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...or how to Buy Beer in the Bad Place. I like to drink my Preferred Beer, and would like to buy it in the least environmentally harmful container. It comes in bottles and cans, for roughly the same price per oz. It is better for the environment to buy glass or aluminum? I imagine glass, because sand is probably way easier to extract from the earth than mining, refining and smelting aluminum? But I also have heard that recycling glass is more expensive (and maybe takes more energy?) than making new glass? [more inside]
posted by Grandysaur at 8:40 AM - 17 answers

I started sewing a couple months ago, I've made a few things and I like it, and now I want to accessorize. If you are a sewer (um ew, is it sewist??), what are your favorite/must-have tools? [more inside]
posted by phunniemee at 11:02 AM - 50 answers

I am a high school art teacher, and I’ve recently moved to an inner-city school. I’m stationed in a ceramics classroom that has not been properly cleaned in many, many years. How do I get and keep this space cleaned? [more inside]
posted by figaro at 5:35 AM - 11 answers

I got this Mabu automatic umbrella in Japan, which opens when you press the button on the handle, and collapses when you press it again. But recently it's started collapsing on it's own when in use, and it's also collapsing with increasing frequency - although it stays open when I leave it open indoors to dry. Can this be fixed/ can I fix it? I don't have an umbrella repair service nearby.
posted by 7 Minutes of Madness at 9:34 AM - 1 answers

I've been enjoying books in the genre of "okay fine just leave me alone and let me be weird." I'm looking for more fiction like Sakaya Murata's Convenience Store Woman or (less cozy) Earthlings, Dolores Reyes' Cometierra, and Han Kang's The Vegetarian. Thank you. [more inside]
posted by phunniemee at 7:49 AM - 43 answers

Going to turn 39 in less than two weeks and been thinking about it awhile. It's not yet 40, but I'm almost there. I'm not sure if this really matters in as much as turning another year older matters. But I'm curious - if you're at this age or around it - what has been some life lessons that you've found valuable? [more inside]
posted by benimaru at 6:50 PM - 22 answers

It's time to update my will, and I'm looking for a worthy organisation to leave an endowment to. [more inside]
posted by HiroProtagonist at 5:14 PM - 17 answers

Last year on my birthday I realized that what I wanted was to just not exist for a few hours, so I tried doing a sensory deprivation float tank. It didn't do the trick. What should I try this year? [more inside]
posted by babelfish at 3:16 PM - 33 answers

I am selling my old truck. It needs a few repairs; I don't know which ones to do and which to leave for maximum return on the investment. [more inside]
posted by mygothlaundry at 4:46 PM - 13 answers

For this I am using the premise that the USA is not far from some type of government issued martial law situation, so I will ask folx to not argue that point. Going by history, what, if anything, should people do to survive as long as possible? [more inside]
posted by berkshiredogs at 3:38 AM - 22 answers

What are some fun events happening in or near Morristown NJ in March? [more inside]
posted by silverstatue at 8:53 AM - 5 answers

And have you had to locate them at any other disparate places? This might be a question about industrialization and capitalization more than anything else, but sometimes in my normal work, I use a window scraper, which gets refilled with normal old-design double-sided razor blades. This co-functionality seems likes dudes working together. More often, in my normal work, I use a stick of bamboo that we've stomped the end of and put a rubber band on so that it can hold a brush that we use to paint while standing. [more inside]
posted by lauranesson at 6:54 PM - 17 answers

I come from a very academic family and my mother (age 84) has recently resigned herself to moving into an assisted living facility. We’re trying to find a facility that has a lot of academics, or other highly educated people for her to interact with. How would we find that? [more inside]
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:44 PM - 14 answers

You're a wizard, Mefite! You're 17, and you're writing a letter home from magical boarding school. But you're not Harry Potter - you're you, and your parents are your real parents. How does it make you feel? [more inside]
posted by wattle at 10:02 AM - 22 answers

My daughter just got her driver's license. Her mom and I had agreed to see whose policy would be cheaper to add her to (we're divorced). We're both with USAA, who said last year that we could call when she got her license to get estimates and then choose. But when I called them last week, they added her to my policy on the spot, despite my protests, tripling my premium. Is this normal? [more inside]
posted by El Curioso at 11:03 AM - 15 answers

Cannabis is illegal where I live. I break the law everyday. I have a 18 month old who’s starting to talk. How do I keep us safe? [more inside]
posted by anonymous at 10:10 AM - 30 answers

When I read about all the parallels between what Trunp is doing and what Hitler and other autocrats have done, I sometimes cling to the thought that because Hitler was unprecedented (at least on that level), in the early stages, Germans didn't see what was coming and in the early days did not know to stop him. But so many Americans do see it, so it's not the same and that will make a difference. Is my security-blanket thought at all true?
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 6:34 AM - 25 answers

What would actually happen if someone came back to life, after being dead and buried for four months? Spoilers for Buffy the Vampire Slayer inside. [more inside]
posted by bluloo at 10:14 PM - 15 answers

Couple of years ago, I saw a tweet about gender ambiguity that I totally relate to - and then failed to save it. Where's that tweet? [more inside]
posted by curagea at 2:07 PM - 4 answers

Please explain to me how Boston's "moving day" works? Kid Blah will be shortly starting his post-college life in Boston, and it's highly likely that he'll be arriving in the city at a time that does not align with this Sept. 1 moving day thing. I've never lived anywhere with this tradition, so…is this truly every rental? [more inside]
posted by BlahLaLa at 11:32 AM - 10 answers