Facebook Adventures

I've now got 3 friends from the cast of the first season of Beauty and the Geek: Shawn, Chuck, and Caity. This was my fav season of my fav reality show. Sad to think that it was 5 years ago. Caity and Chuck were the team that won the thing. Shawn maintains a cool blog.

I'm still playing Mafia Wars. It is just a mindless game of clicking but it still has a certain charm. I'm at level 434. At the higher levels it is all about running missions. Fighting hardly matters. Even though the name of the game is "Mafia Wars", there is no reward for killing other players.

I discovered 2 similar games: Gangster City, and War Metal. Gangster City is played on a map of a city and has enough of a storyline to keep me interested. War Metal takes the same formula and extends it to the fighting. Here, when you fight another player, things happen. You take money and you get battle experience (BE). BE is another experience/leveling up system that operates independently of the regular system. You have one normal level and a different battle level. Battle levels get you access to other goodies that you don't get with ordinary levels.

What about Realm of Empires, you ask? It is such a great game and also demands so much time, I've had to cut way back. I became the most powerful player in my group and amassed over 50 towns. When tax season is over, I'll get back on it.

Jack on the Net 3/31/10

Recently on my blogs:

History Moments
The First Law of Television or how I started my Churchill Book.

Literature Daily
No need to link as I reprint them all here. I take a couple of minutes out each day to get a hit of great classic literature.

Finance Tips from the Greats
Want to get rich? Rich Dad says, get your hands on some of that passive income. - Now how can I do that?

The Political Journal
Krauthammer on Obama's Retreat from Space. So-called "progressives" really need to catch up to the Space Age.

Chess Blog
Another year, another race for the USCF's Executive Board. 2 seats, 3 candidates.

The Illiad - Book One - 14

by Homer

I came from distant Pylos, and went about among them, for they would
have me come, and I fought as it was in me to do. Not a man now
living could withstand them, but they heard my words, and were
persuaded by them. So be it also with yourselves, for this is the
more excellent way. Therefore, Agamemnon, though you be strong,
take not this girl away, for the sons of the Achaeans have
already given her to Achilles; and you, Achilles, strive not
further with the king, for no man who by the grace of Jove wields
a sceptre has like honour with Agamemnon. You are strong, and
have a goddess for your mother; but Agamemnon is stronger than
you, for he has more people under him. Son of Atreus, check your
anger, I implore you; end this quarrel with Achilles, who in the
day of battle is a tower of strength to the Achaeans."

And Agamemnon answered, "Sir, all that you have said is true, but
this fellow must needs become our lord and master: he must be
lord of all, king of all, and captain of all, and this shall
hardly be. Granted that the gods have made him a great warrior,
have they also given him the right to speak with railing?"

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from Kim by Rudyard Kipling.

More About This Book

From the earliest days of Ancient Greece, the author(s) of this poem were contemporaries of the writers of the Bible's Old Testament.

Summary of First Book: The quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles--Achilles withdraws from the war, and sends his mother Thetis to ask Jove to help the Trojans--Scene between Jove and Juno on Olympus.

Painting: The Wrath of Achilles by Michael Drolling, 1819.

More information here:

Literature Daily

More of This Series

Me in Front; House in Back

Sunny today. Kathy took this pic of me in front of our house. Didn't realize that we needed to change the settings on the camera. The correct date was today and the time was about 3 p.m.

I worked on some tax returns for Hank today but we knocked off because of the hockey game. Kathy is at church; I'm catching up on my blogging. Have some big plans for this!

Jack on the Net 2/28/10

Recently on my blogs:

History Moments
An easy quiz but watch out for that last question!

Literature Daily
No need to link as I reprint them all here. I take a couple of minutes out each day to get a hit of great classic literature.

Finance Tips from the Greats
Just started this blog today. Know a few great writers and basic business principles. This is what I look for in a good blog. Wasn't able to find one that exactly fitted my search, so I started one myself.

The Political Journal
So, the MSM loves Sarah Palin! - Huh? Are you serious?

Chess Blog
As the title says, this is mostly about chess politics. Lawsuits are over. I say Polgar wins; they say, no. Maybe they're right.

Thousand and One Nights - 14

The Merchant and the Genie

The Second Old Man's Story.

These two dogs are my elder brothers. Our father died and left us three thousand dinars, and I opened a shop that I might buy and sell therein, and my brothers did each the like. But before long, my eldest brother sold his stock for a thousand dinars and bought goods and merchandise and setting out on his travels, was absent a whole year. One day, as I was sitting in my shop, a beggar stopped before me and I said to him, "God assist thee!"[FN#12] But he said to me, weeping, "Dost thou not recognize me?" I took note of him, and behold, it was my brother. So I rose and welcomed him and made him sit down by me and inquired how he came in such a case: but he answered, "Do not ask me: my wealth is wasted and fortune has turned her back on me." Then I carried him to the bath and clad him in one of my own suits and took him to live with me. Moreover, I cast up my accounts and found that I had made a thousand dinars profit, so that my capital was now two thousand dinars. I divided this between my brother and myself, saying to him, "Put it that thou hast never traveled nor been abroad." He took it gladly and opened a shop with it.

---

Continued next week. Tomorrow's installment from The Illiad by Homer.


More About This Book

From the Arab world: these stories date back to the Middle Ages.

Picture: Queen Scheherazade tells her stories to King Shahryār.

More information here:

Literature Daily

More of this Series

Health Care Summit

I watched most of the summit Thursday. Obvious points:

1) Obama wasn't really looking for agreement. It was just an act. Else, why would he try to refute every single one of the Republican statements, no matter how sincere, and trivialize the statements of even the most senior R leaders?

2) The most egregious D statements he let pass without comment.

3) He wound up the meeting with D only speakers, cutting the Republican leaders out of any role in ending the meeting.

This meeting was run to make O and his Democrats look good and R's look bad.