Ask MetaFilter posts by needs more cowbell

What to look for in a house share situation

needs more cowbell — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 10:22:53 -0800

Young (24) single female looking to sublet a room or share a house with strangers in a large US city. What things should I look for/insist on to maximize my chances of having a pleasant, safe, experience? (I've left the city unnamed because I don't know yet; right now I'm considering the Bay area but I may end up going someplace totally different.)

I've seen lots of nightmare roommate/housemate/rental situations on AskMe. I'm hoping to avoid falling into one of those situations. I'm not entirely naive (if anything, I'm overcautious and slightly terrified about the idea in general) but I'm sure there are things I wouldn't think of on my own. [Example: Previously, I rented a room in a house and the landlord--older man who did not live there--came over to watch TV and drink beer in the living room. I didn't expect that, but the signs were probably there, since he lived next door and still had much of his own furniture/stuff in the house's common areas when I signed the lease. Since the rooms were rented out individually by the landlord, there was nothing in the lease to prevent him from hanging out in the common areas like that. Now I know to be careful about that, but I'd like to avoid having to learn about everything like that by direct experience.]

Ideally I'd like to live in a housemate situation where people talk to each other and hang out in common areas rather than renting a room and not assimilating into the group. At minimum it's important to me that roommates don't steal my stuff, don't do hard drugs or have really unsavory guests, and don't flake out on their bills regularly.

What things are red flags? What things should I make sure to have (like lease specs) or ask about? I realize there are no guarantees in this sort of situation, but I'm sure there are rules of thumb. I'm worried that being too uptight and distrustful will make it hard to get along with roommates, but I also don't want to be overly trusting and then get really, really screwed. I'm open to any sort of advice about this.

Pomegranates are naturally vivid, right?

needs more cowbell — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 09:20:54 -0800

Are the fresh pomegranates sold in US grocery stores colored with any sort of food dye, either outside or inside? It seems extremely unlikely to me, but a produce manager at my grocery store insists that pomegranates are artificially colored or have some sort of dye injected into them.

I can't find any evidence online that he's right, but as they say, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Anyone know if this is ever done?

Help me pick a flash-based mp3 player for my mom.

needs more cowbell — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 08:33:23 -0800

Please help me choose a flash-based mp3 player that will be easy (and loud enough) for my almost-62-year old mom to use while exercising. My mom isn't tech-phobic, but she's not of the younger, tech-saavy generation, and I don't want to get her something that will end up being too confusing and end up sitting in a drawer, unused.

I have a Zen Nano, which I like, but when I've lent it to her to use for a day she tends to forget how to find things/navigate to anything besides the podcast I've set up for her to listen to. Also, she's not hard of hearing, but she said my Zen Nano didn't get loud enough (though it's possible that was a headphone issue.)

I've been considering an ipod nano, but I've never actually used one. How does that compare to what else is available? Any better suggestions? Anything to avoid? Something with an FM radio is a plus, but not absolutely necessary. Size (physical and storage) isn't that important either.

Thanks!

Why does my DSL blink on and off when in bad weather? How can I fix it?

needs more cowbell — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 09:50:01 -0800

Why does my DSL blink on and off when in bad weather? How can I fix it? It's not as straightforward as it seems... When it's raining--or even overcast and about to rain, or drizzling--my DSL goes out. But it doesn't totally go out--it'll work for a few seconds and then cut out, work for a few seconds and cut out. Resetting the connection or turning the modem off and on does nothing. My landline phone service is fine the entire time.

Last time it rained, I did some troubleshooting. I tried plugging the modem into the MAIN phone jack box outside the house and got a fast, perfect connection. When I tried it inside again, the connection was just as bad as before. Every phone jack inside my house was equally bad. And as usual, soon after it stopped raining, I got a perfectly decent connection with the modem plugged into an inside phone jack.

Questions:
1. Why does this happen?
2. How can I fix it besides trying to run phone wire out my window to the main outside jack? (Besides the inconvenience, in order to use the outside jack I have to disconnect the phone access to the rest of the house, and there's no space for a splitter inside the box.) The phone company is not so helpful, and if it's a problem with my wiring, it's not their responsibility anyway.

I've tried to look at the phone wiring in my house to see if there's a weak point (though I don't know why that would only make problems when it rains). It's definitely old, but it's hard to access and there's wiring for two lines plus an ancient alarm system (also hooked up to the phone line), so it's difficult to follow. I'm hoping there's something I'm overlooking that's easier to fix.

How should I dress for my interview?

needs more cowbell — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 08:30:30 -0800

How should I dress when interviewing for a job as a veterinary technician? If I were interviewing for an office job, I'd dress formally, but that seems like a strange choice for a job where I'd most certainly be dressing for comfort and practicality if hired. Would it be okay to wear a polo shirt with jeans or khaki capris and sneakers?

There's also the reality that the interviews are -at- veterinary offices and there's a nonzero chance that I'd get formal clothes dirty/covered with cat or dog hair/etc.

Piggyback question if you'll indulge me: is it true that if a job listing doesn't specify "no calls" it's good/OK to call to follow up a few days after sending your resume by fax or email?

mileage vs. age in used cars

needs more cowbell — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 10:22:58 -0800

All other things being equal, do I pick the older car with lower mileage or the later model with high mileage? I've seen the other thread, but I'm looking for advice that's a little more specific to my situation.

