tickets on your dates around the $2600 mark. (They fly via Auckland, which is a decent place to stop over. The service on Air NZ is very good, as well... I reckon better than Qantas.)

It seems that they're out of cheap-economy tickets on the return leg, though, which is why the round trip is coming out so expensive. You could try booking the outbound leg on Air NZ, then booking the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by The Shiny Thing at 7:25 PM on December 6, 2007

There are some awesome suggestions here - keep 'em coming!

Fairbanks might be a bit hardcore, but I've always wanted to go to Alaska - I'll have to keep it in mind for next time.

It seems like there's stacks of votes for the northeastern USA and adjacent bits of Canada - I love NYC, and Saffry and LobsterMitten might be on to something with the Ottawa-and-Rideau-Canal idea. Hmm. Flights to Ottawa...
posted to Ask Metafilter by The Shiny Thing at 3:37 PM on November 25, 2007

ISK/JPY has been a popular spin on the yen carry trade for a couple of years now, and the ISK's now the strongest it's been since 1993 (it's quoted USD/ISK, so low numbers = stronger ISK).

The problem is that the Icelandic economy is insanely overheated. Inflation is running at 7% or so, and the current account deficit is a massive 17% of GDP. To put that in perspective, New Zealand is regularly condemned for its massive current account deficits, but theirs is only about... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by The Shiny Thing at 9:44 PM on November 6, 2007

As far as hotels go: I spent a few nights at the City Club Hotel (on west 44th, between 5th and 6th) last year.

The rooms are a bit on the small side, but they're very very plush; the location doesn't get much better (it's about two minutes' walk from the 42nd-Bryant Park subway, and five minutes' walk from Times Square if that's your thing), and they won my heart with the chocolate-chip cookies at turndown.
posted to Ask Metafilter by The Shiny Thing at 2:19 AM on October 28, 2007

IANAEquityOptionsTrader, so there may be some details of the crossing mechanisms that I've got wrong, but...

While they might use the exchange's crossing mechanisms to make delivery of the shares, it wouldn't show up in the tick stream, and IBM's low for the day wouldn't be $3. (Deep-in-the-money option exercises happen all the time, so if the exercises did show up in the data stream, the prices would be all over the place.)

What the options... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by The Shiny Thing at 10:11 PM on October 21, 2007

Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America: yeah, a stock loan would be a lot easier. However, the options contract is just as legally enforcible as the stock loan agreement - it'd probably be regulated by some form of the ISDA Master Agreement.
posted to Ask Metafilter by The Shiny Thing at 10:14 PM on October 21, 2007

Not really. In fact, given that it's pretty much guaranteed to be exercised, the premium for the $5 call pretty much has to be $5 - maybe $4.97, to take into account the interest.

It's not especially fishy, but your market risk department (if you have one) might wonder what you were up to.
posted to Ask Metafilter by The Shiny Thing at 4:11 AM on October 23, 2007

Seconding, thirding, fourthing the 50/1.4 as the first lens to get. It's a razor-sharp lens, works beautifully in low light, and the price is right. In a perfect world, it would be the default kit lens with the cheaper Canon bodies.

I have the 24-105 f/4L, and it's my favourite walkaround lens for the outdoors. But if you're doing lots of indoor shooting (sounds like you are), it'll be much too slow.

The problem is, there's really no way to get a... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by The Shiny Thing at 6:57 AM on October 21, 2007