Monthly Archives: April 2002

True Dreams of Wichita

Boy, I should really be in bed now, but I can’t sleep.
I think I’m getting sick, and my throat is just killing me. My sinuses are all dried out, and I keep coughing. I think all that smoke and recycled air in Vega$ got to me.
Anyway, so I’m in bed, just starting to doze off, which is a good thing because I have to be up early tomorrow, because we’re filming 2 episodes of my show, and I’m pretty sure the Big Men In Suits are coming to watch us…but as I’m dozing off, I get this idea for a sketch to present at ACME tomorrow night, so I hop out of bed to write it.
When I sit down here, I see that I have email waiting for me, that they’re talking about me at Mike Doughty’s BBS. Now, Mike Doughty was the man behind one of my favorite bands of all time, Soul Coughing.
Apparently, they were pokin’ fun at that stupid picture of me that Robert posted at RetroCrush a couple of weeks ago…
So I read through it, and posted:


“So anyway, Mike (can I call you Mike?), here’s some fanboy ramblings from the artist formerly known at TVs Wil Wheaton: Your band was and currently is one of my all-time favorites, and I was listening to Ruby Vroom this morning. You were a real inspiration to me (along with Burroughs and Rollins) when I was younger and wanting to be a writer.
Okay, that’s the end of my fanboy lameness.
Here’s my stickin-up-for-myself lameness:
We all looked like tools in the 80s. Anyone who denies that is either too young, or too delusional to remember. Unfortunately, I have the joy of my 80s lameness being forever preserved in magazine form for all eternity. And for the record, “Party Naked” was the pathetic plea from a confused and awkward 14 or 15 year-old for female attention. Pink Floyd was one of the few bands I had heard in 1987 who had anything meaningful to say (Listen to Animals, and you’ll get my drift).
In times like these, when I feel mortified at this photographic record, I thank the gods that I never wore anything like Corey Feldman.
Well, at least I was never photographed in my fedora.”

God, don’t I sound like a stupid fanboy, there?
Anyway, if you haven’t heard Soul Coughing, you really owe it to yourself to check out Ruby Vroom and El Oso, at least.
So when it’s 5AM and you are listening to Los Angeles, you can know if the Radio Man is laughing at you, or with you.

Sigh

You know, I’ve been a Kings fan since the purple and gold days.
So you’d think I’d be used to this.
But goddammit! They showed such promise in this series…but here’s the thing: you don’t score 4 goals on Patrick Roy in a game 7, ever. Forget the empty-netter. Longtime Kings fans saw that one coming.
On the other hand, it is strangely reassuring and familiar to have the Kings eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. And that meltdown in the third period was vintage.
Oh well, at least we have the Dodgers.
Oh, wait.
Nevermind.

10:15 Saturday Night

Just to clear up any confusion, today’s title has nothing to do with this entry; I’m just listening to The Cure, and that’s the song which is currently playing. Hey, by the time I finish writing this, maybe I’ll change the name to “A Forest.”
So the weekend was awesome. I can only share a few things with you all, because it was a bachelor party after all, and therefore The Code of Guys Has been inVoked.
What I can say is:

  • Dee is getting an awesome husband out of my friend Darin.
  • The Rum Jungle at Mandalay Bay is really cool, even of you can’t stand rum.
  • Interestingly enough, Caius is completely full of shit, and it’s only a matter of time before Ron moves into a cabin in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by landmines and razor wire.
  • For the first time EVER I won money in Vega$. That’s right, Vega$ can still kiss my ass, but I have 80 of Vega$’s bucks, so I only have about 2,020 to go before I’m back to even over my lifetime.
  • On Sunday morning, this cute girl comes running over to me, and says, “Stop! I have to tell you something! You are so hot!
    So I got that going for me, which is nice.
  • I have a new motto for Excalibur: It’s Laughlin on the Strip!
  • That thing they say about making sure you re-hydrate after having “just a bit too much to drink: is totally, completely, 100% true. Oy.

