The Royal Rumble is a unique form of the "battle royale" in pro wrestling. Instead of beginning the match with all participants in the ring, the Royal Rumble has a new entrant running in to the ring every two minutes, adding up to anywhere from 12 to 40 total participants. But it almost never happened, because Vince McMahon thought the idea was "stupid."
posted to MetaFilter by misskaz at 12:40 PM on January 27, 2017 (16 comments)

I've been thinking about doing some freelance work in WordPress in addition to my full-time job just to make some extra money. But before I invest in plug-ins, further education etc. I'd like to know what I could realistically expect to make and the best way to handle clients / ongoing website maintenance.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by seraph9 at 9:16 AM on November 26, 2016 (11 comments)

While undeniably contemporaries of seminal '90s Seattle groups like Alice in Chains, Mudhoney and Nirvana, TAD diverged from their peers. While the term "grunge" served as a pitifully poor catch-all for the not-quite-metal and not-quite-punk sounds coming out of the city at the time, the flannel-flying oddball quartet of Kurt Danielson, Steve Wied, Gary Thorstensen and Tad Doyle started out wanting to make the ugliest music they could, albeit imbued with an insular sense of humor. For their transgressive approach, TAD were beloved by their peers, playing and touring alongside them all over the world as their modest city rose in stature as the new model for rock’s future.
posted to MetaFilter by josher71 at 12:15 PM on November 11, 2016 (16 comments)

This is a website about the British Rail Corporate Identity from 1965–1994 which includes a wealth of digitised examples of British Rail design material collected over several years. I hope you find it useful and inspiring, whether you're a practitioner or historian of graphic design, a scale modeller or simply a connoisseur of corporate design at its aesthetically satisfying best.
posted to MetaFilter by jack_mo at 10:17 PM on October 22, 2016 (16 comments)

Why We're Terrified of Fanfiction. A response to the assertion that fandom is broken. All week, Vox has been exploring the world of fandom.
posted to MetaFilter by Caduceus at 5:51 AM on June 10, 2016 (155 comments)

Total Nonstop Action Wrestling is (arguably) the second biggest professional wrestling promotion in the U.S., but it's a distant second. The most coverage it has received in the mainstream press lately comes from behind the scenes, as its co-owner and president has sued the promotion over intrigue regarding a potential sale. Normally, this wouldn't rate a story in The Guardian, but that co-owner/president is Billy Corgan, better known as the front man of Smashing Pumpkins.
posted to MetaFilter by Etrigan at 6:24 AM on October 14, 2016 (27 comments)

Tomorrow night, the Mets face off against the Giants in Major League Baseball's NL Wild Card Game. $1.19 million of the $135 million Mets payroll will be watching from afar. This is not because the player is injured or didn't make the roster. It's because he's 53 years old and hasn't played baseball in 15 years. The Mets will continue to pay Bobby Bonilla $1.19 million each year until 2035, thanks to one of the strangest contracts in sports history. (538Video).
posted to MetaFilter by DirtyOldTown at 9:57 AM on October 4, 2016 (25 comments)

Influential metallic hardcore act Converge are known for melding fast, vicious riffs with more experimental tendencies, as evident on their breakout record Jane Doe. At this year's Roadburn festival, Converge unveiled Blood Moon (recording by Frank Huang), an exploration of some of their more brooding and elaborate tunes (Coral Blue, Wretched World, Cruel Bloom feat. Steve Von Till) with an expanded band featuring Steven Brodsky of Cave In, Chelsea Wolfe (previously), and Ben Chisholm. Invisible Oranges investigates.
posted to MetaFilter by Existential Dread at 12:34 PM on May 10, 2016 (8 comments)

Deadspin's Samer Kalaf spends entirely too much effort on explaining why Stone Cold Steve Austin's "Stone Cold Stunner" finisher is the most important wrestling move of all time.
posted to MetaFilter by Etrigan at 6:54 PM on July 27, 2016 (17 comments)

The Funny Thing About Race in South Africa

It's 1948 and it's the first day of apartheid in South Africa. A jazzy tune is playing, the sun is shining and some white people are lying on blankets on a grassy embankment. A familiar sign pops up: "Whites Only." The camera pans onto a young black man who is taking his place on the lawn as a security officer approaches. "Apartheid? Ahhh, it's today?" he says, as he's being led off the screen. "Man, I thought it was next week."

posted to MetaFilter by infini at 9:15 AM on April 6, 2016 (7 comments)

I'm starting to transition to a low-glycemic index diet, and am trying to come up with some meal plans as well as substitutions for the kind of white flour and white sugar-based cakes and cookies I've always baked. What are your favourite low-glycemic meal and dessert ideas and recipes? It has long been my practice to batch cook just once a week, so make ahead and freeze casserole-type meal ideas are preferred. No recipes containing artificial sweeteners, please, as I don't see them as an improvement on sugar.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by orange swan at 11:53 AM on March 26, 2016 (9 comments)

