Some of the games at MySpace, particularly the ones designed by Zynga (such as Dragon Wars, Vampires & Mafia Wars) have these quests, missions or whatever, whereby the player can win some sort of valuable or powerful item upon accumulating 20,000 chips by playing Texas Hold'em Poker. I've tried my hand at that game throughout the weekend, & I've lost more than I've won.

By the middle of Sunday afternoon, things went pretty well for me; I had $11K (fake money) down & $9K to go. But then my luck took a turn for the worse. As I type this, it's Sunday night & I'm down to $5000. As powerful as that sword must be in Dragon Wars, as protective as that bulletproof Bentley must be in Mafia Wars, & as powerful as that rare ability must be in Vampires, they are not worth the trouble I've gone through. Good thing I didn't spend a dime of real money on this game!

Those of you in my Friends list who are on my crew, alliance or whatever in those games, you may send me chips if you want to, but I won't have any use for them anymore. I'm cutting my losses right now!

Men may be stronger physically than women, but that extra strength merely makes up for a whole slew of weaknesses:

1. When it comes to premature babies, boys are more likely to die than girls.

2. Some men do outlive their wives, but for the most part, women outlive their husbands. Last time I checked life expectancy stats, they were age 71 for men, 78 for women. In other words, a wife who was born the same year as her husband is likely to outlive him by 7 years or more.

3. When it comes to sex, women can keep at it longer than men can. Women can have multiple orgasms per session of intercourse (or solo masturbation) whereas men usually can have only one (I'm now 32 & the most I've ever had in one night was 2). For this reason (among a few others) women have stronger sex drives than men do, however much we may have been taught otherwise since childhood.

4. Because of this myth of men being hornier than women, men think they have to crawl through broken glass & buy drinks, meals & vacations to get romantic or sexual attention from women. They think they can buy women's love. But this strategy only backfires; the minute a guy flashes his Visa at a woman, she'll deem him a loser. Yet that's how most men behave; a sure sign of weakness, huh?

5. Women seem to have a higher threshold for pain than men do. Why else did nature (or God, or whatever higher power you believe in) designate women as the gender to carry the next generation inside them for 9 months at a time? Pregnancy & labor are not walks in the park; they take a lot of endurance to live through. Some women over the millennia have died of complications stemming from pregnancy &/or labor, but we guys would never stand a chance.

6. When it comes to post-secondary education, more women than men enroll, never mind graduate. Could it be that men, for fear of discrimination & persecution, don't feel safe in an academic environment anymore? Could it be that women have a higher capacity for learning, or a higher tolerance for homework loads, than men do?

7. Conditions in the autism spectrum seem to strike males far more often than females. Combine that with the fact that men have the burden of proof in the courtship process, & you'll see millions of men finding themselves unable to relate to women on an intimate level. Autism & dating don't mix, at least not very well.

8. By the same token, conditions like hemophilia & fragile-X syndrome strike males almost exclusively. Females are mere carriers, for the chromosome they get from Dad is another X to cover up the damaged strand in the X they get from Mom.

This list is by no means exhaustive, & I may add to it when I think of more. But in conclusion, who's the weaker gender now? It's the males, stupid!

As I have played the pirate game here at MySpace, I've found myself astounded by the sheer cost of maintaining the ships & weapons required to do certain plunder jobs.

The plunder job I most commonly do is the one that requires 1 barrel/oar set & 3 rifles. Thankfully, the barrel/oar set requires very low upkeep per hour: only $20 (game gold, not real-life money). But henceforth I will include this cost when computing my total upkeep.

The next-highest on the list of plunder jobs requires 1 schooner ($200 upkeep) plus 3 hand grenades ($1500 each). I find it ridiculous that weapons cost more to buy, much less require more upkeep, than ships do. But that is how the game was designed, & I didn't design it. At any rate, my total upkeep per hour would be: $20 + $200 + $4500 = $4720. To offset this expense, I recommend the following income strategy to the novice pirate: Buy 3 secret caves, then build treasure stashes on them ($300 income each). Then buy 3 hidden coves; build docks on 2 of them ($700 each) & a tree house on the 3rd ($5000). Total income per hour: $900 + $1400 + $5000 = $7300.

The next-highest job after that requires 3 sloops ($100 upkeep each) plus 4 cannons ($2500 each) plus 1 eyepatch (no upkeep). Total upkeep: $20 + $300 + $10,000 = $10,320. This calls for selling the schooner & hand grenades, then buying another hidden cove upon which to build a tree house for an additional $5000 income. Total income per hour: the aforementioned $7300 + $5000 = $12,300.

If you want the ability to do BOTH of the aforementioned plunder jobs, you'll have to earn even MORE income, which will require buying even more property. For a little more variety of properties, you may want to save up enough gold to buy a bay, on which you'd then build a shipyard to earn an additional $10K/hour. The bay is very expensive & more than twice the cost of the shipyard, but good things do come to the patient in this case.

Remember, buy the properties BEFORE you buy the ships & weapons. Start earning the $7300 income first, then buy the schooner & hand grenades. Buy your bay & shipyard, then buy your sloops & cannons.

Last Friday night, when I was at one of my favorite bars, I took my guitar out of its case to serenade a few people, & found that one of my strings had broken! Once I took the remains of the string off the guitar, I made do with the remaining 5 & played my song anyway. Fortunately the song still sounded good, & the din of the crowds & the jukebox helped mask whatever void may have been left by the missing string.

