Have you ever had "five minutes of fame"? Tell your story!

[RH | 5,014]

It doesn't have to be gaming related, either.  I'll leave it up for you to decide, but have you ever won a national competition?  Been the lucky guy to win a car (or similar/better) from something like McDonald's Monopoly?  Were you featured in a local news story in the large city you grew up in, or did you briefly make it on national TV?

Well, for me I've never had so much as a "moment", really. Because of this, back in the late-90s WCW came to town for Monday Night Nitro, and when I went with my buddies, I knew I'd want to get the attention of the cameras.  I knew that if that was going to happen, I needed to have a sign that couldn't be ignored, so I strategized. Having a sign for a popular wrestler was to risky.  There'd be to many other signs to "compete" with for the attention of the producers, so I had to think of something else.

One of the things that we wrastlin' fans all knew is that the first 30-40 minutes of the show was always dedicated to the lesser wrestlers who were usually paying their dues, or were the guys catering to the clientele in secondary markets.  These people never had signs for them, so I knew that if I picked one of them, I would likely get on camera.  And with that idea, I can't even recall the guys name, but I remember their was a Japanese wrestler and I decided to have a sign for him. He didn't have a match every week but he was on about every other week, so I decided to take my chances.  Come the day of the event, I took a poster and drew in big, wide letters some Japanese text.  I brought it to the arena, the screener at the door looked at it, asked what it said and then waved me on since he had no clue if I was being honest or not.  Lucky me, the Japanese wrestler had a match that night and me and my two buddies were spot-lighted for a few seconds because of my dumb sign! It worked!

What did the sign say?  Well, keep in mind that this was around 1997, and wikipedia wasn't a thing.  I also didn't want to ask around or find something sketchy on the internet, so I went over to the only example of Japanese text I knew of and that was on my N64. I opened the top where the jumper pak was inserted and I transposed the Janese version of "DO NOT REMOVE JUMPER PAK FROM CONTROL DECK. SEE INSTRUCTION BOOKLET."

Yes it was dumb and pointless, but it got my three seconds on national television. To this day I like to imagine that families across Japan, watching WCW Nitro via satellite, saw my sign and had a sizeable, collective WTF moment. I have no regrets.

[Boosted52405 | 178]

That's a great story!

I'll add 5 minutes of awesomeness, but not fame, and it also ties to Pro Wrestling.  When I was younger, I was a huge fan of Goldberg, like huge.  My stepdad was huge into Harley motorcycles and one year I was around 14, he took me and my Mom to Sturgis, where they have the WCW Road Wild PPV each year.

Being 14 and naive, I'm like "heck yeah I'm gonna see some wrestlers!!!".  As we get into Sturgis and the madness of bikers packed every square inch of everywhere - THEY ALL LOOKED LIKE GOLDBERG lmao (bald goatee).

Then sure enough, I find Goldberg parking a bike on the side of the road.  I was surprised at how short he was and I remember shaking out of nervousness.  I patiently waited for him to finish putting stuff in his saddle bags and then walked over asking for an autograph.  He was super nice, gave me one and shook my hand - I was sky high over the moon speechless (sounds silly but I'm being honest!).

My mom had nothing for me use for paper except a generic handwritten type receipt you get at swap meets - so that's what I used, and still have it to this day!  Later that same day I bought a WCW Road Wild Goldberg mug that had a printed autograph on the side and sure enough, they matched almost spot on :).

 

[Kguillemette | 1,561]

Several years ago when I worked for Capital Ale House in Richmond, VA, I did a live cooking segment to promote my Richmond Beer Week pairing menu on WTVR. I've done live cooking demonstrations before, but doing it with a live camera 6 feet in front of me was nervewracking. The news anchors were super nice and relaxing and kept firing off questions to keep things moving. 

 

15 minutes went by in the blink of an eye. The dish I made was an Irish stout and toffee cheesecake with espresso infused sugar garnish. When I was prepping it, I totally forgot to add sugar to the cake altogether. Luckily I brought a finished slice for the anchors to eat since there isn't time to bake and cool it. The actual cake I made would have been gross!

