He didn’t know what to do. But he’d think of something.

I wasn’t going to talk about this, because it’s all anyone is talking about. I mean, I turn on TLC to get away from it, and they’re just running a feed of FOX News. Same for Discovery. Even ESPN has a ticker with updates scrolling across the bottom of the screen.
So since I can’t get away from it, I give in. I will write about it. Because I am scared. I am distraught. I am upset. I am depressed. I am angry. Mostly, I don’t know what to do, and I’m not quite sure how to feel. It reminds me of when my friend hung himself. How helpless I felt, how angry, sad, scared, etc.
But the thing that really pushed me over the edge, the thing that made me sit down here tonight, was when I took Ryan to the mall tonight to buy a book for his book report. On the way he asked me if our local mall was popular. I looked in the rearview mirror, and told him that it was. Lots of people go there. He looked back at me, and asked me, “does that mean they’re going to bomb our mall?”
So I spent the next hour explaining to him what had happened, and why (as best as I understand it, which is not very).
And I don’t have much to say, really. I just know that when my dad got sick, I wrote about it and felt better. And when I got the shaft on the movie, I wrote about it, and I felt better, and when the bastards came for me, I wrote about it and I felt better.
And I really do want to tell all about Vega$ and the convention, but I can’t, until I get this out of me. So here goes:
My wife woke me up Tuesday, much earlier than we normally get up, because my mom had called, and told her about the attack on the WTC. So sat up, turned on the TV, and watched in horror as that plane crashed into the tower, over and over and over and over.
I felt like I was watching a bad Steven Segal movie. I mean, this just doesn’t happen in real life, right?
Anyway, I’m not gonna rehash the whole thing, because we’ve all been doing that, and I don’t want to turn into what the news networks are all doing: just saying the same thing, over an dover, with a different pundit to agree with them.
But here’s the deal: I can’t cry. I really want to. I feel it well up in my chest, but the tears won’t come. And that is the hardest thing, so far. That and the fear.
I was walking Ferris last night, and I kept getting this completely irrational fear that something awful was going to happen while I was away from the house. Didn’t help that she kept stopping, and looking behind us, like there was something there.
I am supposed to travel at the end of the month to the east coast for another Star Trek Convention, and I really don’t want to go now. At all. I know that is totally irrational, and totally lame, and exactly what the terrorists want, but I keep imagining what those people on those planes were feeling, knowing that they were going to die. I wonder what I would do if that ever happened to me…?
So, here I find myself at an uncommon loss for words. I don’t think I really have much to add, so that’s it for tonight.
Hrm. Worst. Entry. Ever.

Barlow

This comes from John Perry Barlow, via Loren, via Scripting.com:

As most of you know, I believe that the United States has gradually, subtly, invisibly to most of us, become a police state over the last 30 years.
This morning’s events are roughly equivalent to the Reichstag fire that provided the social opportunity for the Nazi take-over of Germany.
I am *not* suggesting that, like the Nazis, the authoritarian forces in America actually had a direct role in perpetrating this mind-blistering tragedy. (Though their indirect role deserves a much longer discussion.)
Nevertheless, nothing could serve those who believe that American “safety” is more important than American liberty better than something like this. Control freaks will dine on this day for the
rest of our lives.
Within a few hours, we will see beginning the most vigorous efforts to end what remains of freedom in America. Those of who are willing to sacrifice a little – largely illusory – safety in order to maintain our faith in the original ideals of America will have to fight for those ideals just as vigorously.
I beg you to begin NOW to do whatever you can – whether writing your public officials, joining the ACLU or EFF, taking to the streets, or living visibly free and fearless lives – to prevent the spasm of
control mania from destroying the dreams that far more have died for over the last two hundred twenty five years than died this morning.
Don’t let the terrorists or (their natural allies) the fascists win. Remember that the goal of terrorism is to create increasingly paralytic totalitarianism in the government it attacks. Don’t give them the satisfaction.
Fear nothing. Live free.
And, please, let us try to forgive those who have committed these appalling crimes. If we hate them, we will become them.
May God – or Whatever you want to call It – bless us all. We’ll need it.
Barlow

