Sunday, November 23, 2008

Otaku

Even though today was a gorgeous day, and I did indeed spend a chunk of it outside gardening, a large part of it was spent indoors, parked in The Comfy Chair with a rotating cast of cats, reading the New York Times, well worth the $5 it costs to truck it into Humboldt County.

The magazine had an article on Will Wright and his strangely textile-free home in the East Bay hills. Back in the day, when it was still called the Computer Game Developers Conference down in Silicon Valley, Greg ran into Will. This was just after SimCity had come out, a gaming phenomenon. Greg was anxious to talk to Will, as SimCity was such a departure from the usual computer gaming dreck. But with SimCity being such a hit, everyone in the hall wanted to talk to Will Wright.

So Greg politely stood among the circle of people waiting for their chance. And waited. Greg was successful in catching Will's eyes, but Will kept on talking to others in the tightly-knit circle around him, including a pair of Japanese publishers. Very intense talk. Until one of the Japanese men happened to notice Greg standing there and broke off his conversation with Will, saying "Oh excuse me please, I must talk to Greg Stafford!" And the Japanese guy turned away and started talking to G-man. How rude, and how un-Japanese! He then apologetically turned back to Will and said, "Greg Stafford very famous in Japan."

I think that was the last time they, uh, met.

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