Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with bear

Long lost children’s book search

goml — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:21:56 -0800

I am looking for a young child's easy reader book from the late 1960s/early 1970s about a bear and his bus. I am 99.999% certain the title is Bumper Bear’s Bus. It had a light blue hardcover that was kind of watercolory in tone and if I remember correctly the cover has a picture of a very cute and fuzzy brown bear and a bus. He may have been wearing a yellow smock/vest/bus driver’s jacket.

I am more than 100% without a doubt positively certain the bear’s name is Bumper (because I had such a difficult time saying BumpeR, instead of BumpeW and I remember my Mom helping me with my “R’s” to say BumpeR, so I am absolutely positively certain without one iota of doubt in my mind that the bear’s name is Bumper).

Bumper Bear drove the bus around town, and I believe the story was about the people Bumper bear picked up for rides on the bus or where they were going on the bus, or things they saw along the way – you get the idea...

Places I've already looked: I’ve asked every member of my family, people around my age (40), I’ve checked used bookstores in person, searched every book finder web site I can think of, looked on google, ebay, half, random sites – NOTHING - Not one mention anywhere, but I KNOW this book existed because I once owned a copy.

Please let my first ever askme question help me find the first book I ever read!

Looking for picture of chain-saw carved bear for tattoo reference - hard to find

bkdelong — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:54:00 -0800

Looking for a picture/drawing of a bear statue from behind (possibly facing forward) - from what I recall, it looked like a chainsaw-cut carving of a brown or black bear out of a tree. Could be B&W lineart of one and I recall the grooves of the "fur flaps" being very deep but symmetrical - not rough-cut and not rounded. Thinking of using it along with a drawn "cub" of similar look & feel for a tattoo. Any help is welcome...looking for reference pics. Everything I find is too cartoony, small, smooth, rough etc. This image projected a feeling of native origin but most native totems of bears look far different. It was almost like someone took an oak, cut off the top about 12-15 ft up, created pointed ears and cut deep, wide grooves to resemble bear fur. The reason I think it was B&W lineart is because I recall a white background. It could very well be a sculpture or another animal.

Bears are mammals of the family Ursidae

a womble is an active kind of sloth — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 07:29:09 -0800

Bearfilter: Help me name this grizzly bear bean bag! My friend recently got a bean bag shaped like a bear and we are struggling to find a suitable funny and cute name for it. So for we had 'Urs', 'An Béar', and 'el oso'.

I thought the hive-mind might have some fascinating suggestions.

Assuming jars of honey are not acceptable...

kenbennedy — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:36:37 -0800

How can we maximize our bear sighting opportunities when we visit Shenandoah National Park? My girlfriend and I are going to be staying at Skyland Resort when we visit Shenandoah from September 17-20 this year. The last time we visited (last Halloween), we stayed in a cabin outside the park, and despite hinking multiple times within the park we were disappointed to depart after not having seen a bear.

We have read this page on bear safety and have every intention of being as safe as possible. That being said, we really would like to see some bears! We aren't going to go leaving trash (or honey jars) around, so what should we do? There is only one road through the park, so other than the chance encounter along the main road, is there somewhere we should hike to? (We don't necessarily want to meet one in person! Just see one/a few in the wild) Are dawn/dusk hours better for seeing them? Should we just hang out on our porch and keep watch? Hang out in the car in a parking lot up the road after sunset? Are we pre-defeated by the season in which we are visiting? I figured fall is better than winter.

Any hints or tips would be appreciated, and of course personal anecdotes are welcome.

Also, if you have any favorite half day hikes in the park, we would love to hear about them.

No One Would Have Believed...

turgid dahlia — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:16:57 -0800

First contact and apocalyptic sci-fi recommendations please. I am a big fan of first contact science fiction, first contact being the moment wherein the human species – generally the protagonists – make contact with extraterrestrial intelligences or artefacts. I’m thinking along the lines of Sagan’s Contact, most of Stanislaw Lem’s work (The Invincible, Solaris, His Master’s Voice and the wondrous Fiasco), but particularly Clarke’s Rendezvous With Rama, Pohl’s Gateway, Budrys’ Rogue Moon and Bear’s Eon.

