Meeting with Miyamoto!!!

So a lot of you probably know by now that Shigeru Miyamoto, the man behind Mario, Zelda, and Donkey Kong, was at the Nintendo World Store in NY this past Sunday. I live in South Jersey, so I figured I had no excuse for not going up there. And so my pilgramige began.

I took a train up and got there at about 2:30 in the morning, by which time the line was already well under way. Only the first 200 people in line would get his signature, and I was at 120. I took a blanket with me, but I just couldn't sleep, not with all the adrenaline rushing through me, not when almost everyone around me had a DS up and playing. So the night and morning was spent spent conversing with fellow gamers, many pictochat sessions, some DS multiplayer, and a healthy dose of Pokemon Saphire.

Finally, the line began to move. When we were finally standing outside the store, I put my DS into Bark Mode, and lo and behold, there was Miyamoto's dog, Jack, available to play!! He had a little Mario hat on just like he did when he played with Tina Wood at E3. He brought me a gift and had a voice recording of Miyamoto greeting us!! It was awesome. When we got inside, we were all suprisd to see Reggie File-Almes, vice president of marketing, signing stuff too! Unfortunately, by the time I came downstairs from the signing with Miyamoto, he had left.

So then we go up the stairs, and there he was, the man himself. The one man I never thought I'd ever get the chance to meet, but wanted to for so much of my life. Two people were on either side of him, I believe the man was Bill Trinen a translator at Nintendo and normally Miyamoto's own personal translator. The woman on his other side looked familiar, but I couldn't place her.

He signed my Super Mario 64 DS case. A lot of other people brought old school stuff in, and that was cool and of course I thought of doing the same, but I wanted something that could be displayed and would last a while, so I figured I could have him sign the cover, which you can slide in and out of the DS cases. So now it's behind a layer of plastic and will hopefully last a good while. He also had a stack of prints he had drawn, a little picture of a Nintendog and Mario. Prior to me, he was looking up to take pictures with each person, but starting with me, they wanted to just have the picture taken while he was signing, because the line was freaking long and the needed to cut some time short. Hopefully you can still see it's him!

On the way out, we were given DS skins with a little design and Miyamoto's signature printed on them! The part that goes around the top screen was a bit of a pain, and there's still a little bubble around the right speaker, but the rest went on just fine and looks great.

So that was my amazing adventure. There was one drawback, however. I brought my Canon Powershot G6 digital camera with me, my $700 camera that I use for grahpic design. And lost it. It may have been on the train, which would be preferable as NY was the last stop, so the only people that could find it would be the...porters (is that what people who take your tickets are called? Or is it conductors?) But I think I left it in the cab when I was going from Penn station to Rockafeller Center. So if you're wondering why I have no pictures, there you go. I will however have one pic of me with Miyamoto, as the person I camped next to, Adam Carboni, took one for me, and I'll scan the DS case and his drawing soon. For pics of Adam's, check out the link below. That's one thing I can scratch off my "things to do before I die" list.

http://flickr.com/photos/ACarboni