 

Good topic!

[twiztor | 856]

11 hours ago, RH said:

back in the late-90s WCW came to town for Monday Night Nitro

that's awesome! do you have a picture? 

if not, i'd love to track one down for you. any info you can give me would help. town/year/month/main event/any match you remember?

[RH | 5,014]

5 hours ago, twiztor said:

that's awesome! do you have a picture? 

if not, i'd love to track one down for you. any info you can give me would help. town/year/month/main event/any match you remember?

Oh, sure! It was in Columbia, SC and it was in the era when “Hollywood” Hogan and Sting were building up their rivalry for their first big pay per view match. This was in the early days of the NWO (before there was red/LWO) and it was also before WCW vs NWO came out on the N64, but set the stage for the rivalries for that game.

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

The local ABC station (Channel 9 in Cincinnati) was doing the weather on location from the swimming pool at our apartment complex when I was a kid. Right before they went live the weatherman asked if I wanted to help out, so I ended up getting to give the weekly forecast live on TV.

[zombiemicrowave | 42]

17 hours ago, Kguillemette said:

Several years ago when I worked for Capital Ale House in Richmond, VA, I did a live cooking segment to promote my Richmond Beer Week pairing menu on WTVR. I've done live cooking demonstrations before, but doing it with a live camera 6 feet in front of me was nervewracking. The news anchors were super nice and relaxing and kept firing off questions to keep things moving. 

 

15 minutes went by in the blink of an eye. The dish I made was an Irish stout and toffee cheesecake with espresso infused sugar garnish. When I was prepping it, I totally forgot to add sugar to the cake altogether. Luckily I brought a finished slice for the anchors to eat since there isn't time to bake and cool it. The actual cake I made would have been gross!

 

Good topic!

That's something I miss about working in the kitchen. I've done a few live segments at the news studio and they are so much fun. Did a few taped segments for Shark Tank and Man vs Food. The crew is there foooooorever and only end up with 5 minutes of footage.  lol. 

[Kguillemette | 1,561]

6 hours ago, zombiemicrowave said:

That's something I miss about working in the kitchen. I've done a few live segments at the news studio and they are so much fun. Did a few taped segments for Shark Tank and Man vs Food. The crew is there foooooorever and only end up with 5 minutes of footage.  lol. 

Thats pretty neat! Are you a chef as well or are you in tv production?

[fcgamer | 4,792]

Yes, this one happened to me last year. I have a friend from Thailand who occasionally asks me to purchase items on his behalf, I generally do it gratis since he then helps me get games from his region in exchange. 

One day, I was up in Taipei looking in a game shop, which everyone here knows. It's basically a poor man's Super Potato with rich prices. Anyways, I see an item in the display case (a bootleg of the Family Basic cartridge) that I've never seen or heard of before, so I start asking the owner about it, ask to take a picture, etc. 

After a bit, the guy realises that I'm not just a tourist passing through, as my Chinese is waaay too good for that. He then asks me, "Are you the rumoured foreign collector living in central Taiwan, who has the crazy collection of bootleg Famiclone carts? The one who helps his Thai guy get some games from time to time?" At that point I just stood speechless, I had no idea I had become somewhat legendary on the island.

[zombiemicrowave | 42]

2 hours ago, Kguillemette said:

Thats pretty neat! Are you a chef as well or are you in tv production?

Not a chef, I was just a seasoned restaurant that had some success with a few shows.

[Art of Nintendo Power | 353]

My late wife and I were on the Graham Norton Show during doctor who's 50th anniversary. Shes in the gold dalek dress and I'm at the very end.

We spent thr next week in Wales, and we were genuine celebrities about town. Surreal.

 

 

[MachineCode | 159]

On 11/27/2019 at 3:49 PM, Boosted52405 said:

That's a great story!

I'll add 5 minutes of awesomeness, but not fame, and it also ties to Pro Wrestling.  When I was younger, I was a huge fan of Goldberg, like huge.  My stepdad was huge into Harley motorcycles and one year I was around 14, he took me and my Mom to Sturgis, where they have the WCW Road Wild PPV each year.

