Mass rambling ahead.

Ahh, my loyal companion and friend. POKéMON PIKACHU is a cute little thingum that you can attack to your belt (just like a real Pokeball!) or put in your pocket or whatever, and every step you take will register as one click. I think it's a fairly popular idea in Japan, my friend has a Hello Kitty one. Which I like much better because it's not mean. :(

20 clicks equals one watt. You give Pikachu gifts of watts and it will like you more. You can win more watts by playing a slot machine. To keep Pikachu loving you, you have to give it watts now and again.

So, it seems to be a nice system of getting kids to get exercise. Or is it?

Personally, Pokemon Pikachu drives me insane. Does anyone else think this Pikachu is extremely shallow and demanding? I mean, it only loves you if you give it presents! What about the fact that I take it everywhere with me, sleep beside it at night, check up on it several times a day?

Nope, it cares little. Right now my own Pikachu is in a sulk with me. As always. Turning its back on its own trainer, the only one to care about it. Huh.

I rely on its alarm clock, but... half the time I completely sleep through it, the other half of the time I'm scared half to death by this thing beeping right in my ear and my nerves are shot to pieces for a few minutes. What a nice way to wake up to the world in the morning!

My Pikachu used to love me. It really did. Then, my friend gave it 000 watts to find out what happened - Pikachu makes a face - and decided that face was cute. So she did it a few more times.

Before long, -shock- was blinking on the screen and I had to shake Pikachu to bring it back to its senses.

This happened several months ago. I've never gotten it to love me since. The problem is the slot machine. I've tried so many times. But even when I press it exactly the same place I did before, where before there was a 7, I now get a fish.

It's a conspiricy. By the beef industry. They're trying to subtly turn us against the fishing industry so that more service will turn to them. As a part of this, they're making us thoroughly fed up with fish by the simple fact that whenever you get two sevens as the first values, the third one will always be a FISH.

But the government doesn't have to worry about Pokemon Pikachu encouraging gambling. (There was an article in the newspaper a while back saying that Pokemon Pikachu was facing being taken off the market in Australia for encouraging gambling, but fortunately, they gave up on that rubbish.) Because after my possession of Pikachu, I've firmly decided that I do not want to ever see a slot machine again. ^_^;;

You know what I think? I think that when you get a certain number of clicks, Pikachu should evolve into Raichu. Come on, how cool would that be. (I like Rai better than Pika.) I can just see a cute Raichu brushing its teeth. ^_^.

I also think it's not fair that Pikachu should hog the market. I'm sure there'll probably be a Pokemon Togepi some day (if there isn't already) but there will never be a Pokemon Ekans, and that really really sucks. ^_^. Right now, I turn on my Pikachu... it has its back facing me. Nearly 330 000 clicks now. Let's give it some watts. 300. It writes a thank-you note, with love-hearts on it. But now it's still mad at me. Okay, 400 will do. Another thank you letter. 200 more. Oh, it didn't like that. It's stomping its feet and having a temper tantrum. Hmpf.

Oh, wow! It's okay with me, now! I wonder how many minutes that will last...

Pikachu is demanding, greedy, materialistic and not efficient at waking me up. (Then again, it'd take a bulldozer running me down to wake me up.) It doesn't really serve any use and it'll never like me very much. 7-7-fish appears on a regular basis, and as always, Pikachu is the sole representative of Pokemon on this market.

But all that said and done, it's darn addictive and I have no intention of resetting it any time soon. Buy one for yourself. Spread the evil. Mwahaha.

Note: Shortly after writing this article, I did indeed stop using it. Now it's permanently on shock. ^_^.