Walk around South Africa online with Google Street View. Safari means journey in Swahili. See some of the wildlife in Kruger National Park, meander along the top of Table Mountain, around the Kirstenbosch Gardens or along Cape Town's beautiful beaches. There are some people who can never afford to physically come to South Africa and see these places in their lifetime, and hopefully this will give them the opportunity to experience it a little bit.
posted to MetaFilter by nickyskye at 6:51 PM on March 11, 2016 (2 comments)

One of my friends is learning to play bass, I've been helping him out with some basic stuff as I play guitar, but I don't know much bass specific stuff. It's his birthday soon, and I'd like to get him something bass related. Is there a book, a piece of kit or anything really that you'd recommend? The stuff we're going through is mainly blues/rock. Thanks.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Ned G at 5:29 PM on March 11, 2016 (10 comments)

Whatever happened to the animators who worked on Akira? (NSFW) Find out with over 30 minutes of clips that start with a scene from 1988's masterpiece of Japanese animation, Akira, and follow each animator's career across the decades.
posted to MetaFilter by GameDesignerBen at 8:40 AM on February 24, 2016 (17 comments)

As a preliminary to Season 2 of Lucha Underground, comicbook.com is featuring a comic book story bridging the first and second seasons. If you're not already familiar with the show, here are Five Sites Offering Reasons to Watch.
posted to MetaFilter by Ipsifendus at 7:29 PM on January 26, 2016 (4 comments)

Teemu Kallio has created a pure HTML5 909 rhythm composer.
posted to MetaFilter by jenkinsEar at 3:44 PM on December 22, 2015 (37 comments)

The 2015 People's Choice Top 100 Solo Tabletop Games: a list produced by BoardGameGeek's 1 Player Guild in connection with the 1 Player Podcast. Over 200 voters today put the Mage Knight Board Game in the top spot once more, but a number of smaller/shorter games made the top 10 too. The group's FAQ "Why do some people play solitaire board games?" explains how solo tabletop gaming complements multiplayer and digital board gaming. This week, incidentally, the iOS Board Games blog is synopsizing the latter in its annual Digital Board Games Gift Guide.
posted to MetaFilter by Wobbuffet at 10:17 PM on December 17, 2015 (23 comments)

Recently two Wordpress sites of mine were merged into one, by someone else. But some of the images didn't transfer, though the posts did. So at this point, I can go into one of the moved posts with the missing images and the image is just a blank box with the URL pointing to the old website. There are about hundred+ posts like this.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Brandon Blatcher at 8:39 AM on December 19, 2015 (7 comments)

Heather Lindsley's "Werewolf Loves Mermaid," Sunil Patel's "The Merger," and Emil Ostrovski's "Tragic Business" develop humorous situations from SF/F motifs: cryptid romance, intergalactic business negotiations, and the cycle of death and rebirth, respectively. Lincoln Michel's "Dark Air" combines common weird fiction / horror situations with a very dry, very dark sense of humor. Naomi Kritzer's "So Much Cooking" is a serious SF story about a grave possibility, but it brings the matter home via a witty parody of a cooking blog.
posted to MetaFilter by Monsieur Caution at 11:44 AM on November 29, 2015 (9 comments)

I had a freelance pitch accepted from a major national outlet. For various reasons, the editor didn't like it after I wrote it. Now what?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Anonymous at 11:17 PM on November 24, 2015 (7 comments)

Known only as The Grindmother, she is a 67 year-old Canadian woman who has taken up grindcore music and her demonic wailing will peel the paint off your walls. Why the Grindmother is the greatest thing to happen to grindcore in 2015.
posted to MetaFilter by DirtyOldTown at 9:27 AM on November 10, 2015 (40 comments)

I've been listening to Karina Longworth's Hollywood-history podcast You Must Remember This, and it's made me realize that I'm a little culturally illiterate when it comes to movies. Can anyone help me find resources to make a list of movies that I should watch so that I can be the movie-watching version of a well-read person? I aim to watch particularly notable, excellent and/or influential movies and to have a sense of how the medium has developed over time.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:17 PM on November 14, 2015 (18 comments)

For some movies, this seems like it would be a huge task. Credits in the industry are sacrosanct and they have to be extra sure not to miss anyone, no matter how small their role in the production.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by basehead at 12:08 AM on November 4, 2015 (6 comments)

The film Alien Nation was a hit in 1988, so the fledgling Fox Network figured building off its success with a human-alien buddy cop show was a can’t-miss concept....
posted to MetaFilter by zarq at 10:32 AM on October 28, 2015 (86 comments)

