I live better than a king. Sure, there are modern day kings who live better than me but they're mostly kings in title only. When I say that I live better than a king I'm referring to Medieval European kings. While it's true that I don't make much money, have almost no power and don't come from a connected family I'm still doing better than the most powerful men of 500 years ago. Below I've listed 5 reasons to supported my claim that I, Zervas, live better than the head honchos of yesteryear.

Life Expectancy:

People just didn't live very long back in the day, even kings. The average life expectancy of an English king was 46 years, from Offa in 774 to William the 3rd in 1702 the men who ruled England didn't do so for very long. The average life expectancy for U.S. males is about 75 years, that's nearly 30 years longer than the mean average for English kings. Of course I'm not average. I'm short and college educated which suggests that I'll live longer than the average American male. Only one English King (in the time period I'm speaking of),Richard Cromwell, lived past 75. Where's your castle to save you now?

Food:

I eat well, real well. I eat off a plate, with a fork. Kings ate off smashed bread, with their fingers. Like a king, I eat mostly locally grown, organic, hormone-free food. Unlike a king, if a type of fruit isn't grown locally I just buy fruit that's flown in from the other side of the world. All the power in the world couldn't get fresh non-local fruit to a king before it rotted. I'm sure Henry the Eighth would have liked some french fries or red sauce but the fact is he spent his whole life without tasting potatoes or tomatoes. That's just sad.

Germs:

I'm fairly cootie free. I shower ever day and I use soap, that's right Richard the 1st; soap. In this day and age I have ready access to antiseptics and antibiotics. It's amazing what a little penicillin will clear up. It is true that I can't order anyone to be beheaded but I can walk around without smelling like an outhouse. Fair trade.

Climate control:

It's pretty well known that castles are drafty, not my house. I have double insulated windows and central heating. Not only do I get to be warm whenever I want but I am able to choose my warmth to within one degree Fahrenheit. No smoke, no soot, just awesomeness.
If it gets too warm, Bam! air conditioning. I'm sure a king gets some kind of ego trip by having servant girls fan him but I'm not in it for the ego, I'm in it for the cool. The fact is accelerating warm air against sweaty skin just doesn't get one as cool as some wicked freon powered A/C.

Travel:

It was a pain in the ass to travel back in the day. Kings had to travel by horse or by boat and it took effing forever to get anywhere. I can fly across the country on a whim or travel to the grocers at 65 mph. It's true I've done little exploring outside the American Union but this is because I haven't gotten around to it yet, not due to any actual limitations of travel. If I wanted to I could be in Asia by the weekend, I just don't feel like it.

Despite what the story books say it sucked to live in medieval times, even if you were ruling said times. The only thing a king has on me is power, which is something I don't crave. From entertainment to education to standard of living I have it pretty good. Sometimes I just need to take a step back to see that.

Just missed: toilet paper, electricity, dentists, mass media, hot chicks and TiVo.

There's been a lot of hubbub surrounding Scientology lately, it seems that the average Digg user has finally caught on that it's a bit of a scam. I'm sure some other people have caught on as well but Digg has really been milking it. Of course there's nothing new to Scientology being a sleazy cult (in my opinion, Suey McSuepants) but for some reason people have all of a sudden decided to protest against it. That's fine with me, I like protests. They don't accomplish anything but they do give hippies a good excuse to dress up in costumes and preach to the choir. Plus it makes people feel oppressed, white people love to feel oppressed. Most importantly; protests offer good photo ops. I love me some photo ops.
I'm not saying Scientology isn't a sham or an evil cult, in my opinion it is both but it's also not unique in this. To demonstrate my point I've decided to pit Scientology against Mormonism. Both are relatively new religions, both groups feel they are persecuted and both are based on obvious lies. Let's see how they stack up.

Recruitment:

Mormies: Mormon Missionaries travel all over the world with 50,000+ missionaries operating at a time. They'll talk to you about their religion, sit down with you and even give you a free book of Mormon. That's nice, but they also show up at my door unexpectedly. That's -5 points for reminding me of Jehovah's Witnesses. I'm already all stocked up on The Watchtower, thanks.

Hollywood Cultists: Scientologists generally stalk out urban areas to give free personality tests. These tests will tell you you're unhappy, pretty much no matter what. Dianetics is not free, there are "free" introductory seminars but they're "free" much in the way that time share presentations are free.

