I don't like to work on the weekends if I can help it, but I'm doing Big Bang Theory all next week, and this keynote isn't going to write itself while I'm off being Evil Wil Wheaton, so here I am.

When I write something, especially something this important, I spend most of my time letting ideas incubate and grow (which to an outside observer looks an awful lot like I'm goofing off) broken up by intense periods of writing a few hundred words at a time, staying as many steps ahead of the "this sucks" demon as I can. I also have to take breaks fairly regularly to keep my mind from going all HAL-9000 on me, and a silly post like this one is perfect for accomplishing that particular goal at this very moment.

So … check out this nifty image:

This came from one of those spam blogs that just keyword scrapes the tubes for everything it can find on a topic and then automatically generates posts that sound like a possessed child when read aloud. 

I'm guessing that Parsons' phot car was some kind of magic device that traveled around the Midwest in the early 20th century, selling snake oil and little photo cards. This particular picture was snapped right before the subject bought eighteen ounces of liquid heroin tonic ("GUARANTEED TO CALM EVEN THE MOST NERVOUS OF WOMEN OR YOUR MONEY BACK!")  for the princely sum of five cents. It looks like it was taken in Danville, Illinois, which is about 200 miles away from Wheaton, Illinois, and I suspect that the 'bot what powers this particular blog put "Wheaton" (as in me) and "Parsons" (as in Jim Parsons) together when the Big Bang news hit the wires, and somehow it landed on this picture. Or maybe it wasn't anything like this, and the whole thing is a coded message I left in the future for my current self to find, which makes me want to ask Future Me why I couldn't have just sent myself a nice letter that was easy to understand … unless …. OMG FUTURE ME IS IN ROBOT PRISON IN DANVILLE AND ONLY BE FREED IF ME AND JIM PARSONS DRESS UP LIKE DANDY BOYS FROM THE 1900s AND MOUNT A RESCUE!

Okay, Future Me. I hear you, and I'm coming to save you … just as soon as I race over to Jim's house, pick him up, convince him to come with me, and then build a time machine, you idiot. Way to send the message to the wrong version of us in the past, stupid. JEEZE!

Um. Right. So…

The page where I found this image had a bunch of stuff related to my name, so it tripped my google alert yesterday. When I looked at the site, I was quite amused to see this picture, which was titled “Evil Wil Wheaton Bible”. Because, really, who doesn't want an evil bible named after them and represented by a picture that isn't apparently evil or biblical? I was equally amused to see several anti-spam software advertisements surrounding the scraped content.

Okay, I think I've amused myself just enough to recover the mana I needed to cast Keep Writing Keynote, so I'm going to get back to it before They're All Going To Laugh At You has its next turn.

Well, it's official. Evil Wil Wheaton is going back to The Big Bang Theory! 

From TV Guide Magazine:

Geeks everywhere will be happy hear that Star Trek star Wil Wheaton will be returning to hang out with TV’s hippest nerds on The Big Bang Theory.

“We were very excited when Wil Wheaton appeared as Sheldon’s nemesis, and right now we’re looking to see if he can come back to give Sheldon an opportunity to settle the score,” Executive Producer and Co Creator Bill Prady announced to TV Guide Magazine when the Academy of Televisions Arts and Sciences hosted an Evening With the Big Bang Theory on February 18th. "Fingers crossed that we can do that, I think an arch enemy is someone who appears from time to time."

Even though my personal motto is Don't Be A Dick, I've wanted to play an arch enemy for pretty much my entire career, and I love that Bill described me that way, because I was kind of hoping I'd earn that position in the Big Bang canon.

I've known this was a possibility for just over a week, (coincidentally, I found out the day after I did my Big Bang Theory Q&A post) but didn't get the official offer until this morning. 

After my manager called casting back and confirmed, I called Bill to thank him for bringing me back. He sort of chuckled, and asked me if I wanted to know what their plan for the episode was before I accepted the offer to come back. I told him, "You could have me do nothing more than eat Chapstick the entire episode, and I'd come work for you again, because I had so much fun last time."

He then told me what the episode is about. I'm not revealing any details, but it's safe to say that it's a lot more awesome than just eating Chapstick.

I start work on the 24th, and we tape on the 2nd, if you wanted to try to get tickets to the show.

I'm going to go do the Snoopy dance until I fall down, now.

I just realized that I mentioned this on Twitter over a week ago, and it's been on a lot of the gaming sites, but I never actually carved out a little hunk of blog-o-state to mention…

I am giving the inaugural keynote address to PAX East in Boston on March 26th. 

I've been working on my keynote, which involves throwing away about five words for every one I keep, every day for a couple weeks. I know I'm getting close to having a zero draft to start rewriting and perfecting, because my brain's been waking me up several times a night for the last five or six days to give me a great idea that can go into one section or another.

When Robert Khoo offered me the keynote, my first thought was, "No fucking way. The 2007 PAX Prime keynote was the best speech I've ever given in my life. There is no way I can top that, or even equal it."

"I need to think about it for a couple of days," is what I said, though. I mean, it would have been silly to just pass on it without even trying to come up with something, right?

So the first thing I did was accept that the 2007 Prime address was a perfect storm of timing and delivery and hard work. I was never going to top that, so I wasn't even going to try. If I did this keynote – the inaugural keynote for PAX East, no less – I would just have to give it permission to be its own thing, and accept that the 2007 keynote is something awesome that's in the background.

That simple acceptance took a lot of weight off of my shoulders, and an idea began to come together. I remember walking out into the back yard that afternoon, where Anne was playing with our dog. "I can totally do this," I said.

"Well, thanks, but I think I have it covered," she said, tossing this thing that started life as a knotted rope toward the back wall for our dog to chase.

"Oh. Right. I forgot that you weren't part of the conversation I was having in my head. I mean, I can totally do this keynote. I have an idea."

In my head, I heard Captain Sternn say, "Take it easy, Charlie. I've got an angle…" and hoped that the ultimate conclusion of my plans would be a little less … explosive.

I told her what I wanted to do with my keynote, then I got on the phone with my friend and editor Andrew and told him. Andrew is a geek like me, and Anne is a geek-adjacent normal person. They both give me honest feedback about my crazy ideas, so when they both thought it was a solid plan from their different perspectives, I decided to accept the invitation.

I called Robert and told him my idea. He thought it was a good idea, and we ended the conversation sort of like this:

Me: Yeah, so I totally want to do this. I think it will be awesome.

Robert: I'll see you in Boston, then.

Me: Awesome.

Robert: Awesome.

Incidentally, I appear to have a class feature which gives all members of my party +5 to saying awesome.

I hung up the phone, and about five seconds elapsed before the panic set in. "What have I done? What have I gotten myself into? I can't do this! I suck! They're all going to laugh at me!"

Ah, the panic. Years ago, it would have paralyzed me, but I've done this long enough to recognize that it's just part of my creative process. Now I can actually use it to get me to the next step, which is I suck, followed by this is stupid, before eventually arriving at hey, this is actually pretty cool.

As I said, I've been working on this night and day, pretty much exclusively, for about three weeks. I'm trying to take breaks to write other things, record RFB, and maintain progress on Memories of the Future Volume 2, but it's incredibly difficult to take my brain off the task at hand. Part of my brain obviously needs to vent pressure, though, because every day I'm adding something new to my little book of story ideas. When this is all over, I may even be able to turn some of them into actual stories.

I'm not looking forward to I suck and this is stupid, but I know that hey, this is actually pretty cool, is on the horizon, and I'm not going to lie to you, Marge: I'm very excited to finish writing my keynote, and even more excited to deliver it.

See you in Boston. 

Awesome.