Professional wrestler Tommy Rogers (real name Thomas Couch), best known as one half of the tag team The Fantastics, has passed away at the age of 54. According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer, Rogers "...had been having legal troubles in recent years stemming from fighting. He was to be sentenced tomorrow over a fight with police officers and feared a long prison stay."
posted to MetaFilter by The Gooch at 2:31 PM on June 1, 2015 (1 comment)

I'm looking for essays/thinkpieces/papers/etc which critically examine movie reviewing as a practice, particularly its epistemological basis. In particular, I'm thinking of the way that critics typically use objective language to describe films -- this movie is boring and cliched, this acting is wooden, this ending is predictable -- despite the fact that all these qualities are experienced in divergent ways by audience member. Thus you regularly see critics averring that a lowbrow comedy is objectively unfunny, despite the fact that, sociologically, we know that a large number of audience members enjoyed it. Any ideas?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by dontjumplarry at 2:52 PM on March 11, 2015 (1 comment)

Inside, please find a list of forty-three movies, TV episodes, and short subjects by Werner Herzog, all of which can be streamed, along with some short descriptions of their content. One or two of the films are in German without subtitles; this is noted in the description.
posted to MetaFilter by Going To Maine at 10:40 AM on May 4, 2014 (64 comments)

Trinity College Dublin has added high-quality scans of the Book of Kells to their archives. These scans are now viewable by the public online.
posted to MetaFilter by daisystomper at 9:55 PM on March 19, 2014 (9 comments)

"What is a cult film? A cult film is one that has a passionate following, but does not appeal to everyone. James Bond movies are not cult films, but chainsaw movies are. Just because a film has become a cult movie does not automatically guarantee quality. Some are very bad; others are very, very good. Some make an awful lot of money at the box office; others make no money at all. Some are considered quality films; others are exploitation movies. One thing cult movies do have in common is that they are all genre films - for example gangster films or westerns. They also have a tendency to slosh over from one genre into another, so that a science fiction film might also be a detective movie, or vice versa. They share common themes as well, themes that are found in all drama: love, murder and greed." - of the British TV film slots accompanied by an introduction perhaps the most celebrated is Moviedrome, running between 1988 and 2000 and presented first by Repo Man director Alex Cox and then film critic Mark Cousins.
posted to MetaFilter by Artw at 11:40 PM on August 3, 2012 (88 comments)

After several years writing markup in a text editor, I find myself doing some work further up the editorial chain, where the tool of choice is Word. I hate it.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by libraryhead at 7:59 AM on September 4, 2015 (11 comments)

The BBC asks, "Why do wrestlers so often die young?" After aggregating the multiple studies of professional wrestler mortality, a Manchester University researcher points the finger at "cardiovascular disease". One of the studies he examined was a grim University of Eastern Michigan mortality study of 557 former wrestlers which showed that wrestlers aged between 45 and 54 had a mortality rate 2.9 times greater than the rate for average men the same age. And the prognosis for professional wrestlers is even worse when compared to athletes in other American sports. Even when compared to NFL football.
posted to MetaFilter by MrJM at 6:46 AM on August 10, 2015 (43 comments)

Chris Rock on HBO's Real Sports explaining why Black People Do Not Watch Baseball, and Why It Matters
posted to MetaFilter by Potomac Avenue at 3:23 PM on April 22, 2015 (27 comments)

I think I write in a confusing manner. Folks seem to have a hard time wading through my sentences and paragraphs. Maybe it's because I use peculiar words. Maybe I phrase things awkwardly. Maybe I just don't understand how to properly structure a sentence. I don't know. Do you have any advice about how to write in a way that's easy to read and understand?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by sam_harms at 9:04 AM on April 20, 2015 (25 comments)

Gary Dahl, Inventor of the Pet Rock, died in March.
posted to MetaFilter by chavenet at 2:31 PM on July 18, 2015 (32 comments)

Where can I find excellent movie discussion, analysis, reviews, dissection, etc by women? I feel like I have a stable of great film-related youtubers, writers, and podcasters that I enjoy, but they are largely male -- I'd love to discover more current work from women in this area. Thank you!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by churl at 11:30 AM on July 9, 2015 (12 comments)

SNUB-TV was an alternative music TV show that began life in 1987 as part of Night Flight on the USA Network. It was subsequently picked up by the BBC, and ran for three seasons (1989-91) as part of Janet Street-Porter’s DEF II ‘Youth TV’ strand. A diligent YouTube user has compiled a playlist of 64 SNUB-TV clips, featuring artists such as The Cure, The Sugarcubes, Fugazi, The Cramps, The Stone Roses, Ride, Sonic Youth, The Breeders, Primal Scream, The Butthole Surfers among many others. Marvel at the strange haircuts and peculiar music from this faraway time…
posted to MetaFilter by misteraitch at 1:05 PM on June 20, 2015 (11 comments)

