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Irvine Welsh has a bunch. Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance is your best bet (especially the final novella).
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:44 PM on February 15, 2011 marked best answer

kmz: The Taiping Rebellion itself was responsible for between 20 and 30 million deaths.

And that wasn't all. At the same time the Nien, Dungan and Panthay rebellions all went on. And there's also the Zulu expansion in southern Africa in the early part of the 19th Century. That was extremely bloody (not just the Zulu, but the people they displaced attacked others as well).
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:14 AM on February 15, 2011

I'm Icelandic. Matronyms are uncommon, but have been getting more common in recent years. In the male same sex couples with children I know of the child receives the patronym of the biological father. In female same sex couples with children, the child receives the matronym of the biological mother. I don't know for sure what the situation is with the same-sex couples that adopt, but I'd assume that the child receives the patro- or matronym of one of the parents.… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 1:28 PM on February 13, 2011

Yeah, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report were available outside the US last week. Now they're not streaming. I don't know why that's changed.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 5:19 PM on February 11, 2011

I've had people tell me too that I like films with no plot (caveat: I also like films with strong plots, Winter's Bone is a recent example, though that one might be a movie you'd like).

Here's a list of movies that no one likes but me all right-thinking people love:

Wonderland (the Michael Winterbottom film, not the Val Kilmer film)
Dazed and Confused
The Fountain
Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East?
Kikujiro
A Midnight Clear
Andrey Ryublov
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 5:31 PM on February 10, 2011

In Icelandic it comes down to sound, usually. It's not arbitrary at all. For instance, yen is neuter in Icelandic because words ending -en are neuter. Nouns are usually adapted to the declension system, scone, for instance, became skonsa, which is feminine since words that end in -a are feminine. Words which don't fit neatly into the system, like party, are usually neuter. Sometimes people put the same words into different genders. Coke, which became kók, is declined in the feminine by some… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 8:29 AM on February 10, 2011

languagehat: the basis of a great Georgian joke

Don't just leave us hanging here. The joke may be untranslatable, but it's worth sharing all the same.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 11:24 AM on February 10, 2011

I have seen that scene, but I can't quite place it. Was it in Get Shorty?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:43 PM on February 6, 2011

Do you remember anything about the actors in the scene?

Also, could this be a TV show?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 1:25 PM on February 9, 2011

Dead Prez - Hell Yeah
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 1:52 PM on February 8, 2011

I'd steal one of the names that the Milky Way gets called. The Birds' Path has a nice sound to it, but so does The Silver River.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:36 AM on February 5, 2011 marked best answer

I don't have a phone capable of running Soundhound. I like the internet, but I prefer to leave it behind when I leave the house.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 11:10 AM on February 3, 2011

It wasn't Alison Krauss, Streetlight Manifesto or Espers. The ding could be a glockenspiel, but it was only a single note, repeated.

It was mid-tempo. The song was fairly soft. The music was played at a fairly low volume, so it's hard for me to say exactly how soft it was. The mix was very random, hip hop, bluegrass, indie and so on.

The song sounded fairly contemporary, I think it was probably electronic, but I couldn't make the track out clearly enough to be 100% certain.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 11:37 AM on February 3, 2011

Nothing by Stars, none of the songs in that SongMeanings query that looked promising, nor any of the duets in that thread that seemed likely.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 1:33 PM on February 3, 2011

The singer didn't sound like an Icelander. If anything, he sounded American, but there wasn't a pronounced accent.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:10 PM on February 3, 2011

Oh, and the people at the desk didn't know who'd made the mix.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:10 PM on February 3, 2011

Not Psapp either.

The high-pitched 'ding' note was repeated, it was rhythmic rather than melodic. It was the word "no" repeated a number of times (i.e. "no no no no" though it could be "know know know know" too).
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:52 PM on February 3, 2011

None of these, either. I went to the bookstore again but no one there today knew anything about it either. I guess I'll have to file this away as a mystery.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 7:54 AM on February 4, 2011

"George Bush was president twice?"

For the longest time I though Wang Chung was a guy, not a band (partly it's because I only knew that name from the score of To Live and Die in L.A.).

