Nthing Riddley Walker, and mentioning that Roadside Picnic was the basis for Tarkovsky's film Stalker.

The Bed-Sitting Room.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 5:35 AM on June 30, 2008

Comedy being subjective, I may be way off-beam, but still...

You'd probably enjoy anything written or co-written by Graham Linehan - Father Ted, Big Train, Hippies and Paris with Arthur Mathews; Black Books with Dylan Moran (first series only, but it carries on in the same vein thereafter) and The IT Crowd by himself.

And... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 9:35 AM on May 26, 2008

Oh, and Glen Baxter.

And, therefore, What a Life!
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 9:41 AM on May 26, 2008

The The
Hybrid Kids

(I'm showing my age here...)
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 5:38 AM on April 21, 2008

A few years ago I discovered it was impossible to listen to more than fifteen minutes of either George Clinton / Funkadelic or Django Reinhardt and the Hot Club de Paris and remain pissed off.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 1:08 PM on March 16, 2008

Oh, and if you like the Reinhardt, you could try slipping into the hard stuff - pretty much anything Duke Ellington recorded up to about 1940.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 1:09 PM on March 16, 2008

Like MUP (that is to say, not WYSIWYG in any way), but completely free: Lilypond.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 9:29 AM on February 18, 2008

If you put the drive in a USB enclosure, you can use Migration Assistant to update your new Mac to your old Mac's settings. I did it only last week.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 3:47 PM on December 10, 2007

anansi: That's just a lot of brandy. If you'd had too much brandy, you'd be typing with your nose.

Sub v. Dub: according to my Japanese, Miyazake-otaku wife, the subtitles are infinitely superior to the dubs, which tend to be terrible, often including superfluous dialogue to "explain" the action. If you run the Sub along with the Dub you'll see what I mean.

She also recommends the original Manga very highly, especially Nausicaa
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 6:22 AM on November 17, 2007

The Durutti Column

Steve Hillage

What you described makes me think of Hillage's 70s stuff, but it's a long time since I listened to it.

A l-o-o-ong time...
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 3:43 AM on September 18, 2007

If you don't play a musical instrument, learn to play a musical instrument.

In order to make it cheap, put a call out that you need one, and learn to play whatever is the first instrument that someone gives you.

(Could be a violin, could be the accordian. Might even be the pedal steel. Will probably be a basic guitar, but you never know.)
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 4:07 AM on September 10, 2007

My answer to everything: learn to knit.

Learn perl.

Knit one, perl one.

(Sorry.)

Oh, and I just wanted to say that, speaking from personal experience, drink and drugs as a primary lifestyle choice is something I'm less than pleased about. Not for moral reasons, just that it cost quite a lot of money, took up a lot of time (if you factor in hangovers) and I didn't have much to... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 5:38 AM on September 10, 2007

She spun her car into a field
And through the hole in the windshield
She saw the marvellous revealed
In the everyday.

She saw far out into space
Through the sockets in her face.
She saw everything in place,
Nothing in her way.

She saw the thinness of a dime,
She saw a slug secreting slime,
As if for the first time.
Purified... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 1:48 PM on September 3, 2007

You might find this timeline interesting.

Personally I'd like to see the version that I remember Lynch threatening us with, with all the plot cut out and only the wierdness remaining. With extended wierdness. I'd love that.

I always wanted to be in the position to write film blurbs, so that I could describe Dune as "the only film you'll ever see, in which a bunch of men in rubber suits ride a giant schlong across a desert". But thanks... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 12:41 AM on August 9, 2007

redteam: That record was Swampthing by The Grid, whose album featured... Robert Fripp. He does get around, that man.

I'd be remiss if I didn't self-link here - Waiting for the End, SeaSong, Fingertip Testing by Cultural Amnesia.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 1:46 PM on August 6, 2007

Almost, but the N is too wide, and the O too square. And the hook of the J comes all the way round rather than ending at an angle.

Do people mix-and-match typefaces? I've never known anyone to do it (apart from the Futura question mark, of course).
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 2:46 PM on June 25, 2007

FLAKY IDEA ALERT!

There is a line of thought, which you can accept or not as you see fit, that suggests that someone who really irritates you is actually carrying a projection of the things you hate about yourself. So forget about becoming happier about them - just be polite - but pay attention to the things that push your buttons, because these are things that you do, that subconsciously you wish you didn't.