Then on Tuesday afternoon, right after work, I bought a whole new set of strings, having heard a year or 2 ago from a few fellow amateur musicians that after one string breaks, replacing all 6 can give the guitar a fresh sound. Well, there is one disadvantage to "starting all over" like that: it's very time consuming! When strings are new, they stretch frequently. Just when I think I have the whole set in tune, a few can get out of tune in the middle of a song. So after every song, here I go again, tunin' time!

On another note (no pun intended) I also have noticed strings going out of tune due to the effects of the weather. Winter cold or summer heat can cause the tone of some/all strings to go up or down, so between carrying the guitar around outdoors & playing it indoors, I have to give the strings time to reach room temperature.

Tuning a guitar is one of a musician's never-ending jobs. Similarly, keeping a democracy in tune is one of a citizen's never-ending jobs, but that is a whole other blog.

Here are the lyrics to a song I found on the Internet about health insurance profiteering:

I am the captain of a health insurance company
I plunder & I profit as I sail the corporate sea
My salary's in the millions & my dividends obscene
My logo is the jolly roger on a field of green
(His logo is the jolly roger on a field of green)

Should ye fear ill winds will blow your ship upon the reef
I'll offer my protection lest ye surely come to grief
I may spare your life if bloated premiums you'll pay
But if you can't afford this ransom here is what I'll say
(If you can't afford this ransom here is what he'll say)

Yo ho, yo ho, go ahead & die
From shingles, beri-beri or a piano from the sky
Yo ho, yo ho, go ahead & die
I've got mine & I feel fine, so go ahead & die

Senators & Congressmen make up my scurvy crew
They swab my decks & cash my checks & cast a vote or 2
When the universal health care serpent rears its ugly head
My press gang fires broadsides & my crew ensures it's dead
(His press gang fires broadsides & his crew ensures it's dead)

Yo ho, yo ho, go ahead & die
A charging moose, an angry goose, or the dreaded tsetse fly
Yo ho, yo ho, go ahead & die
Face your ills & pay your bills, then go ahead & die

Because your basic coverage will cost an arm & leg
I'll happily replace them with a hook & peg
15 pounds of paperwork upon a dead man's chest
I'll throw the whole mess overboard & ignore your last request
If you seek reimbursement for your body parts so dear
Just dial my claims department, you might get a buck-an-ear

You question why I buried a vast locker full of loot
Of course I must maintain my yacht, the Golden Parachute
There's advertising, lobbying & junkets near & far
My hard-working public servants deserve their R & R
(Arr & arr & arr & arr! Arr & arr & arr!)

Yo ho, yo ho, go ahead & die
Kick the bucket, bite the dust & dryly say goodbye
Yo ho, yo ho, go ahead & die
A poison frog or too much grog, go ahead & die
From falling, mauling, or keelhauling, go ahead & die
I've got my share & I don't care, go ahead & die!

Source: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNuCfD5bICQ

Michael Moore's film Sicko came out on DVD just days ago, & I just got through watching it, including the special features. Even before this movie came out, I was angry with the way health care is handled in America, & I'm even more so now. How can we be the richest nation in the world, yet be so callous to the poorest among us? The very people who need health care the most, can least afford it. People DIE because they can't afford health care. I charge the American health-insurance industry with being the greatest murderer, robber & con-artist on this Earth!

So, what to do about this big problem that has festered for decades? How to make sure that the greatest murderer on this Earth won't get away with murder anymore? As with any other issue, people often say, "Write to your senators & representatives." Well, I've tried that before, & all I get in response is a form letter expressing token concern for the issue. These legislators who are supposed to represent OUR interests, instead represent the interests of the health-insurance & pharmaceutical industries who contribute to their election campaigns. As Sicko shows, legislation ostensibly designed to solve the problem, in reality just makes it worse. Some people might say, "Well, let's kick the rascals out in 2008!"

I don't want to wait that long! I want so badly to leave America, but for where? Possibly the Netherlands, birthplace of Famke Janssen (to whom I've referred in previous blogs). Let Holland trade her for me! Or I could go back to France, where my 7th-great-grandfather came from. Better still, I could go back to England, where other ancestors of mine came from, & where the Beatles came from too! 

America is a hypocrite. We claim to be "one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty & justice for all." But in reality we are a nation under the god of Money, divided, with neither liberty nor justice, only hypocrisy. This land may be your land, but it ain't my land! Someone get me out of here--NOW!

(Original proverbs from a June 14, 2005, blog)

There may be many fish in the sea, but there are at least as many fishermen to compete for them. (Too many fishermen, not enough fish.)

Men are like lawyers, for they have to prove themselves worthy of dates, relationships, marriage and sex with women. Women are like judges, for they get to decide which men get these 4 things and which ones don't.

By the same token, men are like sales reps, women like prospective customers.

They say there's someone for everyone, but James Buchanan, Jubal Early, Adam Smith, Henry David Thoreau, Voltaire, and countless men not as famous as they, stayed single their whole lives.

True love waits...indefinitely. For how long varies from person to person. For some, this "wait" means "never."

The longer one has been single, the more likely he is to stay so forever.

Friends accept you as you are; lovers expect you to change.

It may take 2 to tango, but some other dances take only one.

It takes 2 to build/maintain a marriage/relationship, but only one to destroy it.

Anyone or anything that has the potential to make you, also has the potential to break you.

Better alone than in bad company...and better single than married.

(New proverbs for this edition)

The loneliness that often comes with singlehood can't compare to the emotional, legal and financial problems caused by divorce.

Whether you're single or married, the grass always seems greener on whichever side of the fence you're not on.

Anyone who seeks gold must dig through a lot of dirt.