Cost of Membership:

M: Mormons give 10% of everything they make or else they will not reach the highest level of salvation. Sure, 10% of a wage in Utah is lower than almost anywhere else in the U.S., great R.O.I. there LDS, but it's still a significant chunk of change.
The average citizen of Utah makes about $25,000 a year, 10% of that is $2,500 a year. Even though LDS members start tithing with their childhood allowance and pay until death let's say they only give $2,500 a year for 40 years (from 25-65). That's $100,000 for a lifetime of church dues and since I'm only considering a 40 year period and adding no interest I'm confident that this is definitely on the low end of the scale.
But wait, there's more; missionary work. Missionary work is 2 years of unpaid service, usually proselytizing. So, that's $50,000 in lost wages. Here we're at $150,000 just to serve the church. Not to do good work, not to help people out, just to line the churches pocket with silver and converts.
What does the church need all that money for? Well, there's all that great infrastructure in Utah and there's all those volunteer clergy (no paid clergy in LDS). The short answer is, I don't know but it's thought the "church" has about 30-50 billion in assets.

H.C.: Estimates to reach OT 8 vary between $275,000 to $350,000. This seems like quite a bit more than the $150,000 I quoted for Mormonism but not if the cost of living and wages in Utah vs. Hollywood are factored in.

Foundation of Beliefs:

M: Fantasy Fiction and lies of Joseph Smith

H.C.: Science Fiction and lies of L. Ron Hubbard.

Name:

M: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints. The name tries to convince the casual observer that this is a Christian church whilst sneakily calling it's members Saints. Mormons are Christians the same way that Lutherans are Jewish. Sure, I may think that modern Christianity is just corrupted Judaism without the racist blood line but that's not a widespread belief, yet. I also get that in the past "Saints" meant something different than it does today but I'm still not calling Mormons Saints.

H.C.: Scientology. They manage to combine the words Science and ology. So their name literally means The Study of Science. Clever name, I'll give them that. Too bad their belief structure directly conflicts with science. Yeah, those volcanoes didn't exist 75 million years ago, so drop either the Science, the Ology or add Fiction in the middle. I mean really, I like Orson Scott Card but I'm not running around speaking for the dead.

Perception:

M: People like Mormies. They're generally thought of as hard working, polite, family oriented, open and friendly.

H.C.: Nobody likes Hollywood Cultists. They're generally thought of as weird, creepy, heavy handed, litigious, censoring cultists. If I get sued for expressing my opinion I'm pretty sure it won't be by the Mormons.

The difference in public opinion seemed pretty clear when I looked for pictures of both groups. I didn't search for Scientology + creepy nor did I search from Mormon + wholesome. It just so happened that the pictures of Scientologists were creepy and the pictures of Mormons were wholesome. To me that says more than this throwdown ever could.

Summation:

I believe that Scientology and Mormonism are both equally bullshit and both equally draining on the wallet. The main difference is that I don't hate Mormons. I believe that they believe in what they're doing, even at the top of the organization. I believe they are far less manipulative and their beliefs are less destructive to their members. While both "religions" take a lot of money to spend on suspect ends Mormons seem naive while Scientologists seem evil.
In short, people don't hate Scientology because it's a scammy cult. People hate Scientology because it's a dickish scammy cult. (Allegedly)

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Douglas Adams felt it was important to know where your towel is, being that a towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. That's all well and good, but I'm not an interstellar hitch hiker. Hell, I'm not even an intracity hitch hiker, I take the bus. Yes, I need a towel to dry myself but not for much else. In the real world you really only need one thing; a pair of shoes. Believe me when I tell you this, you better know damn good and well where your shoes are at.

Shoes are unique in the fact that you need a pair of shoes in order to buy a pair of shoes. I know, from experience, that you can't just show up to the local Sprawl*Mart sans shoes and expect to be able to be able to waltz on in. No matter how well you rehearse your story or how much you plead, nobody takes a barefoot man very seriously. If you already have a pair of shoes then they'll be happy to sell you additional pairs but if you have none, well you're just S.O.L.

At this point you have just a few options; 1) wrap your feet in duct tape, 2) become a hobo, 3) order shoes online and wait, 4) get good at climbing power lines.

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of somebody having too much time on their hands. That's probably true. I ran across a site parodying The Strategic Retreat the other day and I thought I'd share. It's funny to me and possibly to my dozens of loyal readers, maybe not so much to the bulk of my traffic but that's not really my problem.