MetaFilter

The Earth album The Bees Made Honey in the Lions Skull is a personal favorite. Huge, desolate country sound.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Shovelshark at 1:13 PM on August 18, 2015 marked best answer

I struggle with pro wrestling. It's an odd culture and I'm confused by what its fans take from it.

And yet, I'm entertained. And you can't ask for more, can you?

Godspeed, Roddy.
posted to MetaFilter by Cool Papa Bell at 4:38 PM on July 31, 2015

When revising, read your writing aloud and see how it sounds.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by gemutlichkeit at 9:09 AM on April 20, 2015

Damn. Now I'm hungry and the closest decent Dim Sum is four hours away. Also, char siu bao, my favorite, gets short shrift in TFA.
posted to MetaFilter by achrise at 10:46 AM on February 28, 2015

Is this stuff usually more... Fun?

Last year's Royal Rumble was the first wrestling PPV I ever saw. A few weeks prior I had been flipping through the channels on a Monday night, and came across Monday Night Raw. I paused for a bit, and watched a bearded dude get pressured into chanting "No!" by an even more bearded dude. I had literally never watched a second of wrestling before in my life, but I could immediately tell that a good guy was... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by misskaz at 7:07 AM on January 29, 2015

The sad thing is that, as undeniably talented and oddly charismatic as Daniel Bryan is, and as strong a connection as he has to the "smart" fans, there are reasons why he _shouldn't_ be the long-term Face of the Company.

His fearless style does lend itself to injuries -- like concussions, a detached retina, torn tendons, and nerve injuries like the neck issue that had him out of action through most of 2014, and from which many wondered if he would return at all.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by delfin at 6:30 AM on January 29, 2015

Also - what was that one crazy wrestling shit? It was sorta like Lucha Libre + Kaiju battling? It was mostly amateur? I don't know if it still exists. I think they did wacky shit like... disco dancing in the ring and shit? Like just having fun as hell.

I suspect you're thinking of Chikara (previously). When they're on top form it's about the most entertaining thing ever. Such joy. It's painful to watch the turgidity of WWE once the indies get you... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by coleboptera at 2:24 AM on January 29, 2015

No, see, Roman Reigns is, in kayfabe (i.e. wrestling storyline land) a Good Guy. The Authority are the bad guys, and Roman is against the Authority.

The problem is that in real life, WWE wants Reigns to be the One. So the real life WWE writers wrote the storyline so the ostensibly good guy but actually shoved down our throats too quickly so now we resent him guy wins. They expected us to cheer. This is different than if they wrote a kayfabe Bad Guy to win - in that case... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by misskaz at 6:42 PM on January 28, 2015

My girlfriend and I have a copy of the base game, and for the life of us we can't work out how to play. We both play MtG (her quite seriously) but netrunner has us scratching ouour heads. Any suggestions for how to play guides that might help?
posted to MetaFilter by Braeburn at 4:17 AM on January 24, 2015

"Just because you may have suffered for being a geek or nerd, you don't get to be a gatekeeper."

"I really just don't even get this impulse."As Gore Vidal once said of the Puritans, that they didn't leave England to escape persecution but to find a country in which they could freely persecute others, geek culture seems to so often focus on finding ways to exclude others and wrapping them in its own persecution... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Blasdelb at 12:11 AM on February 11, 2014

Eh, every underground scene, once it begins to gain some kind of left-handed popularity, attracts fakes. Geekdom is no different. Goths refer to them as "posers," and if feeling especially arch, a "u" could be inserted into the pronunciation. Pick any once-niche, now-trending scene you like, it can happen. Fakes always want the same thing: to suck up the status and attention in any manner which allows them to skip the hard work and sacrifices made by those who came in on... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by adipocere at 8:00 PM on February 10, 2014

The Biggest Loser to me represents the absolute nadir of pretty much all forms of human cruelty. It's never about seeing people better themselves, it's about sating the latent thirst for humiliation that the target audience "normal" sized people seem to crave. The early episodes of every season are about watching overweight people pushed FAR beyond their physical/mental capacity until they vomit and break down emotionally. Then when the truly unworthy are weeded out, they run the rest... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mediocre at 11:04 AM on December 2, 2013

it's the Minutemen.

Hey! I toured Japan in a trio with Watt! The man's out of his mind! (In a good way)

(basically)
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite at 2:02 AM on October 12, 2013

This is a guy who has been utterly pathological if not criminal in his neglect of fiduciary duty towards the bands whose records he released, and who is not on speaking terms with any but one of his former bandmates in a 30+ year career.

