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It's good to meet the King.

What began as a pretty good day swelled with each coming hour until it exploded in this gooey mass of extreme nerdy splendor. Things kicked off innocently enough as Ryan and I trekked on over to his grandparents’ house. We came firstly so I could go shopping at JCPenney for some big sale and get her employee discount, and secondly to enjoy some wonderful blackberry pie they made with blackberries Ryan and I had picked from the day before.

As one could imagine, Penney’s was packed, and all forms of senseless hilarity ensued. Not only were there children running down escalators, only to get injured enough to bleed at the bottom of one and require a group of grown ups to cradle their bleeding, sobbing form while wondering aloud to one another whether calling the paramedics was in order, but there were also women who were possibly illiterate or too self-important to feel they needed to read the sign labeling the door out of which they went “EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY.” Add to the child’s screaming an equally thought oppressing siren, and you’ve made yourself a Saturday at the mall. Despite that, I managed to find an adorable top and a simply amazing evening dress. Ryan’s grandmother’s point of, “Yes, but when will you wear that?” is sufficiently valid in its own right, but honestly, a dress that pretty which is normally $50 and on sale for $20 is one of those weaknesses we girls, cock envy and cock tease alike, share in common.

The pie was great. The clothes were great. The day spent with grandparents was really fun. Night, however, masked the ultimate thrill the sunlit hours kept at bay. Ryan and I took a little trip to the Varsity Theater in Seattle to witness the video game documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. The movie was simply captivating. There was an amusement inherent in the real nature of the scenes that truly transcended any documentary parody film, a la This Is Spinal Tap, for the sole reason of being genuine. The storytelling methods used were essential to this feel, as they enabled the reality of the situation to challenge the mind’s ability to grasp the absurdity without attempting to categorize it as fiction. I strongly recommend that video game fanatics and people simply looking for solid entertainment head out and see this movie. Of course I’ll have to do it somewhere other than my blog, but perhaps it will get done. Eventually.

I did manage to not only watch The King of Kong, but to meet him, as well. Steve Wiebe was around to speak with us after the screening. I curse myself a thousand times over for not having my camera, because I so would have taken a picture with him and possibly begun to rival Tedakin’s myspace photo album which only includes images of himself with celebrities [note: the term is flexibly relative]. However, I did rise to the occasion and ask Mr. Wiebe a question during the Q&A. It was poorly formulated at best, and I managed to conceive many better questions after the fact, but I did gather myself enough to ask, “If you had the time for it, what other game would you like to hold a World Record in?” My gross grammatical construction leapt out at me like a mother bear protecting her cubs the second the words escaped my lips. That’s beside the point. I really wanted to ask him about modern games, but I had the feeling he held retro games in higher regard in terms of challenge. He somewhat reflected this in his answer to my question. To paraphrase, he simply stated some kind of Mario Bros game, because he would like to stick with the Mario game theme, and he does not like more complicated, distracting games such as Defender. He also stated many other fascinating tidbits regarding his title, the film, and his life in general. His wife was there, as well, and she answered some of the questions, too. Oh well, if I ever managed to get a dream job reporting for some video game site or something, I could easily manage to fully interview the guy, seeing as he lives in Redmond. As an afterthought, though this is highly impossible and the couple seem very much like the typical yuppie family, I can’t shake this feeling that I know Steve/have met him somewhere before. I’m sure it’s nothing, but I think I can finally relate to those people who try to pass off this sort of thing as some proof that reincarnation exists. There is a certain creepy element to the sensation, but I’m pretty sure it’s just an overload of images broadcast through media.

Time for visions of sugarkongs to dance through my head.