They are not annoying you, you are... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 2:40 PM on June 25, 2007 marked best answer

Another one chiming in to recommend Terry Pratchett - (um ... Ook!) - Although nominally written for adults, I don't think any of his adult books would be particularly unsuitable for children, and although nominally written for children, I don't think any of his children's books would leave a teen or adults bored, patronised or otherwise unstimulated. In fact the latter seem to have been the deeper - he touches on death (or even DEATH), politics and other such things without... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 9:06 AM on June 13, 2007

Cardiacs
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 11:46 PM on April 10, 2007 marked best answer

Thanks to the fact that I have several hundred pictures of fairies to colour in, I spent the day listening to all the Divine Comedy's albums in order, and I came back here to heartily recommend them, even Regeneration.

I still keep hearing new jokes in The Book Lovers.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 11:08 AM on April 11, 2007

Here comes a love song.
There goes a bannister.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 11:05 AM on April 11, 2007

If you want to read about schizophrenia - and if you can find it - may I suggest Operators and Things, an autobiography of schizophrenia by Barbara O'Brien. I thought about it while watching The Trap, as it ties her breakdown very clearly to working in a corporate climate. She spontaneously recovers, too, which is very unusual.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 3:19 PM on March 17, 2007

Busy Line by Rose Murphy.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 11:42 AM on February 20, 2007

Nah, I really would have liked different users in the different languages. We've done the IMEs. On the upside it confirms my smug Mac-user prejudice that Windows is basically shit, and adds a frisson of complication to the process of partitioning the disk prior to installing Linux, which will need to be a two-person rather than one-person job.

Thanks though, it's good to have the failing confirmed.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 11:00 AM on January 21, 2007

No, no CG. According to my wife (who can read the notes in the book/DVD we have of these sequences), it's just incredible attention to detail, and hundreds of takes.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 6:41 AM on December 17, 2006 marked best answer

Apparantly "After fifty takes, the crew get irritable; after seventy takes, they get sarcastic, but Masahiko Sato (the university lecturer who builds them) never gives up".

Free translation from the same book.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 6:44 AM on December 17, 2006 marked best answer

Lounge?

Space Age Bachelor Pad Music?

I always used to find that sort of music in the Easy Listening section.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 11:49 AM on December 5, 2006

I do precisely this with Transmit and an Automator script which runs as an iCal alarm. Very simple.

I have a folder called BackUp into which I put aliases of all the folders I want to back up, and it runs every night at 11pm.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 12:53 PM on November 24, 2006

I went from 115kg down to 80kg a couple of years ago (I'm currently about 100kg). Yes, they went away, but later on (after I'd gone back up in weight and they'd come back) at least a couple of friends confessed that they'd been worried about me. (That said, I was never even close to the bottom of "normal" BMI.)

"Normal" has always been at least slightly boobular, which has given me a distorted body image throughout my life (indeed what spurred me to... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 11:05 AM on October 22, 2006

was this the movie that brought some scorn upon Jerry Lewis?

No, that was the film version of Vonnegut's Slapstick.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 2:32 AM on October 2, 2006

Nearly ten years ago I was temping for a design agency that was supplying artwork to printers (mainly newspapers and magazines - time critical stuff) via ISDN as CMYK JPEG files, but I imagine the call for this is quite sparse these days.

Remember ISDN?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 11:33 AM on September 28, 2006

Problem is, I always stretch the question to fit my own enthusiasms.

Bartok's String Quartets (and Mikrokosmos for piano stuff)

The Kronos Quartet do the original (?) quartet version of Adagio for Strings (from Winter Was Hard, which also includes Fratres). Also their very fine Early Music album.

Michael Nyman (particularly The... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 3:00 PM on September 19, 2006

Roy's death scene from Blade Runner, of course.

HAL9000

There are some great cosmic musings in Dark Star

Barbarella contains so many great quotes ("Screaming! A great many dramatic situations begin with screaming." "He is a Leatherman - they have no fleshy substance" just the first two to come to mind) that you could probably do a whole... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 2:05 PM on September 19, 2006 marked best answer

Dreamhost have suspended their threats to cut off AOL forwards, although they don't allow new forwards, I think. They have suspended forwards to Comcast addresses. They seem to be quite susceptible to spoofing, somehow.

I'm going to attempt a mild piggy-back question rather than set up another hosting question - I'm hosting a site that's important but which I'm not gettin paid for, and yes, for someone who has to answer to other people (even pro bono), DH probs have... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 1:55 PM on September 19, 2006

I can't answer your question except to say that it's not a SoloEtte or a Koopal either.

But thank you for asking the question, as I've very much enjoyed watching the Joyce / Gilberto / Jobim clips and while Googling to see if I can find the answer discovered CalabashMusic, which has kept me entertained most of the evening - I'm listening to the free track of the day now. So, thanks!

