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I don't know where it might be available, but Prime Suspect is a detective show starring Helen Mirren which is single season stories that all follow a single overarching social theme and the characters are really well drawn and Mirren herself is brilliant in the role.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 9:36 AM on March 30, 2020

So, this isn't back pain, this is sciatic pain. It runs down my leg to my ankle and lower when it gets really bad. I've seen the MRIs of my herniated L5-S1. I walked with a cane for 5 years while I was learning now to live with this.

This flare-up is unexpected and was (is not as I type this) severe. I've never had pain like that during my short periods of excruciation. I don't know why they happened, or why they went away, or why I'm doing fine now. It's all a mystery… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 11:05 PM on March 2, 2020

So, just a quick update. I've managed to get the sciatica tamed back down, just a bit of residual pain at the moment and it's getting better every day. Haven't had any of those utterly consuming pain flare-ups for over a week.

I'm still looking into getting new scans done. We're short-handed at work (and I work in a warehouse where missing someone leaves a big hole), and so after we get back to full staff I can start to look into getting time off for that. I'll keep you… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:47 AM on March 14, 2020

If you have an oven, I find I really love oven roasted veggies. Toss some asparagus or broccoli or even brussels sprouts with olive oil and various seasonings you like, put in a foil lined plan on the top rack of your oven at 400F for, oh, until done? maybe 5 minutes, maybe longer. A really delicious and different way from boiling or whatever.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 2:46 PM on March 7, 2020

When I was a sciencey kid around his age or a bit older, I was obsessed with James Burke's Connections television series and the accompanying book was something I read and re-read. It's not heavy on plot, but it is heavy on how science and technology were developed across history and how ideas lead from one to another. It might not be exactly right, but it might be a good side hustle.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 11:56 AM on December 14, 2019

There's this whole thing about shirts I see on UK television shows (like QI, or what I see Graham Norton wear) that men get to wear over there that I don't even know if they are available over here. Very cool prints, but very normal build, shirt-wise. You might look for stuff like that. I wish I had links for you, but it's one of those searches I'm not formulating correctly right now.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 3:18 PM on November 30, 2019

Oh hey! I just remembered this website I keep bookmarked. The clothes are sort of fast-fashion club clothes so they're cheap but you might find things here with fit in with your desire for personal expression while still sort of walking on the side of the line you feel you need to be on.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 7:51 PM on December 2, 2019

In my experience iTunes works with most mp3 players. You plug the player into your computer and it appears in iTunes and you drag and drop or whatever like normal. This may have changed in a past while, but my most recent experience is that it works just fine.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 2:24 PM on November 10, 2019

USB flash drive interfaces on a lot of in-car stereos are pretty difficult to navigate without a lot of pre-planning. I totally get wanting a player to use via the AUX jack, to have a better interface.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 2:31 PM on November 10, 2019

To answer a few questions: I think buspirone is working for me overall. My physical symptoms are more or less under control or at least livable now, whereas before they were pretty much wrecking my life. My symptoms, at their worst, are ringing in my ears, tightness in my throat, shaking hands, unsteadiness/shaking in my knees, sweating, and at the extreme end vomiting. I still don't feel 100% normal much of the time, but I'm able to navigate normal life now instead of being debilitated by my… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 12:35 PM on August 3, 2019

So, in an interesting note, I accidentally took two 10mg tablets this morning before work and that is, seriously, WAY too much to take at once. However, once the BIG parts of the effects settled down, I had absolutely ZERO symptoms for several hours until it was nearing time for me to take my next dose.

So I might talk to my doctor who I am seeing soon about upping my dose a bit. It was a strange little bit of accidental study into what this drug actually does to me. Who… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:40 PM on August 13, 2019

Continuing in this thread: I'm having my dose upped to 15mg 3x a day, we'll see how that goes. I'm trying to seek not being "on the edge" all the time, which I generally am living in right now.

Which is so much better than being in the merciless throes, which is where I had been living before. So, yay! And maybe a bit more, more yay!
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:52 PM on August 28, 2019

I don't have dizziness or vertigo in any way that would be related to this. I do have unsteadiness on my feet when my symptoms are bad but that's not because of being dizzy or having vertigo, it's seems to be related to hormone influx related to panic disorder. Being in bed does not cause me to be dizzy or cause the bed to feel like it's a boat on a rough sea. I roll over, I feel this "thing" in my stomach within a minute, and I'm up heading to the toilet to vomit.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 12:30 PM on July 7, 2019

It's literally not gag reflex related. It's something deeper in my system, I roll over and I get nauseated. It's not, I roll over, and I gag and have to puke. Unless "gag reflex" has a meaning I don't understand, which I'm pretty sure it doesn't.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:57 PM on July 7, 2019

Using a metronome set at a tempo where you can play it like it's a kindergarten piece. Play through, up one click faster, and again. The first several times through will feel stupid. If you get to one where you can't do it perfectly, back off two notches on the metronome and make another pass at it.

