Ask MetaFilter posts by Firas

you're like, too old for this, man

Firas — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 02:08:06 -0800

Guess who needs boots like Marilyn Manson?! Yours truly! Here's the problem, it seems to be a very standard design but we need to try them on and take them home rather than buy them online and wait/pray it works out. Where (greater boston)?

extended wristband

Firas — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 00:12:19 -0800

This question is dumb, (but so am I). I need to find a trivial bit of apparel but can't think of the most direct way of going about getting it. If you check out this video around 0:25 (or 2:13 here), I need that thingie on the bassist's wrist. It's like a wristband but it's thicker goes up the forearm a little more. Were you in the Boston area where would you go to find something like that that doesn't involve just random stores + hope?

I wanna hurt you just to hear you screaming my name

Firas — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 09:57:45 -0800

Suggest some 'love' songs with an uneasy obsessional edge to them? In other words, complete this set:

1- Ava Adore / Smashing Pumpkins
2- Closer / Nine Inch Nails
3- Possession / Sarah McLachlan
4- #1 Crush / Garbage ("I will burn for you, feel pain for you, I will crawl on hands and knees until you see, you're just like me.")

(Bonus points for an urgent/pulsing musical backdrop like this one.)

Babe Ex Machina

Firas — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 19:29:22 -0800

So a common subplot in a lot of movies is that the protagonist has a dull life and suddenly a romantic partner sweeps in and changes EVERYTHING. It spans genres from The Mask to Stranger Than Fiction (and of course the romantic comedy / chick flick industry would go broke without it.) I guess Cinderalla is the archetypal story here. I'm sort of curious about what larger connections there are to this thematic convention—like has anyone written about it, maybe focused more on Cinderalla and gender studies or psychology etc. (My only real thought on the general convention so far is that I think it's a bit of a conceit. Like when Trent Reznor goes "help me become somebody else"—if person X is miserable in every regard and person Y is totally spectacular I have no idea why person Y would fall for X and waste time on filling X's life with rainbows and honey.)

Mystery Equation

Firas — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 04:34:01 -0800

Mystery Equation: x²+y²=(1-z)z⁴ A friend of mine has a bet regarding whether anyone can figure out what it represents. It's supposed to be mildly romantic. Ideas?

Flickr for Clothes, y'all! Good idea?

Firas — Sat, 12 May 2007 23:36:14 -0800

Wardrobe software. Has nobody done this? Wouldn't a social webapp for clothing be fiercely awesome? I'm not the target user really (I assume a hypothetical userbase would skew heavily towards the other gender) but even to the extent that I see it being personally useful, it does seem awesome.

Think something like: being able to list everything, add pictures, define combinations, take pictures of yourself in those combinations, get people to suggest combinations for you, etc. Basically a heavy emphasis on organization and communication instead of just spreadsheet-style itemization.

I know that 'social shopping' is an exploding niche and that people have done this with eg. perfumes (basenotes), but I'm concerned that this may be a solution looking for a problem.

Whatcha think?

Fascination with Brad Pitt's hair and/or hair colour styles for men

Firas — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 15:19:17 -0800

Late last year (November?) I saw Brad Pitt with a sort of patchwork of highlights on the cover of one of those major gossip magazines at a supermarket checkout. Which magazine/issue was it--or more to the point, where can I find an image of Brad Pitt with that look--or even more to the point, is there a more precise way of referring to it than 'patchwork of hilghlights'? Last time I got highlights (Nov 05) I got this whole barrage of questions from the stylist and wanted to just sigh and tell her I dunno, just splash some brown colour on my black hair, I'm just here to look different not to get anything particular done (I really felt quite out of my depth with the vocab of the affair actually). This time I want to have some specific instructions, and figure an image to clone the look of might work well.

By "patchwork of hilights" I mean it was like—gee all I'm actually looking for in this question is a good way to describe it, but I think it was like his hair was dark brown then someone took a blonde colour and dabbed blocks of it randomly around his hair--not just at different positions but at different depths too. I guess it's a fairly intricate thing.

How to Get There? (Greater Boston area)

Firas — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 11:07:09 -0800

CluelessFilter, MassachusettsFilter: "Mobil station at exit 17 off 495 in Franklin". Totally lost about how to find out whether this location is even vaguely accessible via the MBTA/commuter rail? I can plug in an address at the MBTA site but I have no idea how to find nearby addresses or that of the Mobil station at that particular exit.

Quotation (About A Heart, I Think) From Toni Morrison's 'Beloved'?

Firas — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 17:02:33 -0800

In Toni Morrison's 'Beloved', there's some part where—I think a guy gets to sleep with someone he's wanted to in a shed or something—so a motif about this guy's heart being like a closed black tinderbox or somesuch is brought up and upon that moment, he feels that there's a beating heart in there with red blood & the works. Ring a bell? I'm sure something like that's in the book but not sure if it works as a standalone quote. Don't feel like reading through the novel to find it. Halp!

Good FLV Players?

Firas — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 15:05:00 -0800

Looking for a web-based FLV player (ideally want it to approximate the youtube one.) For-pay is fine. The usage has to be just 'pass your flv url to the player and it plays' (ie. not something that requires manipulation in Macromedia Flash to work.) Any pointers? Thanks.