If I’m trying to salvage the stuff I put on Twitter, I’d be remiss if I didn’t take my theories about the Mushroom Kingdom:

In the Mushroom Kingdom, it appears at least, that permanent death has been defeated (presumably by the 1-Up mushrooms). Are Boos, then, the ghosts of those who died before the breakthrough, or are they ghosts by choice?

They do, as a general rule, tend to reside in abandoned homes and castles. Could these be the remnants of their pre-fungus society?

I also have reason to suspect that pre-fungus society was made up to Koopas and related species, such as the Yoshis or other dino types such as Rex from Mario World. These were the dominant people of that world pre-fungus.

There is controvery over whether Mario and Luigi are actuall from New York or if they are Mushroom Kingdom natives. I feel that their foreign status can be the only correct reading. They are definitely New Yorkers.

I suspect that there exist dimensional anomaly, likely accessed via the pipes throughout the Kingdom which connect the once-Koopa-ruled planet with other dimensions, including the alternate world ruled by humans which the Mario Bros hail from.

In fact, it is almost certain that all humans (and indeed, the Kong family of apes) in the Mushroom Kingdom come from contamination via the anomaly.

Likely, humans had been inadvertently wandering into the Koopa World for centuries via the anomaly. Given that they successfully built a sustainable population there, it seems the Koopoid races treated the accidental visitors with some kindness.

That peace presumably only lasted until the fungus, though. I don’t know if the fungus originated in another dimension or if it is native mushrooms mutated by the strange energies of the anomaly, but it seems to be the most important thing to ever come to that world.

Suddenly there came a host of magic in mushroom form. Mushrooms that could change one’s size. Mushrooms that could give a car a boost. Even Goombas! A sentient species of mushroom. But the 1-Up was the most world-changing.

It does seem that in the modern age the Koopas and allies have access to the live-giving fungus (look how often Bowser and his kin come back from the dead), but perhaps they did not take to it originally. If they opposed the use of the 1-Up, they doomed themselves.

An enemy who can not die can defeat an enemy that can. They only need to outlast them. So the humans who embraced the 1-Up, likely the founders of the Toadstool dynasty, won the struggle for planetary dominance.

Now you may say that the Toads are not humans, they are fungus people. Yes, they are. Now. I suspect that the 1-Up works as follows: your consciousness is backed up and stored in the fungal network. When you die, a new body is grown from the fungus.

The process is likely not perfect. Every time one dies, their regrown body is likely slightly different, slightly more mushroom than before. This is also probably why Mario and Luigi look so much more cartoony than regular humans. They have died too often.

Peach, being royalty, is probably given special care in the regrowth process. The recent powerup that can turn Toadette into a Peach doppelganger proves the fungus can specilize in her form.

Potential point to ponder: do Shy Guys keep themselves hermetically sealed to resist exposure to the spores? Are they a sect left over from the era of the struggle?

Likely the bricks that are so ubiquitous in the Mushroom Kingdom (those which are not people transformed by Koopa magic anyway) are the remains of the great Koopa cities.

So what I am saying is I think Boos are ancient dead Koopa people.

We have to accept that Bob-Ombs are likely artificially intelligent weaponry that originates from these ancient wars. Left running in the thousands of years that follow, they have gained a culture all their own.

The “shells” worn by Koopas are not biological. They are technology. They can take them off like clothes. They can ride around on them. They can use them as weapons.

The ancient Koopoids are also likely the designers of clouds that can be walked on (or even driven around) and the vast pipe system that allows world travel with such ease. They must have been an amazing people.

I was reluctant to join Twitter when it was new. Eventually I did, though. And I got to like it.

Some people bemoan how “people are always looking at their phones” these days, but I can only speak for myself about how having the Internet readily at hand has made me happier. Back before I had a “smartphone” when I was caught out in the world, I didn’t look around with greater appreciation or some other idyllic feeling. My mind was just as chaotic then as it was after I got the phone, I just had to deal with it in different ways. I remember sitting in waiting rooms and just arranging everything on the tables so that they were at right angles to one another. I often used to just throw coins around randomly, like just hucking pennies into the street and such. I did minor graffiti on many occasions. All this was stuff I did just because I didn’t have something better to focus on.

Twitter was never the most important use for my newfangled high-tech phones, but it was high on the list. It would allow me, at any time, to check and see if any of the people I cared to hear about had said anything I might like to read. It was a source of entertainment I could pull out of my pocket when I needed it, and also it kept me feeling like I was connected to society around me. And sometimes I made dumb jokes on there*. And, perhaps most importantly, Twitter confirmed that I am the Pope now:

But it is now past time to leave that particular social media site. For what it’s worth, I have joined Bluesky, an up and coming rival for Twitter’s userbase. It is currently invitation-only but it has enough people on there that I can usually find something entertaining when I crave it (Which is good because Canada doesn’t have pennies anymore). But I will miss what Twitter was when I enjoyed it.

*Making dumb jokes on Twitter was never my favourite usage for it. I know the common belief is that we need to be careful what we say on the Internet because it sticks around forever, but a lot of the time that just ain’t true. I crave permanence and the Internet is an ephemeral place. If I had my way, everything I ever posted on Contains2 (or its Geocities predecessor the Adam West Batcave) would all be accessible on this website, but they just aren’t. This is why I got Marq to make a thing for me so that the things I posted on Twitter would show up on this site too (they also helped keep things visually more appealing here for a couple years), but that program eventually stopped working. Before I fully leave Twitter I am going to go through and find any jokes worth repeating here or turning into Phone Guys strips or whatever. But no matter how much I salvage, I’ll be losing something. That’s the Internet for ya.

I feel that I should note for posterity that Donald Trump is also banned from this website. I mean, I don’t have the knowledge of how to actually ban anyone, but he’s unwelcome here at any rate.

Well, I think I’m getting a cold. I knew it! I knew I shouldn’t be among these diseased children. Curse them all! Anyway, I guess I’m lucky in that I have time to sleep tonight. Hopefully that will help.

In other news, it appears that the program we used to put my Twitter posts onto the site went and changed. Doesn’t seem to work anymore. It was a nice idea while it lasted.

So now I’m gonna lay down. Rest my eyes. That sort of thing.

I am now on the Twitter. Who would have thought that this could have ever occurred? How many people bothered to think about it at all? Apart from me, probably not many. I guess a lot has changed since 2009. I still don’t have one of those mobile devices that let’s one do the Internet from wherever they want, but I’ve softened on the idea that I can’t fit my thoughts into small chunks. I’m totally going to start cutting my thoughts into bite-size chunks now forever.

You can totally see my first post directly under this one. Why is that? That is because Marq, my near-silent partner in this whole website endeavour, has set things up so anything I post on Twitter still ends up here, on the site where I obsessively collect everything I do! Hooray! Thanks, Marq!

So the moral of this story is, things barely change for people reading the site, but I’m also out on other sites. Kinda neat.