We got a shoutout from Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson! (Patreon)

Ironically, given that I spend half my life on the internet, I often forget how bloody spectacular it can be - desensitised to the wonders of the world wide web gradually over 29 years.

Today was an awesome reminder of its brilliance.

Yesterday,  I was sitting in a Steak restaurant owned by my good friend Isao-san in a remote corner of Yamagata prefecture, when he brought out this photo of Dwayne the Rock Johnson, to show off his passing resemblance to one of his idols.

I snapped a photo and shared it on Twitter before going to bed, thinking it'd be a laugh - although ultimately expecting nothing to come of it.

And yet to my surprise this afternoon, despite my lack of faith, incredibly we got a response from the man himself!

It's times like this I'm delighted I ended up using Twitter.

- It's also a fantastic reminder of the football/soccer metaphor,  "If you don't shoot, you don't score."

Because it was actually my friend's idea to upload the photo to Twitter and tag the Rock and I initially shrugged it off - before ultimately going ahead with it and caving in, after they went on about it for ten minutes.

The end result:

Isao-san got a shoutout from his hero on the other-side of the world, and I got called "CB" by a man I've been watching on TV and films for almost 20 years now! And who knows, perhaps one day in the future when the Rock is in Japan promoting a movie (which he often is), he might just stop by in Yamagata to meet his Japanese doppelgänger.

Crazy. But wonderful.

(And if you're ever in the neighbourhood, check out his restaurant.

Amongst the best beef in north Japan!)

https://goo.gl/maps/SZ7q1noCgwDpD7B86