TE Top 10: Worst Things to be Reincarnated As

I was on my way out of the crapper the other day – which is where all geniuses come up with their best ideas – and a random thought came to my head. What kind of things would I dislike to be reincarnated as? Personally, I’m a Catholic so I don’t believe in reincarnation, but there’s been a lot of examination of Eastern religions in my history classes, so I’m being exposed to the idea a lot more than usual. Generally, the idea is accompanied by the karma system. If you’ve never heard of it, karma is basically brownie points for your next life. You do good stuff, you get good karma. Do bad shit, and it’s into the bad karma you go. When you die, the quality of your next life is directly proportional to your amount of karma. This quality of life is decided by what you get turned into. Since many Eastern and Native American religions believe that everything in existence is alive and has a spirit/soul, you could theoretically be reincarnated as anything.

Now I’m a pretty good person, so if all this stuff is how it really goes down, I’ve got faith that I’ll have an acceptable next life. However, at the time, I was pondering the things that I would least like to come back as. Turns out there are lots of things I’d never want to be, so I narrowed it down to a short list of ten. I’ve got some pretty good reasons for most of them, even if they only sound like good reasons to me.

~The Nintendo 64 Dynamic Drive~

Some would call it a failure. Some would be right. But you know, it’s not really the DD’s fault. I did a little research, and as far as I can tell, it only really failed because the N64 was on its deathbed, and distributors didn’t want to bother trying to hock the thing. So it was only available through mail-order. The thing sounded like it had potential (much like the SNES Satellaview thingy), but was released way to late to see the world of success. So if I think the thing had potential, why wouldn’t I want to be it? Because it had potential. Not making sense? Let’s put it this way: I wouldn’t want to be something that could be awesome, but failed miserably because my success was in someone else’s hands. No thank you. I’ve had enough shattered dreams in this life.

~United States President George W. Bush~

Do I really have to explain this one? I know there are more people who like him than hate him (unless the polls are rigged), in his country at least, but I’d still have to take that kind of criticizm. Heck, while we’re at it, I wouldn’t want to be any celebrity. As much as I’ve fantasized about being famous, I’d hate to be under the public eye all the time. I’d hate to have every person in the world judging every single thing I do, exploiting every mistake I make, tuned into every facet of my life. That, and I could never bear the responsibility of being in charge of a whole country. I’m barely qualified to be in charge of doing the dishes. But then again, neither is he.

~The Nokia N-Gage~

Seriously, does anyone like this thing? Because I’ve never heard of one. Not personally anyway. Hearsay isn’t exactly the most credible source around. Even with the N-Gage QD redesign or whatever it is, the thing is stupid. For one, the screen is vertical. Maybe for the phone half, but not for games. Next off, are there any games for it? What, Tomb Raider and some racing game? Yeah. Killer library. If you need some kind of do-it-all gadget, get a PSP. Sure it’s got no phone, but at the very least you can load it with SNES and GameBoy ROMs. And it does have a couple good games of its own. I guess.

~Badass Internet Hero Maddox~


Don’t read into this too quickly. I’m a huge fan of Maddox. I won’t follow his words blindly like some, but I do enjoy his work. The satire is always razor-sharp and he does an excellent job of making fun of two-bit hacks like me. So why wouldn’t I want to be him? For one, he lives in friggin’ Salt Lake City. Eeeew, Utah. Nextly, because of his notoriety, he probably get the most hate mail ever. And finally, he updates maybe once a month, and the fan mail demanding new content is apparently pretty bad. Since I update like once every billion years, I imagine that it would be infintely worse for me. I wouldn’t really hate being Maddox, I just don’t think I’d be able to keep up with the reputation.

~My computer~


The machine itself has got the parts of a winner. A third-placer at least. But with God as my witness, no piece of technology has ever has as many issues as my computer. That thing is the physical manifestation of… something really unreliable and prone to breaking. To be fair, all the electronics in my house seem to be under some horrible curse, but my computer takes as much for the team as he can. Or maybe it just really pissed off some evil spirits. I can’t explain it, but the thing has spent more time being repaired and getting operating systems reinstalled than it has being in working condition. It’s a pity, really. Pity, pity, pity….

~The Catman – Peter Criss~


A hero of mine once said it best:

“Nobody wants to be Peter Criss, not even Peter Criss.”

