Any dumb skinny punk hipster can walk around with a Walkman on his belt. And why not? They’re the most revolutionary advance in portable audio of all time! They’re small, they’re lightweight, the sound quality is top-notch, they never skip or scratch, and you can drop those fuckers a thousand times and they still work. Also they’re made by my boys at Sony, who totally deserve a win after all that Betamax bullshit.

But that is exactly the problem, man. It’s too easy, too sensible, too accessible to be truly worthy of the Two-Time.

The Discman, on the other hand, is technology for the sheer sake of technology, advance for the sheer sake of advance. It’s not nearly as reliable as the Walkman: It skips. The discs get scratched. The laser gets smudged. It breaks if you fucking sneeze on it (to be fair, I have a superhumanly powerful sneeze).

But man—it looks so fucking cool. It’s sleek, it’s smooth, it’s all curves and beveled edges where the Walkman is a dumpy little box. It’s powered by its own little internal mini-laser! Who cares how well it works?? And it’s also made by Sony!

When I’ve got my original Discman strapped to my powerful thigh in the middle of my sixth set of twelve three-hundred-fifty-pound squats, I look fucking incredible, baby. So what if it skips every third note on my rare, first-edition original CD of the Masters of the Universe soundtrack, composed by the brilliant Bill Conti (Rocky, The Karate Kid, all the greats)?

Good looks, style, dominance, success, excellence, uniqueness—people, you gotta work for these things, you gotta sacrifice. Unless you’re like me and you’re just born that way. In either case, it’s Discman all the way.

Nintendo Entertainment System

Remember all that stuff I said about how you gotta work and sacrifice for everything?

Yeah, well, sometimes rules are proved by exceptions.

The original NES is actually incredibly, ridiculously easy to buy. Find that shit online and it can be yours in days, which makes it pretty ordinary. But you know what? It’s worth breaking my champion’s creed for one simple reason.

Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!

I mean, look. I love multiplayer shooter games. Why shouldn’t I? I dominate them. I got rich dominating them. I built an empire dominating them. Also, they’re badass.