Sigh.... it really is true... you can not win against Erik.  He will win every time.  He has finally managed to pry my $30 from the death grip that was so tight it was making a few dead presidents scream.  I have now succumbed to the powers that be and added that little gold star next to my name.  But it really is a pretty sweet deal.  I mean,  Erik being the used car salesman that he is threw in more tournaments, use of the tactics trainer until my eyeballs bleed, my full games archive, doubled my vacation time (maybe my employer should take some lessons here), spiffy statistics, more games exploring, and even let me use his computer an extra time a week to analyze my elite chess skills and all I did was pay for that little gold star next to my name so ha ha ha... who's the winner now Erik huh? huh?

You got off easy. 

don't slack up your defense, I used to have a gold star until Erik attacked me 

obey!

lol

The king is always the winner, he makes the rules and does not have to have  respect for his subjects.

"You can't please all of the people all of the time."

He's got me thinking about that diamond... more analysis games... not more yearly fees...

The mind-machine worked on me too. I was powerless to defend myself.

I can't believe you're being so defeatist. There must be dozens of defences that haven't been tried yet. How about: "my wife will kill me if she finds out I've bought a diamond membership."

Hmm.... wife or diamond membership?... I'll play e4.

Worth every penny

Self to wife: "I've bought you a diamond"

Wife: "You shouldn't have!"

Self: "... membership".

Wife: "Really, you shouldn't have. Where's the axe?"

Artfizz: Honey... guess what!

Wife: What baby?

Artfizz: I just saved us hundreds of dollars on our car insurance by switching to Geico!  Now I can afford that diamond membership!

Wife:  Will that insurance cover what I'm about to do to you?

It did cost me a guitar and shiny effects pedal....

Jonny: Just think of the long-term savings

Wife: That I will make when I reinvest the insurance money unless you sell something to pay for the stupid membership. I just don't understand why you want to spend money on this

Jonny: It's the mind machine, it tells me to do things

etc.

lol

I bought the gold membership to get rid of the ads, tried the Diamond to see how videos would work for me (they didn't do much), switched to Platinum for the 25 games per week for computer analysis and now I'm Diamond again God knows why :) Maybe I should drink less ...

It could be that you are addicted to bling!

 "bling"? Didn't find that word in the dictionary. Translation please?

I weep for your dictionary.  It's in all of the online ones.

Examples of bling would be a man wearing a gold medallion, a diamond earing, or having platinum teeth fillings.