Month: September 2004

I was checking Just A Geek‘s Amazon sales rank (hey, if you had a book at Amazon, you’d check it’s sales rank, too, buddy) and I saw one of the best Amazon Listmania lists, ever: So you wanna be a geek like me?
Quoth the list’s creator:

Tired of being a regular, run of the mill geek? Ready to take that ever-important step forward into full-blown uber-geek?? Then take the plunge, young man (or woman)! Pop ‘Flood’ into your CD player and let’s get cracking!

This list is just a few items short of being definitive. Suggest additions in comments, and maybe together we can create the Official WWdN Geek List.

Even though I’ve been doing interviews for almost twenty years, it’s still a challenge for me to keep it brief and simple, because that’s completely at odds with how I talk in real life. See, I look at interviews as an opportunity for The Audience to listen in on a conversation I have with a journalist, rather than using the journalist as a stenographer for my press release or bio. Of course, if I’m promoting something like Just A Geek, I want to make sure I talk about it at least a little bit, and a good interviewer will facilitate that, but the really good interviews are the ones where the journalist has done his or her homework, is actually interested in what we’re talking about, and isn’t afraid to throw the list of questions away if something more interesting comes up in the course of the interview.
Oh, and when I do this on the radio, we have to do it in less than ten minutes.
There are notable exceptions, like when I do The David Lawrence Show, and David (disclosure: David is a good friend) books me for the whole three hours, but those opportunities are few and far between.
So I was very excited when WebTalk Radio asked me for an interview, and told me that it would be a longer, more relaxed, “Charlie Rose” style discussion.
I loved every minute of the interview, even though I had to pee really bad for the last five minutes or so (yeah, you needed to know that, right?) We talked for almost an hour, uninterrupted, and WWdN readers who are looking to earn their “I spent 58 minutes listening to an interview on WebTalk Radio” merit badge know what to do.
Links:
Windows Media stream of just my 58 minute segment.
The Full Show (1 hr, 12 min; 14MB @ 32k) in .mp3 format.

I had a fantastic time in Las Vegas! I was there >24 hours, which is the perfect amount of time for me to be there, I’ve discovered. I’m working on my trip report, but I’ve got some real work to do today, and I probably won’t have time to finish it until the weekend.
While I was on my way home yesterday, I actually managed to audioblog a little bit about the trip, so go listen, and then read this cool interview I did with Poker Lizard dot Com:

PokerLizard: Do you have any plans to play in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in the future?
Wil: I was just reading Howard Lederer’s website for his 2003 WSOP reports and something really struck me at the very beginning, he said, NOW This is Howard Lederer were talking about, he said, “I’ve been playing all year long in No-Limit tournament games to get ready for the World Series because I never felt I was ready enough to play in that game.”
If HOWARD LEDERER feels that he has to spend a year on top of all his other experience to play in the No-Limit tournaments, I probably have a LOOONG way to go before I can compete and play competitively at that level.

I had fun with that interview, even though I was steaming from a really bad beat (or misread, depending on who you ask). But the really cool thing is that my interview is right next to an interview with Daniel Negreanu, who is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, and certainly the kindest professional poker player I’ve ever met. It’s nice to keep good company.
Also, I discovered a wonderful review of Just A Geek over at Apple Lust dot Com:

Let’s get this out of the way right now: if you come to this book looking for Star Trek gossip and wry recollections of life among the Klingons, you’re going to be disappointed. Wil Wheaton’s autobiographic melange of weblog and memoir is something far, far more important.
For a world where fame is instant and independent of talent, and where reality television cranks out disposable celebrities willingly sell their souls for fifteen minutes of fame, Wheaton has written an intelligent and honest warning. Like the slave who whispered “Memento Homo” into the ear of the Roman general enjoying a Triumph, Wheaton reminds us that celebrities are as vulnerable to the vicissitudes of fate as the rest of us. Starring in a hit TV show or getting an Oscar nomination in no way guarantees that the casting calls and party invitations will continue to come.

Oh! And before I forget, this Saturday night at ACME, we’re opening a brand new sketch comedy show. I’m not in this one, (my show opens in 10 weeks) but I was with the cast when they wrote it (we all write our shows together) and it’s hilarious. Tickets are only 15 bucks, there’s a great bar next door, and there is 500% of the USRDA of funny on the stage.

My parents took me and my brother to the Dodger game last night. It was awesome. Especially when Beltre tried to hot-dog a pop-up in foul territory, and ended up dropping the ball about ten feet in front of us. Our entire section stood up and yelled at him, “Use two hands!”
When he came up to bat in the bottom of the inning, most of the stadium started chanting “MVP! MVP!” But not our section. We chanted “USE TWO HANDS! USE TWO HANDS!”
Maybe you had to be there, but it was really funny.
Then there was the old Chinese guy sitting one section above us, who was totally Dancing Homer. They put him on the Dodgervision screen so many times, I wonder if they’re going to hire him in Capital City.
I’ve been going to Dodger Stadium as since I was a little kid. I will always remember sitting in the family seats, two rows above the Dodger dugout, during the World Series in 1977, when I had such a bad ear infection that my dad had to hold me in his lap whenever the crowd cheered too loudly, or during the playoffs in 1978 when I got to go to a game with my dad because my mom had to stay home with my recently-born sister. I will never forget holding Nolan up so he could watch Mike Piazza hit one completely out of the ballpark, and high-fiving Ryan a few years ago when we watched a successful suicide squeeze play unfold right in front of us.
I love baseball, but I love Dodger baseball, at Dodger Stadium, more than anything. My family has had season seats there since the stadium opened (there’s a really cool story about how my dad’s family is connected to the Dodgers, but that’s another story for another time), and last night was the last game of the year that the family tickets were available to my mom and dad.
Oh crap, it’s 8:45 and I have to get out of here. I have an audition at 9:40, then I get to go to Las Vegas for a Meeting-with-a-capital-M tomorrow morning, so I’m looking forward to a nice drive across the desert, some poker tonight, and a (hopefully) cool trip report when I get back. There’s a chance I’ll moblog and audblog from the trip, so check in if you’re so inclined.

I’ve updated my Appearances page to reflect some stuff that’s coming up: namely, Gnomedex and Linucon. There’s some other stuff in the works, but until I sign on the dotted line, I had better not talk about it.
Also, if you’re half the fan of Futurama that I am, you will probably enjoy The Top 25 Futurama Moments.
And if you’re into poker, you should check out The Film Geek’s poker blog. It’s good.
Oh, and if you get a chance to watch Star Wars: Empire of Dreams, you simply must do it. To quote my wife, “I’m not even a Star Wars Geek, and I loved it.”