I don't know about you, but when I think of mean things to do to tamagotchies I think of that scene from Ransom: "...a million dollars or your tamagotchi dies!"

Waha ha ha ha ha!

You know, the possibilities for these things are endless. Maybe the next generation will be able to <beam> over to see friends in other eggs or maybe <gasp> even to a PC for visits or crawl around on the internet. Or maybe when these critters do visit each other, they'll <yikes> mate and have offspring! Or maybe they won't like each other and fight.

Oh, the possibilities...

A side note to those tamagotchies. I was wondering if the name is a cute play with words:

1. tamago -- which (i think) means egg
2. tomodatchi -- which (I think) means friend

Subject: Tamagotchi
From: Stephen Escobedo (stephen@webtrans.com)
Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 12:29:19 -0007

I saw these on the Japanese news not too long ago. Like, every teenage girl in Japan has one. I'd think about getting one, but it would have to be pretty butch first. I'd probably buy model paint and paint the thing up in camouflage.

Stephen Escobedo

Subject: digital pets
From: Jim Dreier-Lawrence (dreierlaw@edgenet.net)
Date: Thu, 08 May 1997 10:01:08 -0700

How about Catz, an interactive PC software based pet cat? You select the kitten you want, name it, play with it, feed it, brush it, take pictures of it, etc. You can call it up whenever you want or have it set as a screensaver. They will grow from kittens into cats.

My son has one on this PC. You can probably pick the software up in any of the computer superstores, made by PF Magic. They also make Dogz.

Unlike those portable digital whatchamacallits, catz and dogz are not subject to built-in mortality. I can't remember what I paid for it, but it couldn't have been too much.

(They are kinda cute, nobody seems to be able to resist playing with them.)

Jim