~A goldfish~


My life is pretty routine. I wake up, eat, go to school/play video games, eat, play video games, eat, internet, eat, and sleep. But for fark’s sake, I could not just swim in circles all day. After two days I’d be begging for my owner to overfeed me so I could meet my tasty demise before I went insane. You may think the whole “goldfish only have a memory of a few seconds” thing might have something to do with it, but they proved that was false on Mythbusters a long time ago. One cool thing I learned while looking up… stuff… is that goldfish are actually a mutation of carp. The more you know!

~Toilet paper~


Come on. Really? You need me to explain this? A comic once pondered if toilet paper feels lucky when it gets used as a hankie. Do you really have to wonder about it? In the end (no pun intended), the only half-decent outcome for a piece of toilet paper is to be used as bandages for a low-budget mummy.

~Underpants. Specifically, men’s underpants~


Like it says, I would hate to be underpants. Men’s or women’s, I don’t care. Sure, every straight, red-blooded man has at one time wished to be a hot chick’s underpants, but it can’t possibly be all fun and games. Especially on days when she isn’t expecting to… “perform”, if you know what I men. There’s the whole fish business, and I can’t stand fish. Then let’s remember that chicks fart too, and they can’t always wipe it all away after a visit to the ladies’ room. Really, it’s not a place you wanna be in for extended periods of time. And I shouldn’t have to explain why I don’t wanna be a dude’s underpants. Even if I were gay. Think about it. Would you want to be rubbing up against a gross, hairy ass all day? On second thought, don’t think about it.

~Leopold “Butters” Stotch~


Yeah, Butters is my favourite character on South Park, but there’s no way in Hell I would ever want to be him. Butters is the biggest patsy in the history of comedy. Or anything for that matter. Butters has the luck of… well, he’s got even worse luck than me. Even I manage to catch a lucky break every now and again, but poor Butters always get the short end of the stick. You can’t help but feel sorry for the little guy, for as many bad things happen to him, he’s always just trying to help out or be a good friend. Whatever he did to deserve such a fate, we may never know, but what I do know is that I want to have no part in it.

And that’s the list. As you can tell, I went through the trouble of thinking out of the box a little. Yeah, any old idiot could say that they don’t want to be reincarnated as a pooper scooper, but it takes a little more effort to come up with a list like mine, and with half-decent reasons to not want to be those things. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that until you come up with your own list, I’m better than you.

Show me all the things that I could be

I’ve just finished uploaing a new article. Kind of… Well, you’ll see when you get there.

That aside, I need to mention that I recently acquired the soundtracks to Baten Kaitos and Baten Kaitos 2. Amazing soundtracks, and I heartliy recommend you download them if you like video game music. Motoi Sakuraba kicks Nobuo Uematsu’s ass anyday. ANY. DAY. Mainly, you need to check out the guitar versions of the battle themes. They will melt your face like never before. Also, Baten Kaitos is a pretty sweet game, so you should look into that. The sequel is supposed to come out this summer sometime, and I’m getting pretty hyped about it. So yeah, that’s pretty much what I needed to say. Later.

I hate socks

I hate socks. You know that? Well now you do. It’s not really a well-known fact that I don’t hate many things. Hell, I rarely even get truly mad at anything. I may get worked up about certain issues every once in a while, but I always tend to cool off after a minute or so. My philosophy is that nothing good can come of anger, so I do my best to keep it to a minimum. This is kinda hard for me because when I was a kid I threw fits of rage all the time, and short fuses seem to run in my family.

Anyhow, back to the task at hand. There are three things in the world that I hate with so much passion. These things are socks, when people take stuff from me without asking, and computers. While the last is really a love/hate issue, and the second is the one thing that makes me blow up, socks are really more of a passive hatred for me. See, socks don’t necessarily anger me, but they do cause me more grief and annoyance than even my greatest foe. So much do they bother me, that I really don’t know where to start.

I guess that since I do have to pick somewhere to begin, that we’ll go with the most obvious choice, and that would be how I hate putting them on. One of the biggest issue I have with socks is that they’re cumbersome to equip. They’re not like a shirt which you can just pull on, or pants which you can simply hop into. No. When it comes to socks, you’ve gotta take a seat and reach all the damn way down to your feet to get ’em on. This may not be as troublesome for some of you, but for a well-rounded man like myself, it can be quite a pain. I just can’t imagine how tough it must be for people who are actually fat. The other thing about them is that you have to align them correctly. I know some socks aren’t as shaped as others, but most socks are supposed to be put on in a certain way, which takes even more time, and if you manage to botch it, you either have to do it all over again or walk around with an uncomfortable sock all day.

