"Does Absolutely Nothing"

Quite some time ago, Mr. Stibitz overheard a group of people, which included me, talking about Pokémon in SLC. He decided to join the conversation, and actually surprised us by knowing far more about the subject than anyone had expected. This he attributed to his having kids, but nonetheless it was amusing to quiz Mr. Stibitz on Pokémon-related trivia, so naturally that's just what we took to doing. He knew the name of the evolved form of Pikachu, and most of the other random questions we asked him- I think he even knew a bit about the various evolved forms of Eevee. We asked him what his favorite Pokémon was, and he promptly responded with, "Magikarp." For anyone who doesn't know, Magikarp is a fish Pokémon who does absolutely nothing. The only reason anyone ever wants it is because of its more powerful evolved form, Gyarados. This is what the all-knowing Wikipedia has to say on the subject:

Magikarp is a commonly found Pokémon that can survive in rivers, lakes, and oceans.... [T]he Pokédex states that the Magikarp species...is the least viable for battling in the series....Magikarp is commonly thought of as the weakest Pokémon. They are only able to learn three moves: Splash (does absolutely nothing), Tackle (a weak attack), and Flail (which does more damage as Magikarp is more damaged.) ... In the anime, Magikarp has appeared several times, most notably as the subject of a running gag in which a salesman attempts to trick Team Rocket into buying Magikarp...

I think "which does more damage as Magikarp is more damaged" is supposed to mean that it does more harm to the opponent if Magikarp is in worse shape. And he picked that one as his favorite Pokémon of all. It's not quite tangible, but I can somehow imagine Mr. Stibitz and Magikarp agreeing on many aspects of LTUAE. Anyway, Monday in class, I was telling someone that Magikarp is his favorite Pokémon, and they didn't believe me. I called to Mr. Stibitz: "Hey Mr. Stibitz, what's you're favorite Pokémon?" He proclaimed that he had him with him, them took out his wallet. There was a Magikarp card in it. He said he was planning to build an entire army of just Magikarps, then put it back, right behind his driver's license. But not before I could convince him to let me get a picture. There. Now I have proof.


Today I asked him if he still had it with him. He did. And he said that he saw it mentioned on the show that Magikarp was the weakest Pokémon. He picked it as his favorite to annoy his kids. He said it worked. Wow. (Sentence fragments. Good device. Will be used more here.)