I find the latter sorts of stories particularly thrilling. An abandoned BDO (Big Dumb Object) filled with mysteries and terrors, which must be explored and scientifically understood. They are equal parts creepy and fascinating.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be an intelligence or an artefact. Baxter’s Moonseed was remarkable, and that was basically about a kind of dirt.

And for me, apocalyptic sci-fi (I’m thinking Footfall, The Forge of God, Blood Music, etc.) is great because it’s fun to watch the human race get wiped out, or nearly so. I know this is technically two questions but I figure science fiction aficionados would be happy to share their favourites in both genres.

So I guess I’m just after suggestions along those lines: hard (preferably) sci-fi about humankind’s first experience with a mysterious alien force, be it hostile, neutral, friendly, or simply extinct; and hard (preferably) sci-fi about humankind being taken to the very brink of continued existence.

bear market investing

jeffburdges — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:34:33 -0800

What are the issues to consider when buying a bear market or market neutral ETF or mutual fund? What are the various strategies these guys employ? I'm particularly doubtful about these inverse index ETFs. How are these different from shorting some index ETF?

Bear Ambition

wolfsleepy — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:41:21 -0800

I would like to wear a bear costume for Halloween, but the only storebought options I have found on eBay and elsewhere online haven't quite matched what I'm looking for. This is basically what I'm after, as a reference. Or possibly even this one or this one. If anyone out there knows where to find something similar that would fit a 5'9" 130 lb person, I would be thankful (bonus points if I can buy it in the Vancouver, BC area) Full disclosure: I plan on drinking beer from a growler with 'Honey' written on it.

I'll gladly pay you Monday for a gigantic profit on Friday.

sophist — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 21:15:28 -0800

Why do the lenders give short sellers the stock? So there has been much talk over the past week or two about short selling. As I understand it, two parties are involved, provided we are talking about regular short selling and not naked short selling. Person A (Andy), calls up Person B (Bill) and asks to borrow some stock for the week. No problem says Bill, just pay me $5 and have the stock back on my desk by Friday. Andy goes out and sells the stock right away, getting $100. Friday rolls around and sure enough, partly due to Andy selling his share(s) and driving down confidence in others, the stock is only worth $20. Andy buys back the stock and delivers it back to Bill's desk, along with the $5 he agreed to pay for borrowing it. He sold it for $100 and bought it back for $20 so he makes $80 - $5 in commission for a total of $75 profit.

My question then is, why on earth would Bill lend out this stock in the first place. After all, he ends up holding a stock on Friday worth much less than it was worth on Monday. When he saw the price dropping on Wednesday, he couldn't do anything about it because he didn't even have the stock to sell if he wanted to. In particular, I have heard that many of the people lending out stocks are mutual fund managers who have large portfolios of many stocks. It seems like there is a huge conflict of interest here because the manager should want to see his fund go up and by lending out his stock to shorters he is driving down the price of the very stocks he is supposed to be managing when some hedge fund borrows thousands of his shares, screams "Sell, sell, sell" on the open market and the shares tank.

Winnie the Pooh needs some TLC

theseampsgoto11 — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:41:21 -0800

Teddy bear/stuffed animal repair in New York that doesn't cost a fortune? I have a stuffed Winnie the Pooh who's about 25 years old and needs some repairs. Mainly, the nose and mouth are ripped and the fur is pretty threadbare.

I tried the New York Doll Hospital, and was quoted $375 ($650 if they replaced the red t-shirt that the bear originally had). I don't know if this is the going rate for repairs, but it's way out of my price range, especially since the bear was originally purchased at Sears and isn't an antique or collectible.

Are there any places in the area I can get him patched up without spending hundreds of dollars?

Restful whistful piano music like this please...

merocet — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:28:26 -0800

Classical Music Filter: Can anyone recommend pieces of classical piano music in a similar style to the Sonatica by Bear McCreary from Battlestar Galactica? I have some Olivier Messiaen stuff in a similar vein but would love more in the same mellow, slightly offkilter and whistful piano style. Thanks!

Where is Smokey?

guruguy9 — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 15:56:45 -0800

Where can I find a Forest Service PSA commercial where a beautiful lady tells you that "only you can prevent forest fires" before she pulls off her face to reveal Smokey Bear?

