Apparently, in a past life, I was a turtle named Gifford. I discovered this tantalizing fact by visiting Emode.com, a web site that specializes in tests. All sorts of tests. Go there, and you'll find over fifty different tests ranging from a normal IQ test to "What Breed of Dog Are You?" and "Are you a Sex God?"

And, of course, there's also the Loony Past Life test where I found out about Gifford the turtle. Most of the other tests made sense, but I'm not quite sure about this one. Somehow, silly questions like "Are you able to open your mouth really, really wide?" and "Have you or would you ever bungee jump?" were supposed to tell me all about my past life. Or lack thereof, as the case may be. "Despite an exceptionally athletic father, you seemed to prefer sunbathing and mudbaths to more active pursuits," I was told. Well, I suppose I can't really argue with that. I just hope I'm not related to Kathie Lee.

For some reason, laziness seemed to be the common theme of all my tests. I was later told that if I were a dog I would be a basset hound. "You are one laid back individual," the first line of my results read. If you ask me, all this emphasis on my laziness was getting to be unfair. I'd argue more about it, but that's really too much work. I think I'd rather just lie down for awhile.

Next, there was a particularly intriguing test called "Are You Sure You're You?" Hmmn, well, I always thought I was. Then again, I had been spending the last hour answering silly quizzes. That's certainly not in character. And from reading the introduction to the test, it seemed that there was a very real chance that I might not in fact be me. "What separates reality from a dream? In the information age, there's no way to be sure that your life isn't just a long simulation. Are you sure that you're the same person that you think you are?" I was asked.

Then came 20 questions including:

• Have you ever been under general anesthesia? (Yes)
• Does your signature look the same as it did five years ago? (A little different)
• Do you like reruns on television? (No)
• Have you ever practiced role-playing in the bedroom? (Um ... none of your business)

In the end, the folks at Emode told me that I had scored a 67 out of 100. "Great news! There's a strong chance that you're really who you think you are," I was told. Um, great news? I don't know about that. Whereas up until that very moment I had always assumed that I was at least 99 and 44/100th percent me, now it was looking like 33% of me might possibly be someone else. Who the hell was this person inside me taking up a third of the space? And was he or she perhaps responsible for all those times when I've made a complete fool of myself?

Unfortunately, there was no way to know. You'd think that they would at least have a test to tell me more about this stranger within me, but no. There was nothing at all. As you can imagine, we're both pretty peeved about it.

By the end, I had taken about twenty tests, including "The Love Test," "The Suave-o-meter," and "Are You a Sex God?" How'd I do on these? Well, I also took another test that said I was 71% introverted. Sorry, but if you don't mind, I think I'll be keeping my Sex God results to myself.