All hail the Big K (wait isn't that a store?)

Since it's Halloween here's a little horror story for you guys. I remember way back when I was in Elementry school I was at Blockbuster video to get a game. Final Fantasy Mystic Quest had just came out and I was contemplating renting it. In fact I had been looking for it for a while. But when it came down to it it was either Mystic Quest or Super Punch Out. I chose Super Punch Out (one of the best action games on the SNES I think) thankfully.

This might not sound all that scary but thinking back it could've scarred me from Final Fantasy games or even *gasp* from all RPGs. Who knows what that would've lead to then. It makes me shudder. How about you Andrew you got any gaming horror stories?

-Figure

AK,

Damn. Only 8% are women. Damn. That means there's almost 12 of us to every one of them. My chances aren't good. Screw a good body; if I can find a girlfriend who I can have with philosophical coversations about Final Fantasy VIII or other RPGs, I'd be in heaven. Maybe if I start dressing like THE MAN or LuckyDan, I might find one of those 8%.

Mike Drucker

Hey K-man

When I read Steve's comentary on how Gilgamesh sucks I just about fell off my chair. First off Gilgamesh is THE MAN, secondly why do people keep oh taking cheap shots at THE MAN but no one ever seems to make fun of Tonberrys. Not the ones from Final Fantasy 7 who hand over a buttload of EXP if you manage to beat them but the bastards from Final Fantasy 8. I mean I sit there from 7 minutes summoning GFs on him until the prick finally dies and then all he gives me is a Chef's Knife and 1 AP!!!! I wouldn't be too bad if all I had to beat was 10 of them to bet Tonberry King but I have to beat 18-22! Who the hell likes to fight them! Whose idea was it to make it so you get no EXP? Why did they put them in the game to begin with? This should genrate some back feed.

-Figure Four

AK, if you don't mind I'm going to have to yell at Drew now. Try not to feel left out.

Goddammit Drew, you just had to bring up the time machine didn't you?! Didn't you?!? Don't get me started on time travel. Well now you've done it. I'm going to have to tell you my cockeyed theories about time travel and the ways of the universe. You've brought this upon yourself Cosner:

Time travel is impossible. Get over it everybody. There is no such thing as, and never will be, a time machine. It's just not happening. Nobody has any clue what so ever as to how to build one and from what one will be built. There is simply no knowledge or resources on the subject.

And don't try to think your all smart, telling me about the whole "Black Hole" thing, cause that just won't work either. For those of you who don't know, some people believe that black holes are a tear in space which lead to a different part of the universe or maybe even back in time since it will be a rip in the time-space continuim, and as it was proven by Einstien, the faster you go the more time slows down (we're talking astronomical terms here, not like 50 miles an hour. So don't try to time your self with a stopwatch, when driving your car). And since a black hole has such a gravitational force it is believed that it will suck you into it at speeds greater than that of the speed of light. But the reality of it is, that if a ship were to go anywhere near a black hole, it will just break up or be sucked into it and crash when it reaches the surface of the planet. And that's essentially what a black hole is: a planet or a star, with so much mass packed into it that its' gravitational field is simply too strong for anything to escape it, and not a tear in space, despite what science fiction novelists would have you believe. Nothing can escape it except for maybe radiation. You see, for anything to leave the gravitational field of a planet or star, it needs to move at a speed fast enough to surpass the force of gravity, which that planet is creating. That's why a rocket has to move at the approximate speed of a bullet leaving the barrel of a gun, in order to reach space. Now the reason why a black hole is all dark is because not even light can move fast enough (about 386,000,000 miles per second) to escape its gravitational field, caused by its gigantic mass. It has a very big mass, since the larger something is, the more gravity it creates. That's why it's easy to jump high on the moon which is small, but considerably harder to do down here on earth, which is larger by comparison.

