MetaFilter

Something's wrong with the Segway if even the leader of the Free World and his noble father can't dominate it. Or could it be vice-versa?
posted on Jun-13-03 at 5:37 PM

Hilary Rodham Clinton Lets It All In: I couldn’t speak. I could hardly breathe. I was gulping for air. I couldn’t take it any more. There was only one thing left to do. I took it out of my mouth and bundled it back in his pants. A parody by Craig Brown, the man who dared follow in Auberon Waugh's steps, from Private Eye.
posted on Jun-11-03 at 8:10 AM

Laugh as much as you like: I still think there's a certain intensely dramatic and lyrical redneck technique behind these country music song titles. I like a song title that says everything upfront. It's not as easy as you think, either. [Via Bifurcated Rivets]
posted on Jun-9-03 at 6:42 PM

Are You Spy Enough? Put your skills to the test. [Via Bifurcated Rivets. Flash required.]
posted on Jun-7-03 at 6:15 PM

Don't ring 638-234-5837 whatever you do: it's MetaFilter's phone number. Mine, I'm leasing to slippery old KY Jelly: 004-GEL-1-FUN. All this because - so I'm told by a French friend - you backward Americans actually still have letters on your telephones, along with the rotary lever to crank it up. [From LinkFilter.]
posted on Jun-2-03 at 6:30 PM

I find this relaxing - should I be institutionalized?
posted on May-29-03 at 4:38 PM

The most reliable computer you can buy is... June's Consumer Reports surveyed 39,000 readers and...dare I say it? That not said, how reliable are reliability reports?
posted on May-27-03 at 2:54 PM

Here is the Michael Jackson Nasal Exchange Mechanism: Now name that nose! And, if you don't like it, go ahead and make a face of your own ! [First link via Bifurcated Rivets. Usual Flash restrictions apply.]
posted on May-23-03 at 6:54 AM

Screw Major Tom! "Oscar 1 was battery powered. Its signals lasted for about two weeks. The batteries were not rechargeable". Awww..... Here are the actual sounds of the first satellites. In fact, I may just become a MeFi musician just to sample them. So there.
posted on May-20-03 at 8:02 AM

The first time ever I saw your face: Is beauty perhaps not entirely in the eye of the beholder? [Via LinkFilter.]
posted on May-17-03 at 10:02 PM

My Luddite Bunny: amazingly, no animal was harmed during the photographing of this nightmare. Repeat after me: I will never let one of those reactionary hijos de remil putas a bunny into my house.
posted on May-13-03 at 10:56 PM

[Your message here] Teehee! There can be no better spokesman for your particular passion or beef than Al Sahaf, the brave, beloved ex-Minister of Information of Iraq. It detects what country you're posting from and presents its own commercials first, but it's worth browsing about (the Top for All Countries is the best place to start). [Feels like a double post, smells like a double post, but apparently not. Flash req. Via Bifurcated Rivets.]
posted on May-9-03 at 11:57 AM

De Niro non disputandis est or, in English, don't fuck with Bobby De Niro. Which is what the English have been doing recently, naming Al Pacino as the greatest movie star of all time. Askmen.com is a little more appreciative but also brackets Pacino with De Niro. The American Film Institute [pdf format] will be giving De Niro their 31st Lifetime Achievement Award on June 12 but - there they go again - he's merely described as "widely regarded as one of the most skillful actors of the last three decades". Is nothing sacred anymore? Who's the man [read "of a certain age, experience and cojones"], after all? I mean, after Jack Nicholson, of course. Now I'm all confused!
posted on May-8-03 at 1:44 AM

Guinness is Good for You: Find the poster of your birth year; of the year you had your first glass of Guinness; of the year you swore off the stuff. Try to find a way to link to one of them. Despair. Pour another pint. It's all good. [Flash req. "Argentina 1952" works for the login.]
posted on May-5-03 at 4:27 PM

Putting you off your breakfast: A searchable bonanza of disturbing galleries of plastic food and drinks. Mad props! Find the pancake! Claes Oldenberg! [From the impressive Barnard Ltd. Store, via Linkfilter.]
posted on May-2-03 at 2:35 AM

Still legal after all these years and slowly but surely taking over the Internet: The Mullet. Why?
posted on Apr-29-03 at 7:29 PM

Een woord: LOL!!!!!!!!!!
posted on Apr-27-03 at 6:02 PM

We Have Cameras Magazines: Why is Maxim offering a free, no-catches 2 years subscription to anyone who can be bothered to give them one of their spamsucker e-mail addresses? Hey, I hate Maxim but I'd take one if I lived in the U.S, if only to keep the postal service busy and ingratiate myself with my nephews. Will all magazines - at least the shittiest ones - be free in the future? Subscription rates, sales and advertising revenues keep falling and it seems the only bargaining chip magazines have left (to solicit advertisements) is circulation. And still new mags, like Radar, keep popping up. Good thing? Bad thing? You tell me.
posted on Apr-25-03 at 8:08 PM

