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A gentle rebuke from the OP should suffice in most cases. Of course, it wouldn't hurt if Oz were to incorporate BoyToy,com in a "stand your ground" jurisdiction.

I really loved the Google Doodle today in support of gay rights in Russia!

Too intimate too soon:

A few days ago, another poster commented that his serious thread was trivialized by off-topic comments and by posters trying to be funny or by showing discomfort with a serious topic. I know I've been guilty over the years of straying off topic and I'll add my apologies for my irrelevant comments and feeble attempts at humor. I also know that most of my threads have been highjacked, often before they got off the ground. But it's rare that I don't enjoy whatever course they end up taking. Maybe it's because I like the banter as much as I like the subject matter of the thread. If it were really important to me to stay focused on a particular topic, I'd either limit my discussions to friends off the Board, or I might try to bring the thread back on topic. If that didn't work, I'd figure I was just interested in something that others weren't. At least not that day. Maybe they wanted to think about it for a while. It's sure not my intention to offend anyone with my posts, so I'm now a little gun shy about posting anything even slightly off-topic. If a poster were to put a "Do Not Highjack" statement in the thread, I'd definitely honor it. What do others think? Is that a workable solution? Or is there some better solution for making a thread highjack-proof? By the way, this may be a deadly dull topic so if anyone wants to take this thread into alien airspace, please be my guest.

Bieber would probably throw some SCAT at your house..... (notice how I worked Bieber AND Scat into the same thread) I would hijack MORE threads, but I cant run in Heels.....

That's offal! I grew up near the Pennsylvania Dutch country and often enjoyed a slice or two of scrapple with breakfast. That is until my high school English teacher told us what was in it. "Pigs' ears!", she said. "And snouts!" "Ew!", said I, and never ate it again. I have a recipe for making it with pork loin and went so far as to add sage and thyme to my spice rack, against the day when I get the urge. But I have a feeling it would come nowhere close to the delicious stuff we got from the Farmer's Market all those years ago. A friend who's a very good cook tells of a couple of ladies from New Orleans who served up turkey necks on rice with gravy at an annual food fest. He said it was one of the best dishes he ever had. It's funny how completely a dish can lose its appeal just by knowing what's in it. Mince pie was another favorite until the self-same English teacher told us it was made with hamburger. That was enough to put me off it. Love hamburger. Love raisins. Love pie. But hamburger for dessert? I'm sure it's my loss for never having the lip-smacking pleasure of a steaming bowl of cuttlefish testicles, but there you are.

You must have me confused with someone else.

I have a lot to read before I kick the bucket. But, I have made it to 42 of them. How about you? http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=8192263011

42 for me too, if I can count Little House On The Prairie being read aloud to the class by my third grade teacher, one chapter at a time, one day a week. I loved it. I still can remember the anticipation of waiting for the next chapter. Damned TV show just didn't measure up to the memory.

Actually, I'm kind of glad that Paragon warned me off before I said something really snotty about Mr. Hoffman. I think it was only a day or two later that I found out he was (probably) closeted and dealing with sexuality issues on top of everything else. Funny how being able to easily empathize with a particular set of problems can alter how you think about something. ==== So you thought maybe you could get away with back-handing a fellow poster without any one calling you on it, AdamSmith? Away with you moldy rogue, away!

One more "aviator" remark. Aviation from day one has had very serious consequences when sometimes minor errors are made which led to an "attitude" generally adopted by many aviators and that is to denigrate the idea of death. For instance, buying the farm only means no longer living to aviators. I would rather die than look bad is bravado often attributed to fighter pilots (and others). Going west is another way of expressing death. Some "others" get the point and some do not. Macabre humor or attitude is not limited to undertakers. Just FYI. Best regards, RA1 PS- Are not some of the best "jokes" told at wakes which by no means is there any intention of making light of the situation, only relieving stress.

Looks like a good list, has at least one of my all-time favorites. Wish there was a massively discounted 'buy all' option!

Hijack is a very serious situation for aviators. So, is it my anti-establishment inner being that urges me to do so in a forum? Only my shrink knows and he ain't tellin'. Best regards, RA1

What a strange article. Many places here in the South make note that they use every part of the pig except the squeal. Pig's feet, hog jowl, mountain oysters as well as cracklins, intestines, etc. are all prepared and eaten foods hereabout. I suppose every country and culture has their own food habits which is neither good nor bad, it just is. It seems that in the US we overbuy as well as overeat, both of which lead to waste. Many foreigners are somewhat aghast at our restaurant portions but they soon learn. Best regards, RA1

Only 23. Hmmph! But then, any list that starts with To Kill a Mockingbird... "It's interesting that all the folks that are buying it don't know they are reading a children's book." -- Flannery O'Connor

Just make sure you stop at 99 Does seeing the movie version count? If not, then I am only at 33.

I think the hijack complaint referenced in the OP is a specific instance of a general question -- conceivably the central question -- for community forums such as this: What is the most effective and constructive way to influence the content and subject-matter behavior of fellow posters? By telling them how and what you wish they would post? Or to lead by doing, posting the kinds of things yourself that you want to see more of? Which do posters here find more effective and appealing?