I learned ridiculously fast piano passages this way. It can take a while (weeks even) to get to where you want to be, but a certain portion of music is truly just muscle… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:00 PM on July 5, 2019

Numerous female comics of a certain age call them Their First Awakening or something similar.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:00 PM on April 24, 2019 marked best answer

I remember a camel back in the 70s.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 9:24 PM on April 24, 2019

Honestly, I googled, and I still don't know what you're talking about with the one quarter portion thing. I think it's been pretty obvious for decades that writing catchphrases (the early version of memes) is A Thing. The Fonz had several. Bart had a couple, even on t-shirts. Clint Eastwood had them in his movies. As did Groucho. And let's not forget Monty Python. Also, Abbot And Costello, or The Honeymooners, or Laugh-In, or Casablanca, or or or....

Memorable lines in… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:50 AM on April 18, 2019

See, now that's a thing that I wouldn't expect to become a meme, like, ever. How peculiar. I guess people find it useful to express A Thing. That's what memes do.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 4:51 PM on April 18, 2019

I'd suggest joining Meetup.com (membership is free, or it was), and finding groups of people who are meeting who share your interests and going to those events and seeing who you encounter there and drawing connections that way. It's not online dating, but it does involve being online, but you'd be surprised at the diversity and even the specificity of the groups who might be in your area. Plus, you'd be being social within your interest areas, so even if you don't quickly find your person,… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 9:11 AM on April 5, 2019

Subaru Outback Wagon. They have great clearance, all-wheel drive, I've seen them go basically anywhere an off-road outfitted Jeep can go. My partner had a Subaru wagon when I met him 25 years ago, he traded that in for a new Subaru Outback Wagon about 5 years after I met him, he had that car for 20 years, he just got a new Outback Wagon and it's probably going to be the last car he ever buys.

Milage has been consistently 30-35mpg across all these vehicles.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:24 PM on March 7, 2019

John Leguizamo has done a number of filmed theater pieces which are worthy of attention, IMO. I'm not sure where to watch any of them, but I do recommend them.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 1:00 PM on March 3, 2019

While I appreciate the views of naysayers, this is a treatment I have chosen with a therapist I have chosen, and I'm looking for information other than what you are providing here.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 6:05 PM on February 1, 2019

Buying a used car from a car rental company is a good way to know that the car you're buying has been well maintained and is low milage for its age. Cars that rental companies sell generally have about 12K miles for each year, so a 3 year old car would be about 36K, which isn't much for a modern car.

Leasing is something that I really think only makes sense if having something very much in the range of "new" and being willing to exchange that regularly for the… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 11:20 AM on January 19, 2019

100km/day is the absolute max I'd be comfortable recommending

Wait, what? That's roughly 60 miles, which here in the US is 1 hour of driving.

Did you leave out a zero?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 2:50 AM on September 6, 2018

I regularly drive 400 miles for work in a night, and that's roughly 650 km, and that's 7 hours of driving on well developed interstate highway. I'd put that as an outside limit for driving, as that is pretty exhausting even when the road isn't boring but you've driven it so many times you have it memorized and it's not even really driving it's being a robot.

So, adjust according to driving conditions and personal experience and such.

Also,… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 3:06 AM on September 6, 2018

BlahLaLa: I'm a bit at a loss about how early December is prime summer tourist season. Also, are you recommending to me the horrible hotels or the ones a step above?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 1:24 PM on July 15, 2018

There's a Best Western about 1/2 mile away from the venue. One of the nearby underpasses is a storage venue and the other is a transient camp.

So are you recommending this hotel to me? Or steering me away from it? This is opaque to me. Please explain.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 1:57 PM on July 15, 2018

Ensure and other similar things are really great for the times in my life when I'm not eating for whatever reason but require replenishment in my body. Get the high protein version. Basically anything I can drink, kefir works, and also dairy like yogurt or cottage cheese. These have kept me alive for as much as a couple of months at a time when food was all turning to sawdust in my mouth.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 1:37 PM on May 19, 2018

I've been keeping food in my system so blood sugar doesn't sound like a part of it, but maybe. I sometimes get HOT sweats during these periods, usually toward the end of the height of the tremors when it's, for lack of a better term, retreating back to my middle.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 9:59 AM on January 14, 2018

During the mental fog time I feel pretty anxious or panicky. I can sort of "breathe my way out" of those, but yeah I'd say I'm having those. I was so disoriented in my own house one day last week I was standing in the hallway wondering where my bathroom was.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 10:04 AM on January 14, 2018

I am not taking any medications at the moment.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 10:30 AM on January 14, 2018

So, panic attacks... do they just happen, even without any trigger? Also, I don't really feel any sense of panic during much of this process, just mostly annoyed that the vibration is starting again for reasons I don't understand. It's really only at its height when I'm tremoring and can't walk and can't really think that I start to feel any sense of what I might call panic.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 10:32 AM on January 14, 2018

No, it just starts, lasts for a while (meaning usually hours with perhaps more than one peak/valley pattern), and then goes away, sometimes fading out, sometimes like a switch being flipped off. And then might be back later the same day or might be basically gone or at least minimally troubling for several days, and then back again.

