The database's schema is as follows.

 CREATE  TABLE  `items` (  
 `id` mediumint( 8  )  unsigned NOT  NULL  AUTO_INCREMENT ,
 `name` varchar( 45  )  NOT  NULL ,
 `main_type` tinyint( 4  )  NOT  NULL ,
 `rarity` tinyint( 4  )  NOT  NULL ,
 `stack_size` smallint( 6  )  NOT  NULL ,
 `sub_type` tinyint( 4  )  NOT  NULL ,
 `cost` mediumint( 8  )  unsigned NOT  NULL ,
 `ilvl` smallint( 6  )  unsigned NOT  NULL DEFAULT  '0',
 `flavor_text` varchar( 250  )  NOT  NULL ,
 `rlvl` tinyint( 3  )  unsigned NOT  NULL ,
 `final` tinyint( 4  )  NOT  NULL DEFAULT  '0',
 PRIMARY  KEY (  `id`  )  ) ENGINE  = InnoDB  DEFAULT CHARSET  = ascii;

Now, doing an insert on this table takes 0.22 seconds. I don't know why it's taking so long to do a single row insert. Reads are really really fast something like 0.005 seconds. With using the example configuration from here dev mysql innodb it averages ~0.002 to ~0.005 seconds. Why it takes more than 100x more time to do a single insert makes no sense to me. My computer is as follows. OS:Debian Sid x86-x64, Mysql 5.1, RAM:4GB ddr2, cpu 2.0Ghz dual core, HDD 7200RPM 32MB cache 640GB.

Why it's taking almost 100x as much time for a SELECT * FROM items; vs INSERT INTO items ...; will never make any sense to me. It's still a small table at only 70 rows, and took that long even when it had 0 rows.