Here's Chris Matthews yelling at a Tea Partier about how Michelle Bachmann thinks the Founding Fathers worked to abolish slavery.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 6:42 AM on January 29, 2011

Well, if you want to really meta, you could go as Molly Clapper, the fictional heroine of The Amorous Adventures of Molly Clapper.

Or, if you want to go really, really meta, you could go as Preserved J. Nightingale, the roundworld author of Watches Abroad.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:47 AM on January 27, 2011

Not quite what you're looking for but BBC's Horrible Histories does contemporary song pastiches about history and are often quite funny (1, 2).
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 11:08 AM on January 24, 2011

Well, it's slightly complicated. There are different names for this kind of object. In terms of aesthetics and design they're pretty interchangeable, but it's a matter of who makes them. Calligramme is mainly used for the visual poems of Guillaume Apollinaire and people who are consciously evoking his works, for one reason or another. There is a figurative tradition in Islamic calligraphy of creating images out of words, but using the word calligram about that is an entirely Western thing.… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:44 PM on January 23, 2011

To clarify one thing... when I say "it's a matter of who makes them" I mean that similar works have had different names depending on who produced them, e.g. post-WW!! visual poetry usually gets identified as concrete poetry.* Apollinaire's poems are called calligrams, and also the figurative works of Islamic calligraphers. Visual poems by poets from before the 20th Century, whether you're Simias of Rhodes and lived in the 3rd Century BC or if you're 17th Century English poet George… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 3:02 PM on January 23, 2011

Well, it is possible to read everything in a semester. I only managed that twice as a lit. major, but I know people who read everything. The main trick is to remove yourself from environments where you'll be distracted. Some prefer libraries, but I tend to find that I'll have a sudden urge to go read something completely different. I've had the best luck in cafés. Something about the combination of caffeinated drinks, pastries, and a lack of other stimulation helps me read for hours on end and… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 12:15 PM on January 21, 2011

You can't get more historically accurate than the Sagas, novels written in the medieval era by men in the middle of a civil war in Iceland. The Sturlunga Saga is a contemporary account of said civil war. The Kings' Sagas generally feature their share of battles. The two best are usually considered to be Sverris Saga and Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson (a chieftain and prime mover in the civil war) who recounts, as well as a lot of other battles, the Battle of Stamford Bridge. The Sagas of the… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 7:17 PM on January 16, 2011

It's less than ten years old, but it's already pretty close to achieving classic status: The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos (who's most famous work has been writing for The Wire). I'd recommend Ian Rankin and Henning Mankell, but they're best enjoyed if you read their series, each one of which is more than ten books long.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:16 PM on January 15, 2011

The winter of 2002-3 was my first year in the US. Because it was my first long-time exposure I didn't realize that it was a completely insane time. I don't think I can emphasize that enough how crazy things were. The media completely lost their shit in a way that makes the various failings we have today look positively benign. I remember watching Aaron Brown, that shitnosed little pissant of a CNN news anchor, go on about how wonderful and brilliant Donald Rumsfeld was, and this was in the first… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 1:11 PM on January 12, 2011 marked best answer

To add to what SomeTrickPony said, it's also a time when laptops are fairly rare. A few of my friends had laptops the desk computer was still much more common. In cafés you'd see one or two people with laptops, often no one, but they weren't nearly as ubiquitous as they are today.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:15 PM on January 12, 2011

Las Ketchup weren't popular in the US, pracowity. I know because I was there and escaped the whole thing :)
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 6:29 AM on January 13, 2011

The Middle Man is a funny action series.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:05 AM on January 12, 2011

Friends of mine had good luck with a white noise generator. It soothed the baby right down (potential bad side effect: your child may grow up to be a noise artist leading to a lifetime of forcing out smiles as your progeny plays an instrument made out of electrodes, vintage soup cans and a dead goldfish).
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 9:36 AM on January 11, 2011

Oh, and you can test it out with this.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 9:38 AM on January 11, 2011

The fashion show Janelle Monáe video is Many Moons.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 7:29 PM on January 9, 2011