It was wonderful to get away from everything, and just be stupid for 2 days. It was awesome to call Shennanigans on Caius, watch Mike pass out fouls and penalties, bowl at 2AM because we could, and spend 5 bucks to play Pai Gow Poker for 90 minutes.
I even found my funny while I was gone, which was an unexpected bonus.
Speaking of funny, and pretty cool, Something Awful wrote a thing all about yours truly today. Sure, it’s not a 21 year-old girl telling me I’m hot, but I’ll take what I can get.
Well, I guess if I was going to change the title, I’d be calling it “Primary,” but I’m too lazy to do that, so 10:15 Saturday Night it shall remain.

Game ON!

April 26th is here, doo dah, doo dah.
Hey! My Los Angeles Kings beat the Colorado Avalanche in OVERTIME last night, to keep their playoff chances alive!
GO KINGS GO!
Nolan wants the Avalanche to win, because he always plays them as his team on PS2, so we had much fun last night, watching the game and cheering for our respective teams. Ryan isn’t that crazy about hockey, but he did watch the first period with me…then I hammered him in USA vs. The World mode on NHL 2002.
I really treasure things like watching a game, or playing PS2 with them. Nolan even tried to work the “Hey Wil, since this is such an important game, can I stay up past my bedtime to see what happens?”
So of course I didn’t give in…not. I let him stay up until the end of regulation, which was about 9:30…his bedtime’s 9, so that wasn’t too bad. When the Kings won in overtime (YEAH BABY!) I jumped up from the couch and gave one of those victory screams…you know the kind, right? I mean, unless you live in Chicago…or Sacramento.
Well, I gave one of those screams, and ran into the back of the house, not realizing that Nolan was probably asleep…until I got to his bedroom door, and saw him, lying on his bed, eyes shut. Without even opening his eyes he deadpans, “Kings won, huh?”
I love it when he deadpans stuff like that. I think he gets that from me.
So, I’ll be away for the weekend with The Guys(tm). There won’t be any more updates until Sunday night, or Monday night, depending on how crazy the weekend is.
I hope everyone has an awesome weekend, filled with magic and illusion!
/doug.henning

Advantage: Left Paddle

All Pong, all the time.
It sounds like one of those joke commercials from GTA 3, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s not quite “Fernando’s New Beginnigs,” but it’s a close third after PetsOvernight.com.
Well, G4 went on the air yesterday, and we’re broadcasting all Pong, all the time, for 7 days.
It’s what they call a “Launch Stunt.” They program something silly for a week or so, and it gets people talking about the network, and builds audience. I think it also lets them test the signal and stuff, and work out any problems before the “real” programming goes up.
Well, we’ve already gotten lots of press, including this story at Slashdot, from this morning.
Best thing about the comments so far? People saying, “Man, if they did a show where I could watch people play UT, I’d watch that!” Well, that is EXACTLY what my show is! If you look carefully, you can find my post all about it.
This is how much of a nerd I am: I didn’t care about The Wall Street Journal (I’d link, but those bastards want 50 bucks from me), or Reuters… but I got all excited when I saw the channel I work for in a story on Slashdot. Yep, news for Wil, stuff that matters.
A cool thing happened last night: I was going to pick up dinner, because Anne and I realized at about 7:30 that we didn’t have anything in our fridge, and I asked Nolan if he wanted to come with me. He said that he wanted to stay home and play PS2, but when he saw that I’d taken the cool games back to work, he decided to come with me.
On the way there, we were listening to Incubus in my car. I know that he likes to see the CD case for what is in the player, so I passed it back to him, and I told him that there were many things about our relationship that I loved, and many things about him that I loved, but it was very special to me that we can share an interest in music. I mean, he likes all the same bands that I do, especially the super indie stuff. So I go on and on, telling him that, and he says, “Wil, when you gave me the case, and you said there was something you wanted to tell me, I was going to say everything that you said.” Then he says, “I love you, Wil.”
I just thought that was so cool. Parents don’t always have things in common with their kids, as much as they’d like to, and it touches me deeply that I can share something like music with Nolan.