The next thing I hate most about socks is that you have to wear them. They’re not optional like a hat or gloves. No, socks are required if you plan to go anywhere. Sure, you can squeak by with sandals on occasion, but those are only good in the summer, and I find sandals to be uncomfortable and unfashionable, so it’s hardly worth it to get out of wearing socks. People are out there wasting their time inventing crap we have no need for like tiny little music players, when the real thing they should be researching is shoes that can be worn without socks. Trust me, I’ve tried going around without socks, but all that accomplishes is ruining your shoes and creating an terrible odor. The lack of socks causes the sweat produced by your feet to get stuck to the inside of the shoes, making them harder to remove, and ruining the soles. Then as an added “bonus”, the sweat had some kind of poor reaction with the shoes, making both the foot and the shoe extra-smelly. Actually, this is beginning to sound like reasons why you should wear socks, so I’ll move on to more anger.

Another thing I hate, related to the point above, is that socks are annoying to wear. Just think about it. You get home from a long day, and all you want to do is rip off your socks and put your feet up. The problem with this is that once you take them off, you’re done for the day. There’s no going back, and if you do, you’re gonna have to go through the big deal or re-applying the socks. And probably a new pair at that, as putting on not-fresh socks is even worse than usual, as they’re already all sweaty and gross. Sure, if you’d just left them on you’d probably never notice the grossness, but when you put used socks back on, you notice that gross. You know you’ve been there. The greatest part about this article is that it can speak to everyone. I’m sure that everything I mention here is something that everyone’s dealt with. You may not have had as much of a problem with it as I do, but you know you’ve been there.

The final thing I have to complain about is probably the worst. Wet socks. Wet socks are the fucking bane of my existence. Nothing makes me more irritable than wet socks. It’s the closest I’ll ever come to knowing what those women are going through during their periods, and I’m sure you agree that wet socks are like the worst thing ever. Not only are they uncomfortable as hell, but for the most part, you don’t get wet socks in a situation where you’re gonna be able to remove them right away. No. It always seems to happen when you’re gonna be having the shoes on for an extended period of time. Then you have to slog around all day with wet feet, and chances are that the experience will make you bitter, which will in turn make you lash out at everyone else, bringing them down as well. Wet socks aren’t good for anyone. To top it all off, socks are like ten thousand percent harder to remove when wet, like any clothing. It’s like they know they’re torturing you and don’t want it to end. Fucking socks.

And that’s pretty much it. With all of the points above, you can more than likely see why I hate socks with a passion, and you’re probably gonna be able to relate as well. Socks are just a pain in the ass, and believe you me, when I’m a bajillionaire web celebrity, I’m going to devote a good amount of time and money to finding a way to eliminate the need for socks entirely. And after that, maybe I’ll work on cancer or world hunger or something. Because I’m all about helping people. After I’ve helped myself, anyhow.

There will be an answer, let it be

It’s been a while since I announced that I’d be writing a new article, and to be honest, I still haven’t done it. On the upside, I did write a totally different one out of the blue. While it’s not a boring video game review, it is basically a 1400+ word sales pitch and an excuse to make a really flippin’ sweet banner. I did try to work some wit similar to that found at WWTDD into it, so if you enjoy that site, then you should maybe read my crappy article. Or give me money! That’s a great idea!

Begging aside, I did a little work to improve the unity of the site, and now the menu bar at the top of (most of) the article pages is all blue rather than red, and the articles page has also turned blue. Red and black is so overdone, and I want my site to look a little original. Also, I want it to look like all the pages belong together, so making the colour scheme “universal” is probably a good way of starting that. I don’t know if I should redo the articles entirely in the same colour, or if I should leave them unique from each other. I’d like to hear some opinions about it over on the forums.

The iPod Nano Review

What manner of treachery is this? Ryan has purchased an iPod? Yes, it’s true, I did decide to drop mad stacks of cash on an Apple iPod nano. I’ve always said that I’m the last person that should be allowed to have money, and this is a perfect example of why. See, I didn’t really need one, but I decided that since owning one would increase my cool points by like a jillion (not that I need cool points either…), it was a good idea. And you know, aside from the monumental cost, it was. Read on to find out why.

