I was talking to a demoscene aquaintance via IM tonight, and asked him what his avatar picture was. He said it was from Hat Trick Hero / Football Champ (Taito, 1990)… and also casually dropped the info that he was the world champion of that game, by a large margin. Which reminded me of my “World Champion” theory: I believe that everyone, everywhere, is World Champion of something, although they may never find out what in their lifetime. There are people who work very hard at something and achieve it, like Lance Armstrong, or are born with good genes and figure out the best way to exploit them through incredible practice and work, like Arnold Schwartzegger.

But what about the unknowns? Like the housewife who accompanies her husband to a shooting range and, on a complete whim, squeezes off a few shots and to everyone’s amazment she’s a crack shot with perfect aim… or like Jimi Hendrix, who did crazy unconventional stuff that the world may have never known if he hadn’t picked up a guitar. That’s the kind of stuff that fascinates me, and my friend was lucky enough to figure out what he was World Champion of. Bastard :-)