Monopoly: American Dream Edition

So my wife and I were talking about the board game Monopoly, and we thought it might be interesting to play a new version that takes modern social distinctions and governmental attitudes into account. As an example of what that would look like, I offer the following rule modifications...

AMERICAN DREAM MONOPOLY
for 6-8 players:

The banker earns $350 for passing GO, rather than the usual $200.

One player must use the wheelbarrow. This player is the blue-collar / ethnic minority worker. The blue-collar worker earns $150 for passing GO. If the ethnic minority worker is sent to jail, they automatically skip three turns and must pay the fine to continue (no rolling dice to get out).

One player is a woman in corporate America. The woman starts the game with $1,140 rather than the usual $1,500
(discounted by the same percentage as the current gender wage gap), and earns $175 for passing GO.

One player is an illegal immigrant. This player must skip the first 3 turns of the game. This player is payed $100 for passing GO (earning below minimum wage), and another $100 for passing Free Parking ('taking American's jobs'). The illegal immigrant does not pay utilities or income tax, and may not build hotels. If the illegal immigrant is sent to jail, they are deported, meaning all of their properties are seized & returned to the available property pool, and they must skip 3 more turns before starting over at GO.

All other players are regular, middle-class workers and the same rules as usual apply.

LUXURY TAX - This will be replaced with MEDICAL INSURANCE DEDUCTIBLE. For the banker, this is $25. For the woman, this is $100 (higher deductible on maternity insurance). Since the blue-collar worker and the illegal immigrant do not have insurance, this is $200 for each of them. All other players pay $75 as before.

How will the characters be determined? Each player will roll the dice once, and the player with the highest score is the banker (if a tie, have a tie-breaking roll, highest wins). The player with the lowest score is the illegal immigrant (again, tie-breaking roll w/ lowest wins if there is a tie). The remaining characters roll again, with the highest score being the woman and the lowest score being the blue-collar / ethnic minority worker (tie-breakers again apply).


If anyone gives this a try, let me know how the game turns out!

This Post is Not for the Squeemish

I'm overdue for a blog post, but I've been lacking on philosophical insight recently. Graduate school will do that to you sometimes. After tonight, however, I felt compelled to write.

We just got back from the dollar theater showing of Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (warning: do not consume this post if you are allergic to spoilers. Or human flesh). That... was disgusting. I mean really disgusting. It was like what would happen if every villain from Law & Order: Special Victim's Unit broke out of jail at the same time. Made me think of John Carpenter's The Thing all the way through the movie. If you haven't seen it, and you derive perverse joy from reveling in the darkest stains of human depravity, then you might want to check it out. And that the old lady... yeah. Saw that coming from the first time she asked for alms. Gross.

The songs weren't even that good. The only catchy one came when they decided to feed man-pies to the locals. Lots of clever punnery, vaguely enjoyable melody. The rest of the music was mediocre, though, a step down from Nightmare Before Christmas. Apparently Johnny Depp even required his own private sound tech (I spot weird things during the credits).

On the SVU note, lets look at the cast of characters, shall we? There's Serial Killer Guy, Cannibal Lady, Creepy Stalker Kid, Slimy Pedophile Man, and various Rape Party Attendees. All to the blood-squirting rubber head special effects any 80's horror flick would be proud of. It's like Tim Burton's dream story!

So yeah. Apparently Sweeney Todd is not my kind of show--too graphic. Let me know when something tame like Friday the 13th is on, though...
 

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