For canon I would start with the Spirouverse (Spirou et Fantasio, Gaston Lagaffe, Marsupilami), everything Goscinny worked on and Hergé and those of his assistants who went on to do major work themselves: Edgar P. Jacobs, Bob de Moor, Roger Leloup and, perhaps most importantly, Jacques Martin. These three strands really define Francophone comics up until the 70s when Moebius and other new voices start being heard (though, as far as Jean Giraud is concerned, a.k.a. Moebius, Blueberry was by far… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 3:27 AM on January 5, 2011

Theodore Geisel was from Massachusetts. Thundered and hundred would rhyme (hundred is pronounced 'hunderd'). You can resume the comedy-nerd-rage :)
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:44 AM on January 3, 2011

Well, not to get too off track, but half-rhymes can be used as bridges, i.e. say you've rhymed 'moon' and 'soon' you can throw in a 'loom' and then go to 'rube' and 'boob.' It's a different kind of poetics from traditional prosody but half-rhymes can serve a function. Furthermore, if you use half-rhymes you've got a bigger set of possible words to use which both allows greater control over content and meaning and also opens up the possibility of a much longer chain of rhymes, this is common in… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 3:05 PM on January 3, 2011

YouTube has quite a lot in its Shows section. All these are legal.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:30 AM on December 31, 2010

There was a medieval lawbook in Iceland called Járnsíða, i.e. Ironside, but I don't think it was ever ironbound. I'll ask around to find out what the reason for the name was.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 5:31 PM on December 28, 2010

After asking around and checking some sources all I can establish is that Járnsíða has been called such since the 13th Century and it's widely assumed to be because one or more copies of the lawbook were bound in iron or had iron clasps, but those copies if they existed, didn't survive into modern times.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 3:30 PM on December 29, 2010 marked best answer

I thought of Linda Hamilton (1, 2).
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:32 AM on December 21, 2010

Orange Juice. Probably the first band from the British Isles to work with that sound.

And I agree on Brimful of Asha, I was gonna mention it, in fact.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 6:46 PM on December 20, 2010

The 702 date refers to Hasan ibn al-Nu'man defeating Al-Kahina at the Battle of Tabarka, but I can't find an exact date for that either. No source I've found gives a date, or even a month. For instance, Sir John Bagot Glubb (what a name!) in his The Empire of the Arabs simply gives the year, while giving more exact dates for other events.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:22 AM on December 20, 2010 marked best answer

Go somewhere secluded and naturey, a beach or woods, and build a small bonfire together. Exchange small gifts, eat lovely food you have prepared, drink cocoa (if it's cold). Invite friends if you know of others who are also spending the day nontraditionally.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 5:54 PM on December 18, 2010

Eden Ahbez, subject of a this MetaFilter post.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 5:50 PM on December 18, 2010

That singer has an accent. I think it's an Icelandic accent. I'll ask around to see if any Icelandic musicians covered All Is Full of Love.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:48 PM on December 16, 2010

So far I have a quasi-hit. One acquaintance remembers that someone here in Iceland would cover All Is Full of Love, but can't remember who, but the style is right. I'll keep asking around. Though this may remain a mystery.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 11:49 AM on December 17, 2010

Some of the Saharan music I posted about a few days ago has quite a bit of hip hop. Song 13 on Music from Saharan Cellphones vol. 1, songs 3 and 10 on Music from Saharan Cellphones vol. 2. There are other songs which are hip hop influenced, and at least one rap in French.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 7:38 AM on December 17, 2010

There's a form you can file that let's you request your casefiles. I can't remember which one, but you can ask USCIS.

Either way, Visa FAQ has a pretty good overview page.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 5:05 PM on December 16, 2010

You can't go wrong with Ursula K. LeGuin. The Earthsea series is a great place to start. The first one is A Wizard of Earthsea. But really, I have read a lot of LeGuin and I've yet to read a bad one.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 5:43 PM on December 15, 2010

John Cusack's other definite teen movie, Better Off Dead, has a similar offbeat, satiric darkness to it as Heathers.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:29 PM on December 14, 2010