For one, let’s go over my plethora of excuses for buying the damn thing in the first place. First of all, it’s a totally cool and trendy little gadget, and we all know that I’m was voted most likely in my school of friends to jump on any bandwagon that passes by. Come on, all the cool kids have one. Get with it. Steve from The Sneeze has an iPod, so why shouldn’t I? Secondly, it’s so much more practical than my discman. I hate carrying shit around, and I take my discman nearly everywhere I go. The iPod is so much tinier and lighter than that big hunk of plastic that I barely even know it’s there. Plus it’s got a pretty screen and tons of storage space (~1.9 gigabytes), so I’m not constricted to only being able to have one CD at any given time. Lastly, I just had a huge wad of money to blow, so why not get something nice for a change? Better than a bunch of video games I don’t really want (seriously, there were no games I deemed worthy to own at the time). I’ve never been one to save money when I don’t need to, so I sent it off to line the pockets of the man. I love the man, don’t you? Wait… that didn’t sound right. I’m not gay. Really, I’m not. I like girls. And apparently, they like me too. Probably because of the iPod. I hear they like men with money.

Now that I’ve justified the purchase with flimsy-at-best arguments and half-lies, it’s time to get down to business. But where to start? Well, I guess the first thing you experience about something is the visual, so let’s start there.

The iPod is a pretty slick creature by nature, and the nano does it one better. Not only is it all professionally dressed up in white (or black, if you prefer) plastic, it’s got a sexy plastic coating over top to make it even shinier and slicker-looking. The back has got a nice metal sheen, which suits it quite well. I like the dual-tone idea more than just white the whole way ’round like with the original. It’s a beautiful piece of technology, yet people want to cover it up? Why would they want to do that? Sadly, the metal and plastic coating are pretty scratch prone, and the worst part is that those scratches are going to show up. If you’re careful, you should be okay, but slack off for just a little while and your sexy iPod will be a less-than-sexy iScratched. The click wheel is of the seamless variety featured on the newer generations of the original iPod, not like those old ones with the fugly buttons and all.

Even the iPod nano’s box is brilliantly designed. Like all things Apple, it takes the minimalist route, and features a very plain, but very attractive box cover that slides off revealing a smaller “booklet” style box. The nano is wedged into one side, while the other opens and contains all the extra junk (headphones, install disc, instructions, etc) that comes with it.

The compact size of the nano is clearly it’s selling point. The machine is the exact same as it’s larger, fatter counterpart. But the size is just mind-blowing in and of itself. Engineered to fit into even those useless tiny pockets-inside-the-pocket, the nano is so tiny that you’re not going to have to worry where you’ll be putting it. Hell, it’s so small they don’t even capitalize the N in nano. As the size is more or less relative to the weight, the thing weighs almost nothing. As I said earlier, when I’ve got it in my pocket, I could forget it was even there, unlike the bulky discman that I used to carry around. The plastic coating makes the unit remarkably smooth and pleasant to the touch, while the click wheel has a slightly more coarse texture, which I couldn’t possibly compare to anything, because I’ll go on record and say that nothing else in the world has that texture.

The nano’s screen may be tiny, but it’s as sharp as that huge HDTV down at the Best Buy that you only wish you could have. Just as with the GameBoy Micro (actually, you can draw a lot of parallels between the nano and the Micro), the small screen size doesn’t hamper your visibility in the least. I mean, the iPod doesn’t exactly have as much detail to display as the GameBoy does, but the idea’s somewhere on the same train of thought.

Speaking of trains of thought, I seem to have lost mine. Let’s think for a second, shall we? Oh yeah, one thing I should mention is that I positively farking hate earbuds. They’re uncomfortable and they fall out all the time. The only only reason I make an exception for the iPod’s buds is because it just feels wrong to hook up my regular headphones to the thing. It’s like burying a model in the forest when she ODs and dies in your jacuzzi instead of just leaving here there and pretending everything’s alright: it’s probably the better choice, but it just doesn’t feel right. Also, the music seems a little “blurrier” through the buds.

One thing you might not expect if you’ve lived a PC life and tried a Mac once or twice is that it’s really simple and easy to use. Once you’ve installed the iPod software and iTunes (sadly, it’s a necessary evil) on your PC, getting stuff on your iPod is as easy as hooking it up to a USB port, importing your music to iTunes and dragging the files to the iPod. It doesn’t take any time at all (assuming you’re using USB 2.0), and the iPod itself is just as easy to use. One time I tried to use a store demo, and got confused and frustrated. Now that I’ve read the instructions (which are like a 3 pages of pictures and callouts), I realize how damned simple the thing is to navigate, and not only that, but it makes finding what you want really easy. Selecting stuff with the click wheel does take longer than say, with a computer that has the benefit of a mouse, but the iPod lets you search through a good variety of categories, like albums, artists, songs, and composers (provided you’ve properly tagged your files) so you can get to what you’re looking for quickly. Also, there’s the shuffle option which just does it all for you with the tradeoff of your music being selected randomly.