Like, today, I was awakened at 3am by feeling the vibration. I had just been asleep, that's all. And had slept without issue for hours.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 11:42 AM on January 14, 2018

I'm really appreciating this Ask. It is helping me clarify my thoughts about this a lot.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 12:03 PM on January 14, 2018

It feels more like a humming or a vibration, like (as suggested above) an electric toothbrush. But I'm making list of all the suggestions here to talk to my doctor about, because I'm entirely mystified. This experience is bizarre.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 10:14 PM on January 14, 2018

Thank all of you for your input. I really felt more prepared to describe my symptoms when I went in today. Of course, today is one of the days when I'm not feeling bad, but oh well. Apparently the doctors on duty had a little meeting and nobody had any clue what is wrong with me. They took a bunch of blood and the thyroid thing is something they are going to test for. I don't know what all else they are testing for.

Apparently they're going to try to get me in to a… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 10:10 AM on January 16, 2018

Blood tests all came back normal. Trying to get an appointment with a neurologist now, but connecting with their new patient intake desk is proving to be oddly difficult. Will call yet again tomorrow.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 7:45 PM on January 22, 2018

So, just a little update. I'd been trying to get an appointment with a neurologist and when I finally talked to someone at the new patient telephone prompt they told me that it might take a months to get an initial appointment, but that when I have a bad day of symptoms again I should go to the emergency room.

So, that happened on Monday. I spent 7 hours in the emergency room, had an EKG and MRIs and blood tests and all kinds of things...

I was… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 6:52 AM on February 10, 2018

Janet Jackson - Rhythm Nation has the kind of formation dancing I found thrilling in the 80s, and still wish we saw more of today. (c.f. Thriller)

(speaking of Thriller, you can learn how to do it, if you want to)
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:11 PM on October 4, 2017

My gut feeling based on your description of the situation is don't take the new position, but do a weekly job search in your field for a lateral or even a step up new job if you're looking for new challenges and possibilities.

If you're comfortable where you are now, you are free to look for the RIGHT new job, rather than the one before you right now.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 8:30 PM on August 30, 2017

I think that maybe thinking in poetry but writing prose might help with how the final words end up for this. Sometimes thinking with word images helps create a turn of phrase that can end up being particularly resonant.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 2:52 AM on June 9, 2017

Another Pet Shop Boys track: The Sodom And Gomorrah Show
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 11:33 AM on May 5, 2017

Ages ago, I used to perform Son Of A Preacher Man as part of an acoustic coffee house guitar duo. Two guys. It was fun. Total sin.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 9:47 PM on May 5, 2017

As a furry I live in a world where the existence of Muppets isn't even questioned. It just is. Just like there are giant cartoon animals walking amongst us. Working at jobs, driving cars, going bowling, just living lives like all of us. Muppets do the same thing as all of us, because they simply are.

What's next? An AskMe about why rocks occur?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 10:36 PM on April 21, 2017

I swear that at least once a human host of the Muppet Show encountered a Muppet version of themselves, which has creepy implications.

Paul Williams is possibly the most famous for having this happen. He doesn't seem to be too creeped out by it, really. I know it happened with more than one guest star, too.

While searching around a bit I found a raft of articles from 2015 talking about how journalists treat the Muppets like… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 11:40 AM on April 22, 2017

If you want to get a bit more toward the idea of "gem" and "gem chips", you can get something like this, which is 1.3mm round cut diamonds, typically used in a pavé setting. I'm not sure if these are .01 or .02 carat stones. Anyway, more expensive, but actually cut and shaped like gems. Plus, if someone wants diamond chips instead of something shaped like a small gemstone, they are super easy to shatter/crush.

I'm not sure what the diamond dust you've… [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 1:18 AM on April 6, 2017

Are spark arrestors / screens even necessary for chiminea? I grew up in southern NM and was around a lot of them where new log splits were fed in through the top because they were too long to go in through the front. I've seen them used also in AZ (both low desert and higher northern AZ) and in central WA without any screen or spark guard.

I don't know what your situation is, but I don't think they're really required.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 2:04 PM on March 17, 2017

Maybe a smartphone-enabled garage door opener? Although I remember #1 getting shut out of his house once when the interwebs were down.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 3:23 PM on March 10, 2017

Okay, I have links to the three big award winners by my friend in my MetaFilter profile now, for those who are interested in seeing those.
posted to Ask MetaFilter by hippybear at 7:06 AM on January 28, 2017