A little humorous diversion here...anytime someone uses the word "educated" and Bieber in the same sentence, I can't help but think of his appearance on Letterman. For a bit of a chuckle (wait for it towards the end)..... http://youtu.be/PI_pwLyeoqk

Wonder if Leif will be using some of his old pix to jump start his comeback? Tiger Beat eat your heart out. ==== Interestingly enough, Garrett had some advice for the Bieb recently: • Do not believe your own publicity. • Sussing out who your real friends are is full-time work. • Every scum bag, every drug dealer, every chicken hawk wants a piece of you. http://www.queerty.com/justin-bieber-warned-to-beware-of-chicken-hawks-by-former-teen-idol-leif-garrett-20130820/ Full story here: http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/08/19/leif-garrett-to-justin-beiber-dont-believe-your-own-publicity/

Personally, I'd be grateful for any pointers Her Majesty cares to share.

Russell Brand: Philip Seymour Hoffman is another victim of extremely stupid drug lawsIn Hoffman's domestic or sex life there is no undiscovered riddle – the man was a drug addict and, thanks to our drug laws, his death inevitable Russell Brand The Guardian, Thursday 6 February 2014 10.05 EST Philip Seymour Hoffman: 'The troubling message behind his death, which we all feel without articulating, is that it was unnecessary and we know something could be done.' Photograph: Jamie Simonds/Bafta/Rex Philip Seymour Hoffman's death was not on the bill. If it'd been the sacrifice of Miley Cyrus or Justin Bieber, that we are invited to anticipate daily, we could delight in the Faustian justice of the righteous dispatch of a fast-living, sequin-spattered denizen of eMpTyV. We are tacitly instructed to await their demise with necrophilic sanctimony. When the end comes, they screech on Fox and TMZ, it will be deserved. The Mail provokes indignation, luridly baiting us with the sidebar that scrolls from the headline down to hell. But Philip Seymour Hoffman? A middle-aged man, a credible and decorated actor, the industrious and unglamorous artisan of Broadway and serious cinema? The disease of addiction recognises none of these distinctions. Whilst routinely described as tragic, Hoffman's death is insufficiently sad to be left un-supplemented in the mandatory posthumous scramble for salacious garnish; we will now be subjected to mourn-ography posing as analysis. I can assure you that there is no as yet undiscovered riddle in his domestic life or sex life, the man was a drug addict and his death inevitable. A troubling component of this sad loss is the complete absence of hedonism. Like a lot of drug addicts, probably most, who "go over", Hoffman was alone when he died. This is an inescapably bleak circumstance. When we reflect on Bieber's Louis Vuitton embossed, Lamborghini cortege it is easy to equate addiction with indulgence and immorality. The great actor dying alone denies us this required narrative prang. The reason I am so non-judgmental of Hoffman or Bieber and so condemnatory of the pop cultural tinsel that adorns the reporting around them is that I am a drug addict in recovery, so like any drug addict I know exactly how Hoffman felt when he "went back out". In spite of his life seeming superficially great, in spite of all the praise and accolades, in spite of all the loving friends and family, there is a predominant voice in the mind of an addict that supersedes all reason and that voice wants you dead. This voice is the unrelenting echo of an unfulfillable void. Addiction is a mental illness around which there is a great deal of confusion, which is hugely exacerbated by the laws that criminalise drug addicts. If drugs are illegal people who use drugs are criminals. We have set our moral compass on this erroneous premise, and we have strayed so far off course that the landscape we now inhabit provides us with no solutions and greatly increases the problem. This is an important moment in history; we know that prohibition does not work. We know that the people who devise drug laws are out of touch and have no idea how to reach a solution. Do they even have the inclination? The fact is their methods are so gallingly ineffective that it is difficult not to deduce that they are deliberately creating the worst imaginable circumstances to maximise the harm caused by substance misuse. People are going to use drugs; no self-respecting drug addict is even remotely deterred by prohibition. What prohibition achieves is an unregulated, criminal-controlled, sprawling, global mob-economy, where drug users, their families and society at large are all exposed to the worst conceivable version of this regrettably unavoidable problem. Countries like Portugal and Switzerland that have introduced progressive and tolerant drug laws have seen crime plummet and drug-related deaths significantly reduced. We know this. We know this system doesn't work – and yet we prop it up with ignorance and indifference. Why? Wisdom is acting on knowledge. Now we are aware that our drug laws aren't working and that alternatives are yielding positive results, why are we not acting? Tradition? Prejudice? Extreme stupidity? The answer is all three. Change is hard, apathy is easy, tradition is the narcotic of our rulers. The people who are most severely affected by drug prohibition are dispensable, politically irrelevant people. Poor people. Addiction affects all of us but the poorest pay the biggest price. Philip Seymour Hoffman's death is a reminder, though, that addiction is indiscriminate. That it is sad, irrational and hard to understand. What it also clearly demonstrates is that we are a culture that does not know how to treat its addicts. Would Hoffman have died if this disease were not so enmeshed in stigma? If we weren't invited to believe that people who suffer from addiction deserve to suffer? Would he have OD'd if drugs were regulated, controlled and professionally administered? Most importantly, if we insisted as a society that what is required for people who suffer from this condition is an environment of support, tolerance and understanding. The troubling message behind Philip Seymour Hoffman's death, which we all feel without articulating, is that it was unnecessary and we know that something could be done. We also know what that something is and yet, for some traditional, prejudicial, stupid reason we don't do it. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/06/russell-brand-philip-seymour-hoffman-drug-laws

Yep! Massive similarity to the photo just above with the stripper's titties is purely coincidental... Or maybe she was photoshopped in to hide the truth of their love!!!