Okay, so I have problems. Number one: I?m a nerd. Number two: I collect things. Number three: I try to do my best to be creative when combining the first two things. Case in point: when the opportunity arises for me to have a few minutes with the creator of one of my all-time favorite video games, I seize it and then go the extra mile.

Last week, upon realizing that Toru Iwatani would be at the Pac-Man World Championships today, I thought, ?Wow, getting him to sign a Pac-Man arcade machine would be awesome.? Then I realized how completely impossible that would be, so I settled for a Pac-Man marquee (the sign that is displayed over the screen on the arcade machine). Thanks to good ol’ eBay, and my willingness to shell out a few extra bucks for overnighting it, I had my marquee in hand the next day. The resulting awesomeness can be seen above, and closer below.

As an added bonus, you can see that Pac-Man legend Billy Mitchell, who is the first person to have ever achieved a perfect score in the game, also graced the marquee with his John Hancock.