Gawker Stalker and The Elevator Chronicles: I'm a sucker for genuine celebrity sightings (in my experience, they're true if they're thoroughly disappointing and boring) and Gawker has been having a whale of a time with them. The unfolding Elevator Saga (starring Anna Wintour, the editor of Yank Vogue) and Gawker Stalker are great fun, even for profound thinkers such as myself. [My paltry celebrity sighting inside.]
posted on Apr-24-03 at 7:05 PM

Is your cat too superior? Giving itself the airs, is it? Who does it think it is? Deck it out in one of these hats and see its dignity plummet. [Scroll down for the headgear; site in Japanese but pics in universal colour. Via Linkfilter.]
posted on Apr-23-03 at 11:04 AM

Like a hole in the head, like an old Onion link, like an outburst of cholera, MetaFilter needs these custom-made Flames. But some of them are hilarious. And anyway, as has been posted before, we didn't start the fire. [Flash needed for this latter golden oldie. Via Linkfilter. NSFW.]
posted on Apr-20-03 at 10:18 AM

Is the U.S. the last Western country where wild animals can be kept as pets? Why? And why not? Although this is definitely cute and this is even cuter, it's just not the same. When I was young, several of my friends with ranches kept pumas. But no longer - it's now illegal in Argentina. Though I understand all the problems, I fail to see why, in principle, it should be. If hunting them is - aargh! - allowed and promoted, why not owning them? Does anyone know of any resources on the Net about buying and owning wild cats? Or indeed wild animals in general? I couldn't find one to balance this post. Where do people get them? How do they know how to keep them? [Though I did find a very amusing column about ferrets in Jeremy Clarke's column for today's Spectator...]
posted on Apr-18-03 at 1:54 AM

All that's cat, all that's hep? Huh? I am utterly mystified by not quite sure about the website, which seems to be Italian, but the pictures are cute and the music snippets that you get when you click on the covers sure are strange and funny and sweet...and I wish I understood what it's in aid of! Can anyone here tell me what these Old Woogie guys are up to? Are they evil? Are they devious? Or are they just tragically enthusiastic?
posted on Apr-16-03 at 11:33 PM

Yessir, you're my baby! Eeeeewwwwww.... Is this the end of masculinity as we know it? In a word: yes. And I don't mean maybe. Not that this would ever happen in a hot-blooded Latin country, mind you. Not safe for you workers - get back to work! [Via Linkfilter.]
posted on Apr-14-03 at 8:26 AM

Coffee, our nan? Is this "Would you like some more coffee, Grandmother?" or Kofi Annan? Oh and mathowie - are you sure the Irish Haughey is pronounced Howie? [Check out Charles Haughey for the proper way.] Thank you, Voice of America, for teaching us how to pronounce those pesky foreigners' names. And shame on you, BBC Pronouncing Unit, for not being online! [This last link requires Real Audio but is really worth listening to if you have anything against stuck-up English twits.]
posted on Apr-12-03 at 6:44 PM

Ough!* I pronounce the English language unpronounceable: Arriba! Arriba! Arriba! Speedy Gonzales here. When will you make up your minds and stop making fun of pestering us poor foreigners? I mean, it's not as if you yourselves can agree on how to pronounce almost anything... [*As in "plough". Not as in through, , thought, thorough, thought, hiccough, lough or enough already!]
posted on Apr-11-03 at 5:23 AM

Geography Humiliation Central: Too many damned What a wonderful diversity of countries! A very annoying stringent set of tests, designed to expose showcase our ignorance knowledge of the political geography of the world we live in. Whether it's Africa, Asia or even Europe, South America or the United States, I seem to know only the really big ones them all. In fact, I've never been so ashamed proud in my life.
posted on Apr-9-03 at 9:06 AM

"My Wife Dated Idiots" says Michael Douglas. He, on the other hand, kept strictly to Nobel Prizewinners. Insecurity, assholiness and (admittedly) Simply Red's Mick Hucknall apart, why is it that for ex=XX or ex=XY, one's own exes are always better than one's partner's exes?
posted on Apr-8-03 at 3:45 AM

Just what exactly was Calvin Klein, the Fashion Designer, saying To Latrell Sprewell, the Basketball Player? [Photo and more inside.]
posted on Apr-6-03 at 7:42 AM

Possibly the greatest band that ever existed is only a few fingerprints away: your own, created right here! [Via Bifurcated Rivets]
posted on Apr-5-03 at 3:25 AM

So there's this elk carcass on my front yard and two dogs inside who refuse to come out. One is snoring. And I have guests arriving soon.... No, it's not a joke. It's far funnier than that! [Via Linkfilter]
posted on Apr-3-03 at 6:33 PM

Women of Our Time: Great photographs; great photographers; a great collection. The commentary and the presentation do them proud. From the National Portrait Gallery. [Via Portage.]
posted on Mar-23-03 at 10:20 AM

White supremacists reach out to other assholes: Simon Doonan, in this week's New York Observer, reports on the soft underside of Manhattan.
posted on Mar-20-03 at 3:35 AM