I just remembered something! I used to have a band, in the 1980s in NYC, called Semantics, with Ned Rothenberg (sax) and Elliott Sharp (guitar). We released two records, the 2nd of which was on SST (Ginn's label).... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite at 12:50 AM on October 12, 2013

He's got nothing better to do
than pick a band from the label and sue?
posted to MetaFilter by boo_radley at 2:57 PM on October 11, 2013

"Finding out that wrestling is fake isn't the end of appreciation for it: it's the beginning."
-Merle Vincent, wrestlecrap.com

I know I quote this in nearly every wrestling thread, but I can't help it; wrestling is awesome.
posted to MetaFilter by Uther Bentrazor at 8:54 AM on September 15, 2013

Maffew does this in the Botchamania series as a segment he calls "Everybody talks too much"
posted to MetaFilter by deezil at 8:42 AM on September 15, 2013

Catching the wrestlers calling spots is one of my favorite things about watching the show! It gives some cool insight on how they perform those insane physical acts. This post rules! YES! YES! YES!
posted to MetaFilter by smackwich at 5:57 AM on September 15, 2013

The Story of Film is bloody great. Regarding Cousins and his soporific speech patterns, he actually reminds me of Adam & Joe's lampooning of (also Northern Irish) poet and critic Tom Paulin, as Tom Tortoise.*


*Hilariousness of clip may be enhanced/degraded depending on your familiarity with shite late 90s UK TV shows and BBC2's Review Show, but, to quote Mark Twain, I repeat myself.
posted to MetaFilter by Len at 12:21 PM on September 3, 2013

My mom worked in PR when I was growing up, Hollywood kind of stuff. It was a great childhood--endless swag T-shirts, movie screenings all the time, riding in limos occasionally, etc. We were never high flyers ourselves, so it was amazing to have relatively constant access to that world.

One of the highlights of my childhood was seeing the NY (maybe world?) premiere of the Princess Bride at age 12. All the more so because it was my first date ever! I took a girl I had... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Admiral Haddock at 4:27 PM on September 25, 2012

Seriously? Not to denigrate anyone but the morality play of professional wrestling is kitsch at best. My own father was glued to the set watching these battles, just one of the things that separated us. As a child I could recognize the artifice please Mefi enlighten me. What am I missing?

I have to agree. My father was a big fan of the theater. One time he took me to see The Cherry Orchard. I stood up in the middle of the play and yelled, "This... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ActingTheGoat at 7:04 PM on July 9, 2012

So, I worked at NOA's correspondence department during this time.

We answered each and every letter we received by hand. It was part of the corporate culture at Nintendo to treat every customer with respect and personal attention.

After a few months on the job, I developed a system of macros that would allow me to concatenate a highly personalized letter from my stash of about 150 pre-written paragraphs. My numbers shot through the roof, and I... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Aquaman at 10:18 AM on March 20, 2012

I've spent the past year and a half of my life in library school, and about three years before that working in some capacity in rural, suburban, and urban libraries, and currently I'm currently at a cross-road in terms of whether or not I want to work in public libraries. There's a constant state of fear and malaise among the professors, the guest speakers, and the students – a constant question that we, the students, get asked is “so, uh, do you guys have any ideas?”... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by codacorolla at 7:52 AM on February 12, 2012

Ah crap, I do this. It's because I was taught that immediately aligning with someone by showing that something similar happened to you = good way to make friends. Gentle reminders help. "Hey, you just interrupted me, and I wasn't done telling you what I needed to tell you. I'd love to hear about what you experienced, but can I say what I want to say first?", as do more direct ones: "Dude, way to be rude! :P Here I was thinking I'd get to tell you all about X problem and you make... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by These Birds of a Feather at 12:55 PM on March 29, 2012

Savage/Steamboat was a great, classic match. Probably one of the best of all time.

I'm going to be a heretical wrestling fan and say that while I think Savage/Steamboat is a great match and a blueprint for "how to craft a classic" that has served wrestling well for decades, it has long since been outclassed by what has followed. I'd rank Ric Flair/Steamboat in 1989 over it in a second, and probably Flair/Steamboat in 1994 as well. Although... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mightygodking at 8:25 AM on March 29, 2012

Bobby Heenan was the best heel manager, and the best heel commentator, on the planet for so many years. It's really a shame that throat cancer took that away from him, and took him off of our TVs.

Also, uh-oh, it's the Botchamania Wrestlemania special.
posted to MetaFilter by uncleozzy at 5:26 AM on March 29, 2012

As a life long wrestling fan, I love it when MetaFilter talks of the wrasslin goodness.
posted to MetaFilter by deezil at 10:18 AM on March 11, 2012

I've gotten so used to death being a part of the past of Formula 1, that this hit me pretty hard.

Likewise. Today's crash felt like it belonged to another era of motor racing, and that doesn't reflect well on IndyCar.
posted to MetaFilter by holgate at 5:04 PM on October 16, 2011

Do hotel clerks really have the ability to offer complimentary upgrades?

