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So I've been thinking about what I would like to call this div. III project that will be ravenously consuming my free time for the next five months. This has become a very important matter of consequence. Right now, it is name-less and, as you all might know, if something remains name-less for long enough, like a pet or a baby, it will inevitably turn on you. Or die. Things need names! Otherwise, they are just things and this would be a godawful world to live in if we were surrounded by a multitude of things that we call "things." Boredom, death, and demonic possession are precisely the issues of which I am trying to avoid the repercussions.

Here's what I have in mind. Oh wait, let me give you the whirlwind-tour synopsis of my div. III in case you have some better ideas.

The setting: Venice. The time: early sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Venice suffers from "too cool for school" syndrome and tries to take over Europe. Not necessarily, but this is what the Bible-beating trinity of France, Spain, and the Pope believe so they send some armies down and over there to give Venice a slap on the wrist. Portugal slides in the back door by sailing around the Cape of Good Hope and ends up cutting off Venice's most lucrative trade routes. Less land, less money. Plague. Meanwhile back at the ranch, the Venetian nobility decide that trading is for losers, put away their sea legs, and begin to buy up the fancy villas on the mainland. With the money they are squandering from their dead merchant ancestors, they're throwing keggers, holding puppet shows, and buying their way out of holding public office. Most important of all (to me) is that they are gambling like there would be no tomorrow unless Dame Fortune bets daybreak on the flop and each night just one person in the entire city has pocket aces to secure the arrival of the next day. But...why? This is a phenomenon. Within a century there are thousands of foreigners crashing Venice every Carnival hoping to get the seat farthest from the dealer and a sweet piece of ass from an infamous courtesan. And the Englishman indulge and then return to the north (possibly with syphilis for a souveneir) where they poo-poo the sinful ways of the Republic. But as for the nobility (and even the lower classes of whom I am not studying), it is not total political apathy, though even the elections are corrupted by bets and wagers. It is not a surplus of pocket change. The nobile are hardly making the dimes it costs to hold the political offices that they are privileged to. These are the same political offices that are saying "no, no. no gambling in public. wait,not in the Rialto. and no women either! and don't you dare try to curse because we'll hang you for that." A well-known proverb states that "A law in Venice lasts a week." And it is absolutely true even today. Really nobody is listening to those in power so eventually the booming voice of government says, "fine. have it your way. we'll open one casino. just one. as long as we get paid." It's the theory of pulsion. Just like the prostitutes who had to pay a government tax for each booty call, the casino and the lottery benefitted the economically-constrained government after all. And the tourist industry skyrocketed. Atleast until they closed the casino down about 150 years later, right before the fall of the republic.

So that is just the bit of it. The details get even wilder but I won't bore you with them. So what should I name my pet?

1) Il Giuoco d'azzardo: The Idle Fortune and Decadent Fate of the Venetian Nobility, c. 1500-1700

2) A Turn of the Cards: The Gambling Phenomenon in Venice after the League of Cambrai

3) The Collapse of the Swords: Gambling & the Venetian Nobleman c. 1500-1700

Cast your vote.

(btw, if i don't get any help i might end up settling for "gypsies, tramps, and thieves." please stop me.)