So the other night, I’m sitting at home, reading a few web pages, and just generally minding my own business. Suddenly, I get an invitiation to an audio iChat. (For you PC users, iChat is the Apple version of instant messenger, and it supports video and audio chats.) Since I didn’t know the person requesting the chat (their name was a mishmash of letters and numbers), I refused, but out of curiosity, I sent a text chat back to the person, just to find out who they were and why they were trying to contact me. Actually, what I said was, “Yes?”
“sorry - just at the mac store trying to test this…”
The Mac store? Interesting! Still curious as to how they got my name, I asked them which Mac store they were in.
“ginza”
…
…uh, Ginza? As in, Ginza? Why would someone from an Apple Store in Japan be sending me an iChat?? He said he just clicked on a name, and was hoping it would give him a tutorial or something, then he apologized for bothering me. I was understandably curious as to how someone halfway around the world ended up sending me an anonymous audio iChat…but before I started inquiring about how he got my name, I decided to attend to higher priorities first. Specifically, the guy was at an Apple Store, trying to get a Macintosh demo. Hey, I may be curious, or puzzled, or amazed by the prospect of an random international connection, but above all else, I am an Apple evangelist, and if he wanted to get a Mac demo, then come hell or high water, I was going to give him one!
To make a long story short, there was some problem with the iSight on his end, so we could only connect with an audio chat, not a video chat. Over the course of our text and audio discussion, I found out that he used to live on both L.A. and Santa Barbara, and went to UCSB from 1993–1998. (I myself attended from 1992–1994.) From there, he got some voiceover work in L.A., then eventually moved to New York, and from there, to Japan. I thought it was an odd coincidence that we had both lived in Santa Barbara, and he said, “I think that Santa Barbara is one of those beautiful places in the world, and once people have lived there for a while, they always remember it and want to go back.” I thought it was a nice sentiment, and very true, at least in my case.
So anyway, we said our goodbyes, they thanked me for the demo, and that was about it. Oh, and how did they get my name in the first place? I took a guess, and it turns out I was right: My good friend Bobby, who is now living in Japan, happened to visit that very same Apple Store, where he entered in my information, hoping to get a video chat with me. And once he was finished with his test, he was either unable or unwilling to delete the information. So there it remains, in the Apple Store in Japan, just waiting for someone to click on it and start an iChat with me. I’m hoping that next time it will be a video chat. I think that would be pretty cool.
