Recently I had the misfortune of blowing $15 on a Tamagotchi, or as saps like to call them a "virtual pet." This was only after learning that the "cute" little thing has a Discipline button. Also, if your "pet" dies you can "hatch" a new "egg" by pushing the "reset button" and "using too many quotation marks."
After the tamagotchi's first life, which was primarily spent trying to figure out what the big deal about these things was, I had intended to carry out discipline-based behavior modification experiments. Unfortunately, the poor little thing's AI was too feeble to respond emotionally to punishment.
So without further ado here's my journal of the first life of my tamagotchi. Comments in square brackets [Like this, goober] were added while transferring the log to my computer.
5:26pm - Conceived "Fluffy". Waiting for him to hatch. This is boring 5:28pm - Put Tamagotchi egg in mouth. It works for alligators. 5:31pm - Tamagotchi hatched. Fluffy is an amoeba.
Disciplined Fluffy
0 happiness 0 hungry [The "hungry" meter actually measures how full it is. Dumb]5:35pm - Keeps beeping. Disciplined again. Fluffy looks pissed.
[They look funny when they're mad. I highly recommend disciplining your friends' or neighbors' virtual pets.]5:36pm - Fluffy refused his medication. [So what if he wasn't sick, he should take his drugs when I tell him to!]
I turned off his lights and disciplined him some more.5:40pm - Keeps beeping. Thinking of turning of Fluffy's sound. [Dontcha wish real babies had that button?]
Turned lights back on [to watch him rage] and disciplined repeatedly.
Jake asked to see virtual pet and hit buttons at random. I'm afraid he may have accidently fed Fluffy. [Don't worry, we're pretty sure he didn't.]5:42pm - Put Fluffy in my mouth again. Spit him across room. [Though he travelled several feet, Fluffy did not learn to fly from this experience.] 5:46pm - Fluffy took a dump. Disciplined him twice: I never fed him, so where's he get the nerve to take a dump. 5:52pm - Fluffy keeps beeping, despite festering in his own poop and repeated beatings. [Ingrate.] 5:54-5:56pm - Disciplined approx. 30 times. 5:57pm - Beeped again. Turned on his lights. 5:58pm - Beeped more urgently. I wonder if he's gonna die. Why can't I rub Fluffy's nose in his poop? [Am I alone in thinking this is a vital function?] 6:00-6:10pm - Disciplined repeatedly on way to movies. Once at movie, turned off sound. 6:11pm - Fluffy fell asleep. Left his lights on. [Serves him right, what kind of loser falls asleep before midnight?] 6:12pm - Disciplined again, but he didn't wake up. [And they say these things are practically alive?] 6:16pm - Woke up and pooped again. Disciplined 6 more times. 6:21pm - Tried giving Fluffy more drugs. He still says no. [I blame Nancy Reagan.] He was disciplined repeatedly. 6:23pm - Fluffy stopped walking around and he looks kinda flat. I disciplined him for this behavoir, but he still won't move. 6:24pm - Fluffy refused to play a game. [Maybe he's a nerd.] Disciplined him again. 6:26pm - Spun Fluffy around [by his keychain.] He doesn't look any happier. Ingrate. [I think it looked like fun.] 6:28pm - Fluffy barely even rages when disciplined. Either growing weak or becoming a hardened warrior. 6:31pm - Despite repeated beatings, Fluffy refuses to eat his own feces. 6:35pm - [Sometime around here the movie started and Fluffy was put in my pocket for the duration. I think censorship is the responsibility of the parent.] 8:47pm - Fluffy is still alive, even though he was ignored for the past two hours. [I recall mixed feelings of pride and annoyance, but mainly I was releived that I didn't miss watching him die.] Fluffy now has three poops and appears larger. He is currently asleep. I turned the sound back on and checked his stats: 1 year old, 10 pounds. 8:55pm - Attempted to discipline Fluffy, but he is still asleep. [I would think thrashing your virtual pet with your virtual belt would wake the little guy up.] 9:19pm - Still asleep. [Bum] Based on the evidence that in the last two and a half hours Fluffy has grown five pounds and produced a total surplus of only 3 poops, Fluffy must now be eating his own feces! [Where the feces itself is coming from is another good question. I'd like to think he was excreting vital internal organs.] I'd reward him with a game of Kick the Tamagotchi if he'd ever wake up. I guess digesting fecal matter is pretty tiring. I'm pleased to see that one aspect of my training has worked. 9:30pm - [Went to Eggie's birthday party. Eggie is not a tamagotchi, and yes, that is his real name. Brought Fluffy with, but he slept through the whole thing. I think he's kinda a dork.]
1:56am - Got back from the party and checked on Fluffy. He's still sleeping with his light on. He really ought to learn how to turn that off. I think I managed to get him in suspended animation. I plan to leave him alone untill morning. ~1:00pm - After ignoring Fluffy all night and sleeping all morning, [It was a Saturday.] Fluffy emitted a series of painful-sounding beeps and died. A [dorky-looking] spaceship came to haul his rotting corpse away. So it goes.
This is my favorite virtual pet parody site. Somebody else has started programming an actual tamagothi for shockwave based on this webpage. I don't know if that's cool or very, very sad.