The World Has Turned

It’s all anyone is talking about, so I’m not going to say much beyond this:
The World Has Turned, and I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I have this feeling that things will never be the same.
Here’s my number one fear: I fear that Bush (who disgusts me, so just know that, and save your flames for someone who cares) will see this as an opportunity to look “Presidential”, and bomb “Them” back to the stone age, and figure out who “They” are later. Sure, I think that we should find out who did this, and deal with them…but I fear the way it’s going to be handled.
Loren makes a great point: there is all this talk about how our intelligence missed this, and whatnot. I greatly fear the laws that are going to come out of this thing. I am really afraid of what’s going to happen to our privacy because of this. Just something to think about, while we all try to process this stuff.
This site seems to have a good timeline, if you’re interested, and Slashdot has a good discussion going. I suggest listening very carefully to what you hear on the news, especially as there is less new info to report, and the carefully coiffed anchors begin speculating and exploiting, in an effort to hold your attention. I suggest reading IndyMedia and CommonDreams, as good alternative sources of information, free of spin and agenda.
In the mean time, please go and give blood. Especially if you’re O-. I know that the thing I feel the most right now is helpless, and giving blood is something, however small, that we can do to help out, and maybe not feel so helpless.
Okay, I’ve said enough, which is more than I wanted to in the first place. I have cool Vega$ stories to tell, but I just don’t feel like telling them today. Maybe tomorrow.

Viva Las Vega$ (sort of)

Hey hey!
I am back from Vega$, and one of the coolest conventions, ever! Here’s the deal (or the dilly-o, as the damn kids today say. But since I am so not cool, I won’t say that. Ever.)
Okay, so here’s the deal: I have 5 days worth of cool stories to tell, but I am ex-freaking-hausted now, and my back is completely fucked from signing close to 7500 autographs, so sitting here typing is extremely painful, so that’s about it for this entry.
But boy do I have stuff to tell:
The Server Hack
Vega$ (Gambling, losing, losing some more, winning, giving it back, and the rudeness. Oh, the rudness)
The Con: My talk (they hate me! they like me! they hate me! they like me!) My sketch show: (One of the best sketch shows I’ve ever done, and, apparently, the highlight of the convention, according to some fans) The Star Trek Experience (seriously. one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.)
I have much to say, and I have gone back and forth today, deciding if I’m going to write this stupid little “I’m back” thing (which is extremely lame, I think), or just wait until tomorrow and tell all the stories. But I think I wanted my closest friends to know that I was back, and alive.
Tomorrow is a wasteland.

