Neo's Law

However, there are also the unwritten rules; these are just as daunting as those set before us in easy-to-read vernacular. You know they’re there but rarely ever give them much mind. And whenever your thoughts are directed to the topic, it’s usually in exasperation. For the sake of this article, these policies left unsung by the Neopets staff shall be henceforth referred to as Neo’s Law.

Before I begin, I should make it clear that I have only done so much in my three or so years here. While some new users jump right into all sorts of the fun activities offered--and cheers to them--I’ve turned out to be rather conservative in what I do. For example, one of the main things I participate in is the Neopian Beauty Contest. I do not, however, do anything in the Stock Market. I could probably go on and on about the former, but have only a few meager ideas regarding the latter. I’m quite certain that you could find many more of these rules that I don’t have listed here. (:

Without further ado, I present to you a few examples of Neo’s Law. (Hey, that kind of rhymed!)

I. When creating a new account or pet, there’s a nine in ten chance that the name you want or some close variation of it is already taken. There is also a great chance that the holder of said account or pet hasn’t been logged in for goodness knows how long and is probably never coming back.

II. When participating in a plot, there will always be a part that makes you want to throw something large, heavy, and expensive. If you can’t work it out or get just plain fed up, you will most likely give up. This usually occurs sometime early in the plot and will earn you a runner-up prize.

III. On a day you feel like chatting in the forums, surfing the shop wizard for good deals, or anything else that requires a lot of refreshing and/or a quick browser, the site will suddenly go down for maintenance or fall victim to an absolutely horrid lag. This will most likely to occur at a very inopportune time, like when you‘re just about to score that secret laboratory map piece for one Neopoint.

IV. As soon as you’ve saved up enough Neopoints for that special paint brush, inflation will see to it that the price suddenly doubles. No pain, no gain, right?

V. Contest prizes: the bigger and better you expect, the less valuable they really turn out to be.

VI. Upon completing a faerie’s quest, she’ll be sure to bless the pet you’re not training for the Battledome.

VII. The harder you try for a game avatar, the more likely you’ll mess up somewhere or the server won’t be able to accept your score.

VIII. Unless you’re unerringly brilliant at CSS/HTML, that user lookup, petpage, etc. isn’t going to be coded without repeatedly giving you at least two or three mistakes that make you angrier than the Turmaculus suffering a bad case of insomnia before it’s finally at a point you’re happy with.

IX. It can be guaranteed that, on a day a new avatar is released, there are a million and one boards popping up all over the avatar chat demanding to know how to get it, no matter how simple it might be to unlock. They will continue to be created well after someone’s figured it out and told everyone.

X. The Beauty Contest chat is always just as crazy with advertisements on Fridays.

XI. Someone out there has the Chef Bonju avatar and they’re just not telling.

XII. Nothing is n00b-proof. The harder you try to distance yourself from all n00bs, the more likely they’ll somehow find you.

XIII. When playing Pyramids, it is inevitable that you will end countless games with one stinkin’ card left to clear. There will also come the time when you’ll be working to clear the pyramid twice in a row for the gold trophy; you’ll have the first game down and have one last card to go the second round, but, alas, your deck will run out.

XIV. You will get inspiration to enter the art gallery, poems gallery, Neopian Times, etc. for a certain holiday… at about the same time everything is updated for said holiday.

XV. If you’ve purchased a paint brush and are simply waiting for the Neopets Team to make that color available to the pet you wish to paint, you’ll be waiting a while. The more excited about it you are, the longer said wait will be.

XVI. If you love baby pets and desperately wish for a visit from Boochi, chances are you’ll never see him. If baby pets scare you beyond all reason (as is my case), Boochi is crouched outside your Neohome window at this very second waiting for someone to come out. There is a nine in ten chance that if you own a pet painted an insanely expensive color, s/he will be active when Boochi strikes.

XVII. Most random events are utterly useless. The harder you hope for a good one, the less likely it’ll come to pass.

XVIII. Most useful random events occur on side accounts instead of mains. The latter is where most people would prefer to get them.

XIX. The harder you work on a Beauty Contest entry, art gallery entry, Neopian Times article, etc., the higher the likelihood you’ll hate it. You are your own greatest critic, after all.

XX. It can be guaranteed that you can relate to at least five aforementioned rules.

As I’ve said, I’ve only done so much here at Neopets.com. There are several, several more examples of Neo’s Law out there and I’m sure you can pick out at least a few not listed here. At any rate, I hope you all found this article at least mildly amusing.

Until next time, this is Azure wishing you a tolerable day and tidings of scheming Meepits at your doorstep.

Did I just say that out loud?