(I have a SoloEtte, but mostly play a Godin these days if I... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 3:40 PM on September 17, 2006

When Robert Wyatt did it I went to most of them - amazing stuff: free jazz, stand-up comedy (or at least Mark Thomas), Elvis Costello supported by Ivor Cutler and rounded off by David Gilmour.

Also: indoors with proper toilets and fifteen minutes walk from my house. That's what I call a festival.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 3:36 PM on September 14, 2006

And as regards the redevelopment, check out the webcams.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 3:38 PM on September 14, 2006

But not by the Beatles - they and Martin were present at (and paid great attention to) the mono mix, and generally left the stereo mixes to the engineer. The mono version was the "real" version, it's just that now we've got so used to stereo that we see a stereo version as both inherently superior and the default.

Although they used more than four tracks (George Martin being probably the best source of information on exactly how, and it's a cool engineering... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 1:58 AM on August 24, 2006

I lost ... a lot of inches.

So now you're four feet tall?

Sorry.

What one needs to develop is an objective view of one's body (as far as that's possible), allowing one to make management decisions rather than value judgements.

Such information as BMI is useful for that - when I was a lot younger (and thin, actually) I had a pervasive perception of my body as... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 5:46 AM on July 29, 2006

A few years ago a woman from the Daily Mail phoned to inform me they were doing a piece on Sir John Betjeman and they would like me to companion him in the article, I being representative of the younger English eccentric. She wanted to know if was still doing it. Well, I don't do it, I'm merely myself, as near as dammit, without frightening the housing estates, and her question was absurd rather than fatuous, as it suggests deliberation, rather as though you woke up and decided... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 6:22 AM on July 13, 2006

I am not a scholar (or even half-way informed), but...

Religion seems to be something that develops out of a striking philosophical idea, that would usually stem from a particular individual with a novel spiritual, psychological and/or social critique and methodology who inspires a devoted following during his lifetime and (quite importantly), is developed as a substitute for the influence of that individual.

While the Buddha was alive, there... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 2:03 AM on July 11, 2006

Actually the very end of the Bible is a bunch of bonkers 'shroom-inspired hallucinations. I was talking about the Acts, the Epistles and so forth.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 2:04 AM on July 11, 2006

After Life
The Draughtsman's Contract
Jesus of Montreal
Caravaggio
Stalker
Diva
Notre Histoire
The Discreet Charm of the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 1:35 PM on July 1, 2006

Many people (e.g.)posted links to the Harry Potter Nimbus Broom. Which vibrates.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 7:18 PM on May 27, 2006 marked best answer

This is my wife's quick translation of the buttons. I hope it makes sense:

On the left: at the top, Timer adjustment; at the bottom it's the timer button.

The buttons in the middle are Start (or cook) and Off / keep warm.

On the right, from top to bottom: Soak; choose softness and type of rice; temperature to keep the rice warm at (relates to the blue button).

The icons above the clock (left... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 3:45 PM on May 23, 2006 marked best answer

I think this clip will explain, but it will do so in Japanese.

Anyway, add salt to take away the bitter taste.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 7:36 AM on April 27, 2006

You could even do it with PHP (or similar) writing to a flat file (list of team members followed by a 1 or 0 to signify available or unavailable) and then you wouldn't need the MySQL. You could have a separate file-management page that opened the file into a form and then rewrote the file from the form when you clicked submit.

Do you know any geeks who owe you favours?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 2:02 PM on March 31, 2006

[Star] I think that my biggest fear right now, is definitely getting the Gush.

[Director] As a director I've seen the Gush up close and it's not pretty. The guy just gets locked into an ejaculation that doesn't stop until he's dead.

[S] The first guy that ever was to get it was Dean Dorcy. I've seen the clip. He's doing the snot shot, and suddenly there is this real panic on his face and he just keeps staring down at himself and he's whimpering... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 1:08 AM on March 22, 2006

Devileyezz: Blue Jam was a series originally broadcast in the early hours of the morning. Theoretically a comedy, its main reason to exist was to freak people out. A transcript of the whole episode is here.

It's OK. You can gush as much as you want.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 2:44 PM on March 22, 2006

If they can get past the Scottish accent, perhaps the late Ivor Cutler (you can find examples of his stuff dotted around the net if you look) - lugubrious, very short, sometimes very silly, sometimes just strange.

This Be the Verse could be quite eye-opening, and it's very straight-forward language. And then you'd have all the excitement of looking for a new career.

Orson Scott Card's early short stories -... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Grangousier at 2:21 AM on March 21, 2006