If there’s one thing gamers love, it’s ruining other peoples’ lives. And while online multiplayer allows us to take out our pent up first world problems on other like-minded individuals, real life interaction is often lacking in opportunities for things like ragequitting.

Sure, you could storm out of school/work, but it’s just not the same.

Luckily, it turns out not all gaming is online. In fact, to this day some scant number of die-hard gamers still meet up at tournaments, arcades, and even major electronics expositions.

Some people embrace such gatherings as a place to meet kindred spirits and discuss the state of our shared hobby. But real pros know such events are better suited for mischief normally reserved for Xbox Live.

Ruining anything with an Xbox 360

Whether you’re attending a Street Fighter IV AE tournament or the E3 gaming expo, it’s fairly likely that one or more extremely important games is going to be displayed with the help of an Xbox 360 console. And while you can’t sync a controller to such a platform against its will, Microsoft gave gamers a fail safe way of ruining final matches and press reveals alike: Xbox 360 Universal Media Remote.

It works with the classic Xbox 360; it works with the new Slim models. And it has the power to pause, stop, eject, and downright shut down any Xbox 360 with the futuristic power of infrared rays. The little black plastic on the front of every 360 is a gateway to hilarity when you’ve got one of these remotes in your pocket, backpack, or modified arcade stick. And what better mischief is there than ejecting the disk during the final fight between Daigo and Gamerbee at EVO 2012, or cancelling every dashboard command during a new UI demonstration?

But what if they’re not using an Xbox 360?

Ruining any other system, PC, or robot

Now look, I’m no scientist, so I can’t guarantee this will work. But I’m gonna bet dollars to donuts that the one thing that won’t work is any electronic device after you set down a backpack full of industrial strength rare earth magnets next to it. How strong are these magnets, exactly? Well, according to the reviews on Amazon, they can distort a television from over 6 feet away. I can’t imagine placing ten or twenty of these badboys within half that distance of a 70″ plasma is going to do it any favors, unless the person using it was about to beg you to destroy it utterly.

Unlike using an Xbox 360 Universal Media Remote, you won’t have to take the magnets out or hide them in a pocket to use them. You just have to walk around as your newly-found Magneto powers destroy every television, console, PC, cell phone, and pacemaker within a 10 foot radius. Just make sure you leave your own devices at home… and try not to have too many fillings.

The moral of the story

What’s the point of this random, senseless anarchy? If you’re asking such questions, odds are you are far too introspective and reasonable to ever really consider acting out these sadistic fantasies. But if you’re inclined to social experimentation, there’s no better way to test the psychological effects of losing hundreds of dollars of electronic goods. Or the boundaries of human patience with a game console that restarts after every button check.

If ass hattery isn’t its own reward, surely science is.