Etch

Etch

Etch is a MK64 and MKDS player foremost. He dabbled in SMK and MKDD briefly but found no enjoyment there.

Ultimately, his heart truly belongs to MKSC.

He is currently ranked Titan A non-sc in mksc, Legend A non-sc, Legend B sc, and Legend A universal in mk64, Myth D non-prb, Titan D prb in mkds, Star D in smk, and Expert C in mkdd. He joined the Mario Kart community in December 2005. It was mkds that he would experience the most notoriety with by topping out at #12 in non-prb on two occasions and #9 in prb Time Trials. He was a top 3 player for USA but never did get a taste of the sweet gold on his way up the charts. He held 5 mkds WR's; Staff Roll, Dokan Course 3lap and flap, and Nokonoko Course 3lap and flap. When he got into pr ruts or needed something to take his mind off his falling rank on mkds, he decided to give mk64 a spin. Slowly but surely, he got the hang of it and made his run up to Leg F non-sc quickly and eventually to the top 40 at Leg A overall. More recently, he reached Leg B and the top 20 on sc. His highest overall mk64 rank was on the shortcut charts at #15. He represents the USA well here too placing in top 15 for non-sc and top 10 for sc and universal. Like mkds, he has his share of God times there which are never that special since a crap load of other people have them too. It's the top 20 times you have to cherish. Oddly enough, he's best at mksc where he collected all sorts of records on his way to #6 non-sc and #3 sc which was enough to earn him POY 2009. After holding the USA crown, he still continues to mill about the top 10. He held 13 mksc WR's; Donut Plains 3 flap, Broken Pier flap, Retro Rainbow Road flap, Ghost Valley 1 5lap and flap, Koopa Beach 2 5lap and flap, Lakside Park flap, Boo Lake flap, Vanilla Lake 2 flap, Choco Island 1 flap, Choco Island 2 flap, and Cheese Land flap. One never retires from kart so even in the greatest pr despair, one eventually does get a new time through patience and hours upon hours of sacrifice. No one likes a whiner. In addition to Time Trials, he has contributed a lot to the MKDS and MKSC Players' Pages and Mario Kart MB with usually helpful posts to newer members if they are not tools and just talking with fellow karters.

He is also the news/site updater for the MKDS Players' Page and one of the board ninjas for the Mario Kart MB. When things were seeming to fall apart over in mkds, he rose to the challenge to assist Sean Sullivan becoming a site moderator and doing news/time updates along with adding some other features. On June 10th 2007, he created the new WR page for mkds. For a long time, there had not been a monument to the best mkds times but that all changed after borrowing the layout design from mk64. Besides keeping track of all the best known times, there is a painstakingly accurate WR history giving tribute to almost all players who have helped in the art of time trials. He also made the push for new standards and those eventually made their way onto the site. Possibly a reward for his kart efforts, Mark Jones knighted Etch a global ninja. He briefly served as a master ninja to help run the karter contests. Although he went out in the first round of the 2006 Karter Contest, he ended up making it to the semifinals and took 3rd place overall in the 2008 Karter Contest, was the runner-up in the 2010 Karter Contest and 2012 Karter Contest, and reached the quarterfinals in the 2014 Karter Contest.

Since nobody else was doing anything, he later revamped the MKSC Players' Page to showcase both non-sc and sc times. This brought in some fresh blood to a mostly dead game and finally gives these world records proper recognition. This is the only kart you can literally play anywhere so it remains to this day his daily fix for mario kart.

He has also played mkds wifi and raced as j0kicka55. With a record of 2176-201, he was a formidable opponent in the earlier days of mkds. The wifi competition was one of the unique features of this game which was one reason several players delayed or avoided time trials due to the large amount of fun over boring single player mode. Eventually amassing over 4000 wins, he returned to time trials so as not to fall too far down the charts.

Other accomplishments include placing Pobre in Purgatory, converting a 7-10 split, getting a college degree, deleting thousands of posts, Crazy Taxi 1/2/3 Champion, Sonic R Champion, and finding time to waste updating various kart sites.

He hasn't played much since 2007 but continues to keep up with the sites and various updates.