Overall, while it’s an expensive package, I’d say that I’m very impressed by the little thing. It’s got both form and function, and based on the few times I’ve taken it on the bus, it really turns heads too. The ladies’ heads, that is. All right. I really have to recommend the iPod nano to anyone who likes music and is on the go a lot. If the price tag is too much for you, it does come in a slightly cheaper, 1GB variety. Or, you know, you could get an MP3 player for a reasonable price, but how lame is that? I sure wouldn’t let you in my club. And what a club it is! Very exclusive. As in “models and hot actresses only” exclusive.

I’m just your sexual thing

This month’s BotM is Poison. Look how I got right to the point there!

Yeah, so Poison. Chances are pretty good that you’ve heard of them. I mean, come on. Who hasn’t heard “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn” sometime in their life? Hippies, that’s who. And you know what I think about hippies. Well, maybe also someone who never attended a junior high dance between now and the eighties. But what are the chances of that?

Anyway, if you know Poison, there are basically two possibilites: you love them or you hate them. I’ve taken notice over my many years that there exist two breeds of people in the world: those that love 80’s music and those who hate 80’s music. And generally, when you hate 80’s music, you hate the 80’s on the whole. But how you could hate the 80’s is far beyond me. That decade brought us so much, including hair bands, the NES, and everybody’s favourite webmaster. There’s a lot more, but those are clearly the most important ones.

But back to Poison for a moment. I very much adore the band, as they take the basic rock n’ roll formula and make it their own by adding in plenty of bluesy/country twists and great music. Not to mention that they’re just plain fun to listen to. If you need a quick rock-out, pop in some Poison and you’re good to go. I know there’s a lot more to say, like how lead singer Brett Michaels is a judge on “Nashville Star,” but frankly, I really want to go play some video games right now, so I’m going to wrap it up.

This’ll probably go on record as the shortest BotM post ever, but that’s okay. I got my point across. I like Poison, I think you should listen to Poison. If you don’t like them, then that’s too damn bad. You’re missing out on some good times. So that’s the end of that. I’ll see you around. Later.

You can feel his disease

This is easily in the running for the title of Best White Ninja Comic Ever. Some other things that might interest you include the Nintendo 64 kid (who, if not for the sister, totally could have been me) and a Bob Ross game for the Revolution.

But possibly the coolest thing ever, as discoverd on The Sneeze’s sidebar, is that tomorrow morning, shortly after 1Am, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06. Of course, people who use the DD/MM/YY format (wierdos) will have to wait until next month. Just thought that was neat enough to mention.

While it’s not interesting at all from a normal person’s perspective, but all the junk coding I cut from this index page brought the filesize down to 27K, which is like half of what it used to be. Adding up all the pages I’ll be cleaning up, that would ahve saved me a good hunk of room back on Angelfire. And also, google “torrential equilibrium.” It’s not much, but I’ve changed the description a litte…

Last thing for today: I’m such a trendwhore!

I can’t help the way I am

I’ve got a story to tell, but I’ve already typed it all out once, so I’ll just stick it to the man with a link. The Revolution Project (Opera of Innovation). Seriously, it has almost nothing to do with the Nintendo Revolution, so if that would put you off, don’t fret about it. In return for this sweet could-be-article, just promise me you’ll check out O.A.R., as they’re an awesome alternative band, and it would be a shame to just let them slip by. And also Satyagraha, because they’re a cool local band co-run by ex-CN writer Doug.

Band of the month… tomorrow? Maybe Wednesday. But soon.

How ’bout a revolution?

I’ve completed the main bit of sidebar editing. There’s still some unseen stuff to do (unless you can’t see CSS formatting for some reason, then it’s going to get ugly), which I’ll get to a little later. The important changes are simply some moved/removed links. Nothing big. All the other pages featuring the sidebar will be updated in good time. Probably not today though. Just make sure you check out the links under “Friends of TE” as they’re almost all pretty cool sites. End transmission.