The votes are in, and the winner is...I go back to my original avatar. The votes were tight, and the ballot box was stuffed, but it ran like this:

Avatars should be sexy, dammit! We need more eye-candy...not a single vote.

Post an avatar that is your actual picture so we may mock you on the street...Just one vote. Besides, if you want to see what I really look like you can always just follow the adultspace link in my profile. Or maybe you guys did which is why you don't want to see my pic!

Animated avatars got two votes. Egocentric and funny ones tied for second place.

So I go back to the skull. I brought out something with a little more bling this time; a diamond crusted skull created by artist Damien Hirst, valued at over $100,000. 'Cause after all, I am really just a pirate at heart.

Speaking of witch, let me use that as a lead in to the age-old Pirates versus Ninjas debate. Of course you're all entitled to your opinions, but Pirates are better and here's why:

One...Pirates are More Famous.
The names of pirates are engraved forever in our minds. Okay, maybe not the name Edward Teach, but who doesn't know Blackbeard? What frat boy or barfly doesn't know the name of Henry Morgan? Bartholomew Roberts was a terror on the seas, and there are still references to Black Bart or the Dread Pirate Roberts. Even ladies like Anne Bonny and Mary Read were famous pirates in their own right. But as for famous ninjas there was...um...well...there really are none. No one really wants to be famous when you're essentially a spy, so even “famous” ninjas like Hattori Hanzo, Sarutobi Sasuke and Takayuki Godai are nothing more than fictional characters. You might as well say James Bond is real.

Two...Pirates are More Sneaky than Ninjas
What? You don't believe me? Let me prove it. A ninja puts on black clothing or dresses like an average schmoe and uses guerrilla tactics to sneak up on you. Pirates wore big clunky boots, red velvet jackets, and enormous hats. They also traveled around in large wooden vessels the size of a small village with a few hundred of their fellow crewmen, and despite all of this they STILL could sneak up on you!

Three...Pirates did More
That's a no-brainer. Take a look at Eastern records and you'll see that history was made by Shogun and Samurai. Ninja were pesky annoyances at best and it's rare that anything they did changed the course of the Japanese world, and they had even less affect on the world in general. In contrast, pirates and privateers along the Spanish Main changed the course of history for the Western world and for the world as a whole (it's arguable that without their success that Spain and France would have had a much larger influence on the colonization of North America) and they did it in just a few decades.

Four...Pirates were Free, Ninjas were Slaves
In order to be a Ninja you had to lead a life of absolute servitude. There was no other way to learn the skills except to swear utter fealty to a lord or to a mercenary ninja clan. To be a pirate you need nothing more than will and wit. You don't even need a sword. You just have to be clever enough to get someone else's. If you don't like where one captain takes you, then you jump ship at next port and sign on with another. Sure, you risk hardship and woe, but it's your life and you get to become as infamous as fate will let you.

Lastly, there is the ultimate pirate argument. The one that puts the nail in the coffin once and for all. The one that proves for all time that pirates are better. At the end of the day, a ninja still has to keep his cover so his work is never really done. But when a pirate finishes his work he gets to reap the rewards. Honestly, when was the last time you saw a ninja sitting on a pile of gold with a frosty beer in one had and a wench in the other?

Money, booze, and women...now that's a battle worth fighting for!