It’s been two days since Jake’s plane from sunny SFO landed in flat OKC, but his friends think the real Jake is still somewhere hiding deep within the halls of the San Francisco Moscone Center. This new Jake is new. He’s lively. He’s cocksure.

Like a man after having sex or bowling a turkey, Jake struts with unearthly buoyancy.  Nothing can put him down, it seems, not even gravity.  Even the piercing buzz of his alarm clock this morning trickles around him like a burst of harmonic stardust.

Jake steps out from the shower, runs a comb through his bleached-tip locks and pulls a pressed Super Meat Boy shirt around his shoulders. Mmm, the bathroom’s steam mixes with Old Spice spray and tastes fresh. He winks at his reflection. Then winks again because it’s fun. Did he lose weight?

Over a bowl of cereal, Jake reads the notes he took from his favorite panels for what must bean unknownth time. Out the window lies his humble spice garden and Jake wonders to himself, “What is Jason Rohrer doing right now?” then takes a deep bite into a ripe apple.

On the corner of Main and 3rd, he rolls down the windows and waves at that pack of teenage girls perched daily on the cherry red benches outside the Sonic Drive-Thru. A handful of bars from the chip tunes album, pounding from his tweeters, spills out the window and the girls bob their heads and open their mouths wide with big o-shaped smiles.

And in this moment, Jake Rosengold feels welcome and pure and like everyone else must feel on the first day of spring.

“What’s that around your chest,” asks the most stunning girl, lifting her lips from a bendy-straw and popping that ‘est’ like bubble gum.

Jake feels for whatever it is blindly and grabs hold to the emblem, lifting it up. “Oh this, it’s a badge from… it’s from a video game conference.”

She looks him up and down, “Was it GDC?”