Being 14 and naive, I'm like "heck yeah I'm gonna see some wrestlers!!!".  As we get into Sturgis and the madness of bikers packed every square inch of everywhere - THEY ALL LOOKED LIKE GOLDBERG lmao (bald goatee).

Then sure enough, I find Goldberg parking a bike on the side of the road.  I was surprised at how short he was and I remember shaking out of nervousness.  I patiently waited for him to finish putting stuff in his saddle bags and then walked over asking for an autograph.  He was super nice, gave me one and shook my hand - I was sky high over the moon speechless (sounds silly but I'm being honest!).

My mom had nothing for me use for paper except a generic handwritten type receipt you get at swap meets - so that's what I used, and still have it to this day!  Later that same day I bought a WCW Road Wild Goldberg mug that had a printed autograph on the side and sure enough, they matched almost spot on :).

 

Was that the one where Jericho came in on his HONDA MOTORCYCLE  

Edited December 2, 2019 by MachineCode

[arnpoly | 202]

This is kind of a dumb story. 

Last year I guy I worked with was retiring.  He lives a few hours away but was going to be in town so another co-worker and I met him for dinner after work.  I take the train into work so my co-worker drove the both of us right after work to go eat.  Afterward, he dropped me off at a train station, but it was one closer to the restaurant that I never go to.  It just so happens one of the local news stations was set up there for a story about train security, so they stopped me and ended up interviewing me.  It was at night and I still had my work stuff with me, including my computer bag, lunch box, and a couple of Python programming books the guy gave me as a parting gift.  My wife and I watched for the segment on the news that night, and they ended up spelling my name wrong.  I'm not sure this counts for fame if my name is incorrect.

I just remembered I have another really dumb story, waaay dumber than the first one.

In high school, I was in a number of math competitions and was really good so I won lots of awards for them.  At state competition one year, I was heading up to the stage for I think my third award.  It was for a two-person competition so my teammate was coming up with me.  On the way up I told him I decided I was going to "slip and fall" on stage.  There's no reason this was a good idea, just some dorky thing I thought would get people to laugh.  So I did it, and yeah people laughed.  Anyway, later on during my first week of college I was talking to one of my classmates and she said "hey weren't you the guy that fell at State one year?"  I had no idea I made that kind of impression! 

[RH | 5,014]

7 minutes ago, arnpoly said:

This is kind of a dumb story. 

...

I just remembered I have another really dumb story, waaay dumber than the first one.

...

 

Haha, dude, did you read my tale?  Mine is pretty dumb and, maybe I'm biased, but I think holding up a "Do Not Touch the Jumper Pak" sign in Japanese is rather dumb. 

Still, it's funny how little jokes like yours can leave a long-time impression on people.  It's a good way to be remembered, that's for sure!

[arnpoly | 202]

13 minutes ago, RH said:

Haha, dude, did you read my tale?  Mine is pretty dumb and, maybe I'm biased, but I think holding up a "Do Not Touch the Jumper Pak" sign in Japanese is rather dumb. 

Still, it's funny how little jokes like yours can leave a long-time impression on people.  It's a good way to be remembered, that's for sure!

I think yours was way more thought out than mine.    It is exactly the kind of thing I wish I thought of back then.

[MachineCode | 159]

Another small Pro Wrestling one. My brother, our friend and I went to CZW Cage of Death 2 years ago and sat up front right off the entry way and as a result have appeared in numerous documentaries about it recently. Actually, we also saw footage recently of a WWF Saturday Night show from 1990 where my brother and dad show up. So he just has a history of this happening.

[AstralSoul | 503]

I co-created a game with someone many years ago, early 2000s-ish and it was featured in a mini-article in an issue of EGM. I have no idea what issue it was. It wasn't any big game or anything, but it was cool that my name was mentioned in a popular gaming magazine.