I did when I worked in Las Vegas and you didn't need to tip but it would help. It will depend on occupancy and the availability of upgraded rooms. At Mandalay Bay high rollers get first dibs and the casino will have the hotel hold rooms for such people (sometimes they'll release them back to the hotel, other times not. They're usually in the computer as not being available so if... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by birdherder at 5:46 PM on September 28, 2011 marked best answer

I know you already made your decision. But in case you're still a little worried, I thought I'd reassure you it's the right one, by providing some examples of more typical British behavior.

A few assholes mugged a Malaysian student who had been injured during the riot. The rest of London raised £22,000 to "do something nice for him."

A few assholes trashed London's streets. The rest of London showed up the next day with brooms.... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by yankeefog at 5:31 AM on August 14, 2011

When someone earlier said his wrestlemania 3 match was considered his best, in what sense was it his best?

Wrestling is performance. When someone says his Wrestlemania match with Ricky Steamboat was his best (and I personally go back and forth between that one and his match with Ric Flair at Wrestlemania 8, but whatever), it's like saying "The King's Speech is Colin Firth's best performance ever." It's strictly a matter... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by mightygodking at 11:50 AM on May 20, 2011

I was Randy "Macho Man" Savage's next-door neighbor for a year in 2000 while living and surfing on Sunset Beach in Treasure Island, Florida.

It was kind of cool. I'd see him all the time. His beard was colored black and he was actually kind of short but really stocky. He was actually a pretty big guy for a sort of small guy. (I'm 6'5" so I noticed.) On Sunset Beach, with his beard and bandanna and trademark sunglasses, he looked like a pirate. He totally... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Mike Mongo at 7:28 PM on May 20, 2011

I have been using Mangle to convert .cbz manga (Specifically Lone Wolf and Cub) into nice Kindle 3 formatted files.

This method works very well for B&W Manga but doesn't work particularly well for full colour comics. Although they are readable.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by gergtreble at 2:43 PM on November 18, 2010

Ah, good ol' SST! One of my bands from the 80s had a release on SST.
posted to MetaFilter by flapjax at midnite at 4:27 PM on September 18, 2010

Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth kind of defines sprawling, I think. 12 songs in about 70 minutes.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Miss Otis' Egrets at 7:47 PM on August 29, 2010

I have to ask, am I the only one who thinks he stole a few things from Top Gear

That's no accident. Jay Leno wrote in 2008 in the Times of London about how he was asked to host a US Top Gear but didn't want to ruin it.

"I would prefer to do a different show rather than try to copy something that works so well already."
posted to Ask MetaFilter by ALongDecember at 5:36 PM on January 17, 2010

The Osmonds' Crazy Horses. One awesome fucked up song amidst their entire career of awful Mormony pop bullshit.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hamsterdam at 12:03 PM on December 21, 2009

"Better Man" from Pearl Jam was the best track from Vitalogy, which was a huge difference from their previous two albums. This was the album where everyone started scratching their heads, going, "huh?" and marked where the band started heading straight downhill.

This was also the last contribution from drummer Dave Abbruzzese, who was fired shortly thereafter. Jack Irons and others performed some of the tracks on the album, with... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Cool Papa Bell at 10:11 AM on December 21, 2009

When faced with zombies, the most important thing to establish is what kind of zombies you're dealing with:The Romero/World War Z - These zombies are your classic slow-moving, generally mindless undead. Strong but stupid, they drop from a headshot or other massive brain damage. These can be outlasted, but you're looking at a timeline of years-to-decades, depending on your climate. Very cold (Canadian/Russian) winters make them easy pickings, hot and swampy gives them places to hide but rots... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Decimask at 5:14 PM on July 5, 2009 marked best answer

If you do not have direct knowledge of the answer of this question from an REI employee, please do not answer.

Even if they have a really good answer? Possibly a correct one that adds to the conversation but which they didn't get by working there or getting the answer directly from an employee?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by dmz at 11:23 PM on August 18, 2008

Sometimes kids won't believe the truth anyway. True story. I'm in a taxi with my niece, who is five, and my sister (her mother).

Niece: Were there dinosaurs when you were little?
Me: No the dinosaurs were all gone a long time before that.
N: Before Grandma was little even?
M: Yes, even before Grandma was little.

[Pause as five year-old tries to imagine such a time]

N: What happened to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by The Bellman at 12:35 PM on April 9, 2008

My daughter, nine, sleeps in; I like to get up and be in front of the computer working by four or five a.m. Last weekend when I was putting her to bed she looked at me and said "Dad, I want to get up really early tomorrow morning like you and we can go for a walk—I've never seen what it was like outside that early." Then she told me she knew that when the morning came she would be asleep and I would decide not to disturb her, so she made me promise to wake her up no matter what.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Turtles all the way down at 11:12 AM on April 9, 2008

don't why more people didn't like Tad

I'll second you on that. TAD were fantastic! Shame their stuff is virtually all out of print now (come on Sub Pop, where are the reissues of God's Balls/Salt Lick/8-Way Santa???).
posted to Ask MetaFilter by macdara at 11:11 AM on August 5, 2007