I'm buying my first car. It will be used, probably purchased privately, and it will cost less than $5000. It will probably be a Honda, Toyota, or Subaru (for their known reliability, etc). I also need an automatic transmission & four doors, which limits things a little when I'm looking for cheap cars. I live in Maryland, in case climate matters.

Should I go for lower mileage (under 100K, but probably over 80K from what I've seen) or for something that's newer but with high mileage? What about "really new" cars (say, 2001) that have 150K (or even more) on them? Let's say all the cars have been used for the same kind of driving (highway vs. city) and have been maintained equally well.

One thought I've heard is that ultimately it's rust, not usage, that kills cars, and cars rust regardless of how much they've been driven...hence newer is better, even with high mileage. I'm not sure if that makes sense, though. I had set 100K as an arbitrary limit, but I'm starting to wonder if that's silly.

the case of the disappearing desktop data

needs more cowbell — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 12:46:34 -0800

Firefox-Is-On-CrackFilter: I deleted a non-default Firefox profile and things got deleted from my desktop...not just icons, but folders that I was storing there. How do I recover them? The long story is that my computer got unplugged while it was on, and when I turned it back on, Firefox was screwed up: all of the tweaks I'd made (icons I'd added to the toolbar, any bookmarks--luckily I mostly use del.icio.us--, additional searchbox engines...but not saved passwords, cookies, or extensions) were gone. Not a big deal, but when I re-tweaked everything, the changes disappeared each time I closed and re-opened Firefox.

I made a new Firefox profile to see if the problem would carry over to the new profile. It didn't. I was going to simply set everything up again in the new profile, but then I decided I might as well back up my old profile entirely, uninstall Firefox completely, and reinstall it. I figured that first I'd delete the new profile I'd just made so that I could be 100% sure that the profile I backed up was the (old) one I wanted and not the new one.

When I deleted the new profile (using the firefox profile manager), suddenly anything on my desktop that was actually a file (as opposed to a shortcut) disappeared. These files aren't in the recycle bin and don't show up when I search for them by name in Explorer. It was probably stupid of me to be storing files on the desktop instead of in My Documents, but what can I do to get them back? This seems really bizarre.

filter tips: do I really need one on my wet-dry vac?

needs more cowbell — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 15:50:44 -0800

If I'm using my wet-dry vacuum to vacuum up water only (no dust), do I really need to use the filter? The wet-dry vac in question is a Sears/Craftsman tank style (pretty much like the one here), and the filter looks like this, in case it matters.

I'm asking for my mom. I think she wants to use it without the filter as a cost-saving measure (or to save the filter). Obviously it's not worth it if it'll ruin the vacuum cleaner...

adjusting to RGP contact lenses

needs more cowbell — Sun, 21 May 2006 19:12:03 -0800

Adjusting to RGP contact lenses I got RGP (rigid gas permeable) lenses about a week and a half ago after wearing soft contacts for a few years. At first every blink drove me crazy (and I was blinking a lot), but I got used to the overall sensation of hard lenses within two days or so.

Now, though, I have a different problem: there are intermittent periods where one lens or the other feels okay, but a lot (at least 50%) of the time one lens or the other will feel pretty uncomfortable. The sensation is different from what I experienced when I first got the lenses--it feels a bit like having a piece of dirt or sand in my eye (with no contacts). Putting eye drops in doesn't seem to help. Taking the lenses out for a bit and putting them back helps most of the time, but obviously I can't spend all day doing that in the long term.

-What is this? Did this happen to other people and does it go away?

-Is it a piece of dirt trapped under the lens or can RGP lenses give that feeling for other reasons? It seems hard to believe that I could be getting dirt trapped under the lenses so often.

-Is it possible this is only happening because I'm living in a dusty house right now? Do other RGP wearers have this happen only in dusty places? (I'm kind of hoping this is it, but it's hard to believe that something as tiny as a piece of dust could be doing this.)

I'll be seeing my optometrist on Wednesday for a checkup, but I'd like to get a sense beforehand whether this is something that will get better if I can stick with it or if I'll have to look into other options.

I'd really like for these to work--I've worn soft lenses--disposable toric, nondisposable aspheric, disposable aspheric--and none of them has really given me good enough vision. Glasses annoy me because of the distortion and lack of peripheral vision...

"Richard Cory" syndrome in animals?

needs more cowbell — Thu, 04 May 2006 11:26:42 -0800

Humans sometimes feel depressed or anxious with no apparent environmental cause. Does this happen in animals? Or do humans possibly have brains that are too evolved/sophisticated for our own good, in a way? You might call it the "Richard Cory" syndrome--having everything (or at least having a reasonably okay life), yet being unhappy or anxious to an unhealthy extent. Humans are capable of feeling alone in the middle of a crowd, doubting whether other people's care and concern is genuine, feeling anxious when we know rationally that there's no clear danger, etc.

I know that animals experience some version of anxiety or depression due to circumstances or environmental factors--being abandoned, being in pain, having been abused, etc., but is there any evidence of animals feeling depressed or anxious with no obvious external cause? Or is that unique to us, a side effect of having brains capable of such sophisticated thought? (My logic here is that perhaps having such sophisticated brains allows or leads us to overthink things.)

I'm interested in research but also anecdotes--have you had a dog or cat that seems depressed or anxious despite having had a good, fairly stress-free life since birth?