But how do we know that Black Holes exist, if we can't see them and nothing can escape them? Good question. Well, black holes emit very large amounts of radiation that we can detect, even though the closest black hole (we think) is just beyond Pluto, which is pretty far. But this would mean that radiation would at one point move faster than the speed of light, and then slows down, because all the forms of radiation that we know of, don't move faster than light; this contradicts a theory by some scientist, whose name I can't remember right now, that nothing can ever move faster than light. So we kind of run into problems here. But fear not, because there is yet another way to detect the presence of black holes, and that is the effect that it has on light emmited from other stars. It bends the light and makes it's appearance look similar to that of an eclipse. So now that I've cleared that up you see that there is no possibility in how a black hole could make you travel back in time.

Now let's just say that you somehow did manage to build a time machine, and go back in time. The only use that it would have is to collect knowledge of what it was like back then, but if you tried to change history, like try to kill Hitler or something, then you would fail in your objective. The reason for this is because time is unchangable, and whatever you went back to do, you would have already done it when you reached the future. I know that it's hard to understand, but try to bear with me here. Also, if you saw the movie "12 Monkeys", then you would better understand at what I'm getting at. Let's say that Bob wanted to go back and kill Hitler because Adolph killed his parents. Bob would undoubtedly fail because of the fact that he didn't succed 50 years ago. He was already back in time (as an adult) in the 1940's, when he was a child, and failed to kill Hitler. Hitler then in turn killed Bob's parents, creating the incentive for him to go back in time. Time will be a continuous loop, and it has to be that way because: Let's say that Bob succeeded in his mission, and killed Hitler. Then Hitler would have never killed Bob's parents and Bob (as an adult) would have have never went back in time to kill Hitler, leaving Hitler in the past alive to kill Bob's parents back in the 1940's, and that's is contradicting the whole reality of Bob already killing Hitler. So you see this is why Bob must fail in his mission, and anything he did (as an adult) in the 1940's would just be playing out his role of time and further helping the outcome of Hiter killing his parents. If you think that this is hard to understand, you should try explaining it.

So these are my reasons on why time travel doesn't work, never will work, and would be pointless even if you managed to do it. But hey, these are only the opinions that I formed from my 17 years of existence, and we are all free to have our own views. So disagree with me if you want. Or don't.

Man, this is so deserving of a Smartass award, but I know I can't get one because it's Andy's turn, and he can't give out Drew's awards or else he will be severely beaten. Another thing against me is that this has absolutely nothing to do with videogames, and nobody cares about this crap except me. But Andy, if your still reading this I'll give you MY award. It's called the "Mikey B. Award," and I give it only to those who take the time and effort out to read my long and pointless letters. You should be proud Andy; not many people on the face of this earth can read my lengthly letters without killing themselves afterwards. I would've drew a picture or told you the side effects of leaving this award out in the sun or something, but I'm still broken up at the fact that you didn't post my picture last week. **wipes away tear**

-Mikey B.

Salutations,

Since someone wrote in about Meowth being able to speak English, I figured i'd be able to write an inquiry about the verbal habits of the little beasts:

Why is it that Pokemon's vocal chords can easily form their own names, but not anything else(though I guess Meowth would negate that theory)? More importantly, since their names are made up of English letters and phonemes, why can they not already speak English? And does no one else realize that Pikachu is a mutant transvestite mouse?

There is one other thing I would like to mention. I have recently come apon information revealing the true names of The Ambiguously Gay Duo. And (since you are all desperatly waiting) they are: Gilgamesh and Enkidu. I say this not in offense of the patron saint of The Gia, but simply as a fulfilment of my duty as a super-villain to uncover the secrets of my enemies. Though I must say that this gives new meaning to "THE MAN."

Vale,
Unferth, the Dark Knight of California

I must start this with an apology as I am sure you will find this quite annoying. I have been surfing the net for three days now with little to show except a host of sites offering cheats. I am going to buy a console game system for my kids. I have a computer (obviously) and have never bothered with these (console) systems in the past. What is the BEST (games available and price, ease of use, relative price of system vs.value etc.), system available? I understand this is a rather difficult and far reaching question. In addition or as an alternative, would you point me to site that has comparisons and reviews (i.e. bench tests) of the various systems available? Thanks in advance for your help.

Grayson R. Pike
Columbus, Ohio