You'd better come home, Speedy Gonzalez! Just make sure you never drive through New Rome, the fascist little village Car and Driver said was too far-fetched even for Hollywood. [Via Linkfilter.]
posted on Mar-14-03 at 7:17 AM

There's more than one way to skin swing a cat: Add the new Puma ads and upstanding PETA feminists have their work cut out for them. [vid.avi download thing; via Boing Boing.].
posted on Mar-11-03 at 2:24 AM

Women in the Middle Ages [er, 1969] and now. Here are funny articles on money, work, sex and some other things, from the wonderful Pussycat Magazine. Women may have "come a long way, baby" - but have men? Do some of them still secretly approve of - or yearn for - the ideal woman of days gone by? Or, given the present climate of surrendered wives and secondary virginities, are there still some women who agree? [Even though I harbour a secret suspicion Pussycat Magazine is at least partially written by men...]
posted on Feb-27-03 at 2:53 PM

Busker Dü: You're short of money. You're not afraid to make a fool of yourself. You have no pride. You have a musical instrument to abuse. Well - that, apparently, is easy. At least if you're a Guardian journalist. But what else can a feller do these days to drum up that old "Buddy, Can You Spare A Dime?" spirit?
posted on Feb-26-03 at 1:55 AM

Ask not for whom the Bush burns: it burns for Blair. [Quicktime req; via Bifurcated Rivets.]
posted on Feb-24-03 at 8:04 PM

Make Love Not War - Again? The anti-war movement has all the best slogans. And quite rightly too. Which doesn't mean they're not still rehashed, unimaginative and lame. "Don't attack Iraq"? "Make tea, not war"? Don't make me laugh. What's the best you've come across, if at all? And why are the hawks so lacking in the most basic sense of humor?
posted on Feb-23-03 at 7:31 AM

Take this life and shove it: So goodbye then, Johnny PayCheck. Even the very British and conservative Daily Telegraph honoured you today with an affectionate obituary [Reg. required: full text inside.] I wonder how many unrepentant rebel-singin', cocaine-sniffin', bar-brawlin', hard-drinkin', good-lovin', corn-munchin' musicians there are left. And whether any of the young 'uns today will be able to keep up, livin' the life, as long as you did. Even though you too eventually succumbed to preaching against drink and drugs. I suspect most of the new generation will become health freaks by the time they hit forty and that you, Sir, were one of a dying breed.
posted on Feb-21-03 at 1:44 AM

Your cat? Yeah...perhaps. Maybe. Mine? Certainly not! This Internet thing - it lies, right? The money you spend on litty litter: how many important paperbacks would it buy?
posted on Feb-18-03 at 11:21 PM

"That's not gaming; that's just typing!" A time-waster to end all time-wasters, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I love it! [Just type the letters as they appear, Flash req.]
posted on Feb-17-03 at 10:03 AM

Calling the Mefi decoding police: What the hell is this all about? [may be NSFW]
posted on Feb-10-03 at 5:52 PM

Baby, It's Cold Outside: Perhaps it's unethical - well, it's certainly incestuous - to draw your attention to one of madamjujujive's great links on quonsar's brilliant Meepzorp blog ("Where, thank the Lord, it is always Friday" - Christian Science Monitor, 18.12.76). But what about linking two? Bouncing Baby and Gulp are two great Flash pieces that address the question of nurture; motherhood; the oral nature of pleasure; the ontology of fuzzy gratification; the metaphysics of the transition from womb to nipple and other meretricious bullshit justifications for fun.
posted on Feb-7-03 at 8:52 AM

The, er, Spanish protest song comes of age, sort of: When bad oil spills happen to evil but otoparasitical Spanish pop songs in a crap video, but in a nice way, I say Hey Hah! Or rather: Aserejé! [Flash for the first link; Real for the third; both in Spanish. FRIENDLY WARNING: Do not click on the third link if you're not yet addicted to Las Ketchup.]
posted on Jan-29-03 at 1:45 AM

You're an animal and you're obscure - that much is clear. But which one are you? Perhaps you're an obscure band? Or a strange being? Or just some punk? Either way, I think we should know. ;)
posted on Dec-31-02 at 12:18 AM

The Clone Crone: Is Brigitte Boisselier the scariest woman of 2002? Will she replace the Bride of Wildenstein in our epidermic disaffections? The Sunday British tabloids seem to think so. How much does protagonists' physical appearance influence our perception of public events, such as the alleged cloning of a human being? [ See MeFi's recent thread.] Are rampant male chauvinism and female cattiness making a comeback? In other words, would people take the other, more famous Brigitte more seriously if she were still beautiful? Or a man?
posted on Dec-28-02 at 9:25 PM

Monumentae Rumsfeldiana: A soundbite competition for future tombstone use. [But should a British state-owned corporation like the BBC make official fun of an senior American government minister? Real Audio req. ]
posted on Dec-22-02 at 8:09 PM

Come up and see me, make me smile. [Flash mouse-over from Bifurcated Rivets.]
posted on Dec-19-02 at 4:19 PM

Will Sir be needing a catchy slogan to go with that acronym?
posted on Dec-5-02 at 2:07 PM