Help me find a cartoon about a bear

martinX's bellbottoms — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 15:39:50 -0800

I'm looking for a cartoon I saw once with a bear asking permission to go to the prom. It only had one panel and I'm pretty sure it featured the sentence "I live in a subdivision." Has anyone here seen this cartoon?

Is this right? How to write it most simply?

pax digita — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 13:02:17 -0800

For engraving purposes: Tell me (a) if this is right (b) what it looks like in one of the Japanese alphabets. Got a really good friend who has a birthday coming and who, I fervently hope, does not read AskMeFi. He's seriously into bears and is somewhat ursine in appearance himself, and he's living in Japan these days, so in a fit of guesswork, I nicknamed him Kuma-chan for pet bear.

Is that the right way to express that?

I don't know much about Japanese writing systems other than that there's more than one -- I think some symbols are phonic alphabet like Latin and Cyrillic while others are basically a Chinese set of ideograms -- haven't Wikipedia'd to see if that's right. There's...two...?...or five...?...different writing systems?

Anyhow: If Kuma-chan is correct, what's the most engraving-friendly way to represent that in writing? Or if there's a better way to say it, what is it, and how should that look?

Arigato in advance, y'all.

name that children's book

defmute — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 00:14:35 -0800

looking for the title and author of a children's book about a polar bear. i don't remember the specifics of the story except for the fact that it ends, approximately, with the line: "polar bear, underwear." what i remember of the story is that the polar bear is on is way to the shower and involves him stripping down to his "polar bear underwear." i remember the artwork being somewhat strange.

Looking for an unusually talented dancing bear.

OverlappingElvis — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 15:16:05 -0800

I've been looking for a reproduction of a specifc woodcut of a dancing bear playing the violin for a long time (years and years) and I've almost given up hope - can anyone help me find it? Specifically, what I'm looking for is a woodcut or an engraving of a dancing bear playing the violin, from some very old book (no idea what the book actually was) that I read or looked at when I was very young. I've always had trouble describing it well enough to track it down. Google has let me down time and time again, and I'm only asking here on the off chance that someone else has seen this picture, knows where it's from, and has an idea about how I can track it down. The only other clues I can give is that the style is very rough, and the book had other reproductions of small pictures from several hundred years ago. I know this isn't a very detailed question and there's not much to go on, but this is the absolute last place I can think of to try.

yellowstone acommodations

specialk420 — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 19:20:10 -0800

yellowstone accomodations - any suggestions for an especially cool, rustic, funky, fun, offbeat, and or vintage accomodations in or around yellowstone national park- thinking small old funky lodge type place? not the big typical resort type places...

GaySubcultureFilter: Why do bears say "woof?"

fugitivefromchaingang — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 12:52:48 -0800

GaySubcultureFilter: Why do bears say "woof?" As opposed to, say, growling? Because growling is unfriendly?

I'm guessing if I have to explain what bears are, you're not going to know the answer to my question anyway. But bears are the linebackers who never dated girls in high school, or the gay IT guys who listen to death metal, or Andrew Sullivan and Babydaddy of the Scissor Sisters. Or basically gay guys who aren't twinks. Previously.

Finding the best gay bar in the Twin Cities

kavasa — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 23:43:18 -0800

Best gay bar in the Twin Cities metro area, Minnesota? To clarify: my mid-tour leave from Afghanistan* is coming up and I need to get laid with a fierceness. I grew up in Minneapolis but came out in Madison so I really know nothing about the Cities scene. I'm halfway between musclebear and fatbear, and not really effeminate at all (although I don't mind effeminate fags). I'm in my mid-20s and don't really like sleeping with anyone much younger or older than me (think 3-4 years either way).

I know this is a pretty predatory question but I have had zero dick since I joined the Army in May '05 and it is wearing me down. Thanks in advance.

Can a young man with a knife defeat a grizzly bear?

Kwantsar — Wed, 05 May 2004 14:41:36 -0800

Could a typical young man, armed only with a knife, (say, six or eight inches long) be trained to consistently "win" fights with a grizzly bear? Assume no element of surprise.