lookin

Algorithm! Ah got aisle seats! Ah got peanuts! Who could ask for anything more?

C'est possible, but I once ordered a something-or-other at a French restaurant where they put a half-dozen dots of a blueberry reduction on the plate. Like you, I thought they were just for decoration, but they turned out to be intensely flavorful bits of heaven. My own kitchen experience was with a chicken dish I was making that called for boiling half the water out of a cup of fresh orange juice and using it as a glaze. What with one thing and another, I lost track of it and twenty minutes later found little more than an orange paste at the bottom of the pan. I used it anyway and it was outrageously tasty! So my policy, on the rare occasions when I eat someplace fancy, is to at least sample everything on the plate.

No problem, I'll get right on it! Plus it looks like I might also have a week or two in April, so please do let me know if you'd like me to test out a nice fresh Marjolaine or something.

Way back in junior high, it occurred to me that I might be just a brain on a shelf hooked up to an experimenter's electrodes and playing out his scenario of a lifetime. What seemed like years to me could be just a few seconds in the lab. It was fun to think about, though I concluded I'd have no way of knowing. Hopefully, there wouldn't be any kind of a power outage.

I pooh-pooh'd nuclear energy for decades and then decided to give it another look about five years ago, when it seemed the only possible solution for providing the energy we currently consume. Then I came across an article that said there has never been a civilization that existed as long as would be necessary to store nuclear waste until it was no longer life-threatening. Perhaps it will be feasible one day to shoot it off to the moon. Assuming, of course, we don't need to go live there ourselves. I've long felt that Mother Nature would eventually take the decision out of our hands. If Earth can't sustain us now, when we number 7 billion, how will she sustain us when we double that number? I sure couldn't prove it, but I've also felt for a number of years that it's no coincidence that homosexuality is becoming more accepted as the number of humans increases. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing blow jobs become more popular than bassinets.

And I am proud to call them my friends. Seems to me that pedants will thrive independent of what they're being pedantic about. So long as it's something that doesn't matter all that much.

Perhaps they should send all us dumb folks to Guantanamo. Just as long as we could watch a little TV.

You might want to give them a quick sniff before eating a whole one.

I'll say! I've been photoshopped out and replaced by a janitor's bucket.

It's never too late: . . . and with Carl Reiner and Imogene Coca:

Wow! Seems like half my friends were in the hospital during this past week. Hope your stay is as beneficial as theirs was! Also, very glad to see your sense of humor is intact. The thought of anything on your wish list making it through the graspy fingers of this crowd is highly entertaining!

Not so fast!

Doesn't do that for me. I could be wrong, but I thought it was the browser rather than the website that checked spelling. Next time you run in to a bad spell try right-clicking the errant word. With Safari, I get a pop-up menu that lets me drill down and change the spelling dictionary that Safari uses. Both U. S. English and British English are options. (You can also turn off spell chekking all together. )

'You can talk about your dreams but there was a peacherino' Fun link!

The Monsignor swears off Linguine alle Vongole right before bedtime

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.

I never thought of it this way and it shows the limitations of communication in a low-bandwidth medium like a message board, as well as my own. There have been many threads, especially on Daddy's site, dealing with posters' personal losses, usually pets but sometimes family, friends, and lovers, or even the memories of those losses. I don't recall a single instance when those personal losses were not treated with respect, compassion, and support. And such threads were never highjacked. It's one of the things I like about the folks who populate both boards. I feel terrible that I wasn't able to realize from your post the personal connection you had with Philip Seymour Hoffman and, even if that were not the case, you make a good point about pausing to respect the passing of any fellow human being, even if (s)he hasn't touched one of us personally. It never hurts to bow our heads when one of our fellows is taken from us. Again, sincere apologies for not being aware of your connection.

Is this a trick question? For me, the most appealing way to post is to post what you feel like posting. But it's not always an effective way to prevent highjacking. And the most effective way to prevent highjacking so far seems to be castigating those who highjack. But, again for me, it's not very appealing. My thought was to post a "Do Not Highjack" statement in threads that you don't want highjacked, letting folks know up front that you want them to stay on message, and not to bother responding if they can't. This may not qualify as effective and appealing, but it's the best solution I can think of. What would Justin Bieber do?

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.

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

Perhaps he's on his way to a Nobel Prize in Physiology as the knocker in question is nearly as big as his head. The unblurred photo seems to show more of a love bite than a suckle so I expect the Peace Prize is out.

Sadly, it looks like the heroin that Hoffman got was the fentanyl blend. Unless he was an informed and practiced user, he didn't stand much of a chance. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2550708/Authorities-investigate-possible-link-killer-heroin-fentanyl-batch-Philip-Seymour-Hoffmans-death.html

Go for it! You're both champions in my book!

For me, things got a little clearer when I realized I wasn't required to have an opinion about everybody else's behavior. More relaxing too. I can generally judge my own behavior OK because (1) I have most of the necessary information and (2) I can sometimes do something about it. Drug use is an especially tough one. Not everyone's brain is wired the same way and reactions to the same drug can vary for different folks. Some are easily addicted and some not so much. Even alcohol can be a pleasant diversion for some and a life-changer for others. All I know is how it affects me. I think I'd enjoy the effects of heroin, if I could get past the idea of sticking a needle in my arm or someplace. But even then I wouldn't know until after I'd done it. And what if I turned out to be one of the unlucky ones? There's apparently a blend of heroin and fentanyl making the rounds, leaving lots of dead bodies in its wake. The drug dealers are said to factor a lost-customer rate of 5% or so into their calculations figuring they'll make it up in new customers looking for a higher high. For me, it's best not to bother. The hardest part is figuring out how someone's actions may impact others. Hoffman's death will no doubt cause misery for his partner and kids. I regret his actions more than I do Bieber's whose parents would be devastated, but are capable of taking care of themselves. I don't buy into the idea that either one 'owes' anything to his fans or to society at large. If JB's fans or S-A-L want to tie their wellbeing to a goofy nineteen year old kid I think they've got deeper issues than he has. So my plan is to remain a casual observer of his antics, hope for the best, and give him a hearty klop should we ever become more intimately involved.