I'm returning to freelance copyediting after 10 years on the writing side of nonprofit operations. Educational, business and technical content interest me the most, and that’s where I want to start (I also enjoy research, but how to fit that in?). Can the hive mind help steer me in the right direction? Another challenge: I must do it remotely. Where do I start?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by AnOrigamiLife at 8:08 AM on June 26, 2015 (3 comments)

If you love kung fu and hate Nazis, then today is your lucky day. Kung Fury has been released on Youtube. (Previously, Previously)
posted to MetaFilter by rebent at 5:41 PM on May 28, 2015 (56 comments)

Looking for something to watch this weekend? Why not try the Star Wars: Clone Wars microseries-compiled-into-a-movie from 2003.
posted to MetaFilter by curious nu at 12:00 PM on May 29, 2015 (30 comments)

"Usually the kind of sound effects you heard in the earliest cartoons were strictly sound effects produced by musical instruments. What happened with Treg Brown is entirely different; he would bring in sounds that were recorded in the library at Warner Bros. If someone came quick to a stop, he would bring in a car skid from a Jimmy Carney gangster movie that they had recorded. If somebody was hit on the head and flew out a window there'd be a thunderclap followed by the sound of a biplane in a spin recorded for Dawn Patrol. It was this imposition of realistic sounds into the fantasy world of the cartoons which gave them comic impact."

CRASH! BANG! BOOM! The Wild Sounds of Treg Brown, (Part 1 Part 2 [SLYT]) is a short documentary about legendary sound editor Treg Brown.
posted to MetaFilter by Room 641-A at 7:54 AM on April 25, 2015 (7 comments)

Short stories. Crime. Hardboiled. Noir. Something like that. 700 words maximum. Make it tight. Make it hum
posted to MetaFilter by mrbigmuscles at 6:29 PM on April 25, 2015 (10 comments)

70-pound costumes. A major studio pulling out at the last moment. Rejection from every corner. Most of the industry asking its producers, "Are you guys out of your minds?" 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles': The Untold Story of the Movie "Every Studio in Hollywood" Rejected.
posted to MetaFilter by zarq at 11:10 AM on April 2, 2015 (41 comments)

Youtube user ThomasHuntFilms has edited down the original Star Trek movies (i.e. no Abramsverse movies) to just the scenes with ships only.
posted to MetaFilter by ricochet biscuit at 8:36 AM on March 7, 2015 (60 comments)

A Detailed Explanation of The Varieties of Chinese Dumplings plus a recipe for Vegan Steamed Or Pan-Fried Chinese Dumplings.
posted to MetaFilter by purplesludge at 9:27 AM on February 28, 2015 (52 comments)

I really like the combination of ominous sound and surf guitar influence in East Bay Ray's work with the Dead Kennedys. (Examples would be "Police Truck" and "Too Drunk to Fuck".) Are there other bands who do a similar sort of evil surf sound?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Pope Guilty at 7:46 PM on February 9, 2015 (16 comments)

I have recently become interested in the question of what sort of existence or "being" logical laws, reason, mathematical truths, rationality have. That is, what is the ontological basis of logic? Where does the a priori reside? Is it part of the universe or if it is somehow "absolute" then "where" do these truths reside? Who has theorised about this, can you give pointers of philosophers, and books that have tackled this issue? Did Russell or Frege talk about this? Plato's realm of Ideas seems one approach to the problem but what are contemporary theories?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by mary8nne at 1:40 AM on February 12, 2015 (14 comments)

Nightmares in the Horror Aisle: Exploring the Movie Art That Traumatized You as a Child
posted to MetaFilter by brundlefly at 6:46 PM on January 30, 2015 (71 comments)

Octopus steals GoPro. Sealion steals GoPro. Crab steals GoPro. Human steals GoPro. (Previously: Eagle steals camera, Seagull steals camera)
posted to MetaFilter by gwint at 8:04 AM on January 6, 2014 (46 comments)

The Atlantic attempts to explain how Reddit's Ask Me Anything became a "mainstream delight." [Previously]. [Even more previously]. [Even more previously than that].
posted to MetaFilter by MoonOrb at 10:15 PM on January 7, 2014 (33 comments)

Menahem Golan has died at the age of 85. The name may mean very little to you at first glance, but for those of us who lived through the 1980's, he was a very big part of it. Here's an interview with the late producer and a bit more about his legacy.
posted to MetaFilter by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:49 AM on August 9, 2014 (39 comments)