Yes, it happened this week at SEAS Café in the Math Sciences building at UCLA. I bought my Diet Dr. Pepper—which tastes like shit—when I heard that warm, familiar sound of Galaga. He was sitting on one of those inconspicuous metal stools with the cheesy plastic seat covering, killing the bees and wasps of Galaga. I watched his hands deftly move the lever, left to right, right to left, avoiding the barrage of bullets from the enemy. For past eight months that I’ve consistently played Galaga, my highest score has been 97,000. Even when Kelly and I play Galaga on occasion and pour quarters down it's thirsty throat, our total scores don't match the prowess of Galaga God. I watched Galaga God rack up half of his 167,000-- all on one quarter!“It’s very relaxing to me,” he said to me in his clipped Asian accent afterward, as his last ship died it's ugly pixel death. His UCLA tee-shirt was a little wrinkled. You could imagine him working in one of those student-run engineering labs tucked away in one of those remote corners of the Math Science building.
“It’s a very simple game, really.” He continued.
“Who scored 292,000?” I asked.
“Oh, last week I beat that…” he replied, humbly motioning to the video machine.
“Wow! You got 296,000?”
“Yes, now I will go for 300,000.” With that he walked away. And with that the humble Galaga God, in his monk-like way, has instilled in me hope for breaking 100,000 points, on a quarter!
