I won a lunch with George Takei through a charity auction. We met for lunch on the Paramount lot in Los Angeles. The auction was through a Japanese organization, so he ended up spending a lot of time talking about his experience with WW2 internment camps. It was really interesting to hear his perspective first-hand. Star Trek never came up, which is fine because I'm more of a Janeway fan than a Kirk fan. After lunch, he took us (there were 3 of us total, me and two friends) for a tour of the studio lot. There wasn't any Star Trek stuff to see, except for one really neat little tidbit. He showed us where they filmed the part of Star Trek IV where, at the end of the movie, the crew is splashing around San Francisco Bay with a bunch of out of time whales. Turns out, it's just part of the parking lot at the studio. It's inset, so they flood it. There is a big wall behind the lot that they paint to look like the sky. Finally, before we left, George insisted that we have something autographed by him. We all went into the studio store together. He looked around, trying to find anything Star Trek related, but he couldn't (this was several years ago, before the new movies came out). He walks up to the lady working the register, and he says, using that very distinctive voice/tone of his, "Hello, ma'am... do you have anything Star Trek related?" She looks at him oddly, probably a little star struck. She doesn't respond. George is looking a little hurried and annoyed, "You see", he says, "I was on the show!" Cue everyone breaking into hysterical laughter, except him. Yeah, yeah... maybe you had to be there to appreciate it, but there was something remarkable about the way he almost apologetically asserted himself. He was humble and lovable, a true character. Having lived in LA for several years at the time, I'd met a lot of celebrities, but none of them ever were as gracious as Mr. Takei. TL;DR: Would totally have lunch with George Takei again. He's awesome.