I heart script kiddies

“Hey, Wil! Where’s your burrito?” was the subject of an Email I got today…well, my burrito was haxxored.
But thanks to the efforts of the greatest webhosts, EVER, Josh and Loren, I think we’re back on track, now. Josh spent the day on a plane, got home, and helped get the servers back together. Loren spent his entire day off getting the servers back up, and restoring all the sites.
I think now is as good a time as any to give a little history on how this lame site came about…
Last year, at comic-con, I met this really cool guy named Ben. Ben is an artist, and had drawn some of the coolest little comic books I have ever seen.
Fast forward to about 2 months before comic-con. I am spending quite a bit of time playing Diablo 2, and surfing the net. One Saturday, while my wife is out of town, I decide to spend the entire day at the computer, and you know what that means…no, not that…I decided to spend the day making a website.
I have wanted a presence on the web for a long time, but I just never got around to it. I was offered, many times, the help of professional designers, but I wanted to do the whole thing myself, for better or for worse. I didn’t want this to be just another lame celebrity website. I wanted to have a website that looked more like one of your friend’s sites, and less like some Big Hollywood Jackass. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I need to back up to that Saturday.
I went to Yahoo! Geocities, and made that “tvswilwheaton” account. Yes, I did that because I thought it was a very cheesy name, and kind of silly, and plain old “wil wheaton” was taken. I had absolutely no idea how to write/*.phpL, I knew nothing of tables, CSS, or anything, so I used the Yahoo! Pagebuilder, to do a sort of WYSIWYG page design. Oh, it was lame alright. Mucho lame. But I did it to see if I could, and to see if anyone even cared.
So, speed ahead to this year’s Comic-con. I made some really silly flyers that had the address of my website on them, and passed them out to anyone who came to see me.
TANGENT: I *LOVE* comics. I have over 5000 of them, much to my wife’s chagrin. I love comic-con, too, because it’s just so magnificently geeky, and good things always happen to me there. Here’s how it works: I can go, and sign autographs for people, sell a few things, and pay for the trip. Now, here is a warning to all current and future (and past) celebrities: The Autograph Area is where careers go to die. It can be really cool, and it can be really sad. Just know why you’re there…it’s like they say about poker: if you don’t know who the sucker at the table is, it’s you. Dig?
So it’s the Saturday of comic-con. I have talked my friend Kevin (who isn’t an actor, he’s just graduated Art-freaking-Center with HONORS as an illustrator…yet he has, through all sorts of crazy circumstances, mostly involving me, gotten TONS of work. You’d totally recognize him if you saw him) into coming with me for the day. We’re planning on me signing from 11 until 5, having some dinner, checking out the guests, and heading home.
Well, we get there at 11, and at 2, when we’re planning on taking a little lunch break, they give us the boot, to make room for someone else. Since our train doesn’t leave for like 8 hours, we head downstairs, to see what we can see.
A few hours later, as we’re getting ready to leave, I see Ben. I know it’s him, because of his unmistakable, ever-present hat. Ben is with some people, one of whom is Loren. I am really excited to see Ben, because I really, really liked his comics last year, and I wanted to see some new ones…problem was, he hadn’t made any, yet. But I gave him the address for my lame website, and asked him to take a look.
A few days later, I got an email from Ben, saying that he liked my site, because the content was cool, but the design was lame (which I’d known all along, mind you, so just get off my back, monkey!). He suggested that I check out this site called Killoggs, that he started with some of his friends. He said that I should write stuff there, because I’d fit in. Shortly after that, I got an Email from Loren. He said that he did hosting, and if I wanted hosting for a website, they’d help me out.
So I thought about it:
“I’ve always wanted to have a presence on the web…but they all hate me in internet land…but having a presence on the web is cool…but they’ll all laugh at me….I’ve got to concentrate…concentrate…concentrate…..I’ve got to concentrate…concentrate….concentrate…Hello? Hello? Hello? Echo! Echo! Echo! Now batting….Manny Mota…Mota…Mota….”
I had registered wilwheaton.net some time ago, just so nobody else could get it and make it into a something stupid, and I was just sitting on it…so, with Loren’s help, I got in touch with this girl Ashley, who had helped me park the domain when I’d registered it.
This story gets cool, I promise. And if it doesn’t get cool, I’ll add some stuff to it, to MAKE it cool, dammit.
Loren and Ashley helped me move the domain from it’s parking space, over to logjamming, where it lives today.
Now, I spent nearly 10 hours a day, over the next 6 weeks, learning/*.phpL, figuring out Dreamweaver, and getting things going…because I really was happy with the content that I had, I mean, it’s just me, you know? But I didn’t like the look, at ALL. It sucked balls. I mean, holy dogshit, did it suck balls.
While I was working out the look and feel, and the design of the site, I became a member over at Killoggs, and began participating in their discussions, and even wrote what I think is a pretty funny first post.
Somehow, during this time, I asked Loren about keeping an online journal. I don’t even remember how it came up, which is too bad, because I bet it’s a cool story. Maybe I’ll make something up when I’m older. I remember telling Loren that I was thinking about making an Open Diary, and he mentioned to me that there were these two things that I may want to look at: Blogger, and Greymatter. Since I was running the lame old site at Geocities, I wasn’t allowed CGI access, so I used Blogger. But I wanted more. I wanted comments, and I wanted direct links…in short, I wanted something cool like Underachievers or Killoggs. So Loren told me that I wanted Greymatter.
I gotta stop for a second here and say something about Loren: He is one of the coolest guys who I’ve never really met. I mean, he has held my lame hand every step of the way as I made this site. He answered all my stupid newbie, RTFM questions, and never was impatient, or condescending, or anything. He was really, really helpful, and I have come to think of him as sort of a friend of mine. I can totally understand how people become friends over IM and stuff, because that’s the only way we talk. Loren could call me, and I wouldn’t know his voice from Adam (mostly because Adam doesn’t call too much anymore, since I told his mom to stop hitting on me).
So, if you enjoy reading this weblog, you should take a second out of your day, and shout a big “Thanks” skyward, and direct it towards him, because I never would have known about this without him. And if you have a lot of money, you should give him some. Like have logjamming host you, or something. Because they’re cool. So there.
End of Tangent.
So, during this 6 weeks of/*.phpL learning, I am a little bitch. I am whining to Ashley, Mae Ling, Ben, Loren, and Josh, and they’re all being really supportive, and cool.
Then, one day, it hits me: the design I want. 6 weeks, to the day, after I launched the lame, old site, Anne goes away for the weekend. I put Underworld Live in my CD player, fire up Dreamweaver, and get to work. I work all through the night, and, by morning, I have the design I want. I sleep for a few hours, get up, and populate the site with the content that I want, which should explain all the spelling errors and broken links when I launched.
I get everything going, it’s all working out okay, but the only thing not working is Email…for some reason, I can get it, but I can’t respond. So I set up a .forward to my old yahoo address, but that’s just not very cool, you know? So I ask Loren and Josh if they can do anything, and Loren totally hooks me up. He figures out what is wrong, and makes it go.
Then, today, the site goes boom, and these two guys do everything they possibly can to make it work again. Which is cool, because I just look for things…things to make me go.
I guess the whole point of this little history is to stand up, and say that I couldn’t have done this without the help of these people, who hardly even know me. And I wanted to publicly say thank you, and give them what the kids call “hellamadprops”.
Hella.
Hella.
Hella.