A Tale from 'Video Games Live'

With a quiet ‘ah!’ I located the graphic novel section of the Borders media store we were in. The pre-concert activities for ‘Video Games Live’ were not as extensive as we believed they would be. Since Borders was across the street and open, we wandered around the store for a bit as a distraction.

Mark and I were in the science fiction section. Knowing his past connections with comics, I had been keeping an eye open for that section in order to make a few recommendations. It wasn’t so much that I expected him to buy anything that day but I just wanted to give him some things to keep in mind when he saw the right price for them.

As we approached the wall, I realized that the two shelves we were nearest was made up of collections of Japanese works. Gesturing towards the expanse before us, I noted “Welcome to the world of manga.”

“Is there something you were looking for?” creaked a voice to my left. Believing this to be a store employee, I mentally prepared my standard polite ‘Just looking’ response. It was not an employee.

The individual was an incredibly slender young man of Asian descent. Were it not for the long black trenchcoat he wore, I’m not sure we would have seen him from the side view. As I observed him, he was carefully returning a book to the shelf, using hand gestures so elaborate that they would have made Bela Lugosi proud. Had he been older and more wizened, I would have expected him to offer me a Gremlin. My creeped-out meter quickly pegged out at full. I returned to the books before me.

A few minutes later, after being a bad influence on Mark’s wallet (not at that specific time, none of us bought anything that night), we crossed his path again. As he flipped through some book, he started burbling aloud about the attempt at censorship in the panel before him. He was alone but speaking at full volume. Did he know we were behind him and was hoping to start a conversation? I’ve no clue. Mark and I exchanged a glance. He expressed an interest in looking at the soundtrack CDs and off we went.

I consider myself to be a bit odd or weird, but in a friendly way. I’ve been to many conventions and often been around those less socially capable than myself. Sometimes these events collect the truly unusual. This guy was one of the ‘best’.

I’ve nothing against him or any of the other awesomely strange ones. This guy just creeped me out.

When telling the story, Mark does way too good a job imitating him. I’m not quite sure what that means…

Sick again

Throat's all sore. The upside is that I sound more like Dick the Bruiser when I talk that I do normally. It would be more fun if it didn't hurt.