Strangers in the Night

For the last few days I've been riding the Skytrain/bus with my 3DS since it affords plenty of time to play Mario Kart 7. (Review coming soon!) Just 'cause, I've left Streetpass turned on. I've never had much luck making connections with StreetPass to share Mii avatars, except at E3 where the place was swarming with StreetPass information, but you never know.

Somewhere in Vancouver -- because I'm pretty sure it's happening downtown -- there's a guy (presumably) I've shared StreetPass information with a few times.

So, this morning I spent time carefully observing everyone as I went from home to work to see if I could figure out who I might be tagging. There's never been obvious signs to go on, like someone playing a 3DS. That would make it easy.

I stare at people, paying special attention to the eyes. If they look tired -- gamers all look tired, except for Victor Lucas -- then I'll try to glance at their hands. I look for thumb calluses next, because any hardcore gamer will exhibit a certain level of hardened, leathery skin close to the tips of the thumbs (or at the heel of the wrist for PC gamers). Then I check the wardrobe for game-related items. And so far I've come up empty on leads. I have no idea who is passing close enough to me to exchange Mii data and it's kind of irking me.

It's probably just be some regular dude doing the commute the same as me. And maybe he's not even that hardcore. Though he is playing Super Mario 3D Land so he must be enthusiastic about Nintendo stuff at least.

It does make me wish there was an option to have notification pop up when I've tagged a Mii avatar. Something along the lines of Xbox Live and PSN and Steam which pop up notices for everything. "BLANK is now online." "Friends using this app." How difficult would it be to flash up a note about a new Mii arriving at the Mii Plaza via StreetPass? I don't know, but Nintendo should get on that immediately. I need to know who I keep bumping into.