An ELT Glossary : The Historic Present

The  historic present is the name given to the use of  the present tense to narrate a sequence of past events. It gives a dramatic "here and now" feel to the narrative and its use is common in the genre of anecdote telling, where the speaker wants to entertain or amuse the listeners. While often thought of as involving only present simple verbs, it may also involve other present tense forms - present continuous, present prefect - as the following example shows.

Example : So I'm just sitting there minding my own business and this guy comes up to me and looks at me as if I've  just insulted his mother or something...