[MachineCode | 159]

20 hours ago, AstralSoul13 said:

I co-created a game with someone many years ago, early 2000s-ish and it was featured in a mini-article in an issue of EGM. I have no idea what issue it was. It wasn't any big game or anything, but it was cool that my name was mentioned in a popular gaming magazine.

That’s cool as hell. What’s the name of the game?

[AstralSoul | 503]

On 12/3/2019 at 9:03 AM, MachineCode said:

That’s cool as hell. What’s the name of the game?

Moonstrike, or Project Moonstrike or something along those lines. It's been so long. It was a shmup and it was made in a program called The Games Factory made by Clickteam. Which is still around but I don't think it's widely used.

[MachineCode | 159]

That’s pretty cool. I’m gonna try and find this EGM in the archives and see if I find your article. Do you have any idea of what the latest year it could have been was?

[AstralSoul | 503]

Just now, MachineCode said:

That’s pretty cool. I’m gonna try and find this EGM in the archives and see if I find your article. Do you have any idea of what the latest year it could have been was?

I'm going to say between 2002 and 2004. It was a small article in the front of the magazine, where the fan letters were I believe. I no longer have a file of the game and it was hosted on a site called The Daily Click years ago, but the site is still active but the game appears to be long gone and I can't find any site for the guy I co-created it with, who was a lot more active game maker than I was. It was basically an idea I had, one I started making myself, the guy liked it  and offered to help finish it and it basically become a cool co-op project. 

[AstralSoul | 503]

11 minutes ago, MachineCode said:

That’s pretty cool. I’m gonna try and find this EGM in the archives and see if I find your article. Do you have any idea of what the latest year it could have been was?

Well after a lot of internet scouring I found it! Looks like a working download link too! 

https://sites.google.com/site/knpkorner/tributetomoonstrike

I haven't thought about the game in a long time. This topic kind of sparked that memory though. The guy I co-created with seems to get the credit for it. But it was already half done by the time he helped me finish it. I can't run the .exe file tha't's there because I'm at work but now I really want to try it when I get home.

[MachineCode | 159]

Sick!!. I will try and get this running through Wine (Mac here) when I get home later.

[BriGuy82 | 797]

On 11/28/2019 at 8:21 AM, Bearcat-Doug said:

The local ABC station (Channel 9 in Cincinnati) was doing the weather on location from the swimming pool at our apartment complex when I was a kid. Right before they went live the weatherman asked if I wanted to help out, so I ended up getting to give the weekly forecast live on TV.

Future Sam Champion!

[Scrobins | 1,748]

I have a random but fun one. Back when I was on okCupid in NYC, a writer for the New York Post messaged me, saying he and okc often partnered to set people up on blind dates and they wanted to match me with someone and do a couple of articles about us for their Meet Market column. First I had to go to their offices to do a photoshoot and fill out a questionnaire of tidbits about myself they'd use in the first article. Then I went on the actual date, all expenses paid at a nice restaurant. I thought it would be fun to use a move I do on most dates, and I brought something I baked to share with her. About 10 minutes in, a photographer arrives to take pictures of us on our date. It was pretty funny; they had us pose in different ways for every combination of how the date might go (we're both having a good time, I'm having fun but she's not, she's having fun but I'm not, we're both waiting for it to end). The date actually went well, we even went on a few more dates (which the writer told us almost never happened). After that first date, we answered a second questionnaire describing how we felt it went, whether we liked the other person, and whether we'd want to see each other again. We both gave each other glowing reviews that were published in the Post the following week.

On top of it, they sent us the photos from the date and the earlier photoshoot. I made the mistake of using the photoshoot picture for my facebook profile. I say a mistake because it's one of those goofy pictures where you stand at an angle with your arms folded in front of a white background. My friends had a field day in photoshop, superimposing me in pictures of N'SYNC, the Olympics, etc.

Edit: I found the articles!

https://nypost.com/2014/05/03/sweet-harlemite-seeks-a-man-with-a-take-charge-attitude/
 

https://nypost.com/2014/05/11/this-weeks-couple-sweet-moves/

Edited December 5, 2019 by Scrobins