My CSI airs tomorrow night, and E! Online’s Guilty Pleasures said some nice things about it today. There’s no perma-link option that I can find, so here’s the blurb:

CSI: The Next Generation
It’s not like we sit around reading blogs while we’re supposed to working–we totally don’t–but sometimes our work leads us to read blogs. (Just trust us, okay?) Anyway, fans of CSI, blogs and Star Trek: The Next Generation will find no greater confluence of goodness than on this week’s episode of the forensic crime-stopper series CSI (Thursday, 10 p.m.), starring Wil Wheaton, onetime Ensign Wesley Crusher and current blogger, as a homeless man who, at least according to Wheaton’s blog, has bad hair and rage issues. Certainly, more drama will ensue, and we can’t wait to watch and then read about it on Wheaton’s site. After work, you know.

After my episode airs, I’ll be able to write in a lot more detail about the specifics of filming it, and comment on how the final cut reflects and differs from what we shot.
Man, it’s only one day away! I can’t believe it’s already here.

I really like the way my backyard looks right now. I don’t want to be prideful about my gardening efforts, but damn! Anne and I have worked hard recently to landscape the damn thing, and it just looks great.
I’ve been writing pretty much non-stop since I got out of bed today. When I get stuck, or just need a break, I look out the window and stare into the yard, so my conscious mind can take a walk and let my creative mind do its thing. My lawn, which through a combination of mowing, feeding, and 38 inches of rain in the last several weeks is lush, thick, and a beautiful greenish blue. Ferris and Riley can usually be found chasing each other across it, though right now they’re both sleeping under my desk. Ferris has her head on my foot and whenever I try to move it, she grunts at me and wags her tail. Riley is blisfully unaware of anything, sprawled out asleep on her back like a cat. My orange tree, which I agressively pruned a back in January, is covered with blossoms, and a light breeze keeps pushing their scent through my open window. Two hummingbirds just buzzed past. Cool.
I have several bird feeders that hang all over the place. Most of them have a basic seed mixture (yeah! 3 bucks at the pet store for 20 pounds!) but one of them is this sock filled with some spiffy stuff called Nyjer seed that is like crack for finches. That sock is so covered with birds I can’t even see it! All of my other feeders are also heavily populated with sparrows as well, and it seriously sounds like I’m renting office space in an aviary.
There’s some tree-trimming going on in my neighborhood, so the not-entirely-unpleasant drone of distant chainsaws underscores the bird’s singing. For some reason, the sound of yard work always makes me feel secure, and brings to mind happy childhood sense memories that I can’t see, but feel nevertheless.
Anyway, I’m putting this all down right now because someday I’ll read through my archives, see this, and remember exactly what this moment felt like.

Behold, the power of the WWdN Posse! (WARNING: Link contains blatant and crass commercialism) As of this writing, Wesley Crusher is currently not the most annoying character on Star Trek! \m/
Thanks for voting, and thanks to everyone who commented here and sent trackbacks.
I get asked a lot if I read comments and trackback. Yes, I always read them both, and I love it that Trackbacks often lead me to discover interesting and useful stuff on The Internets that I may have missed on my own.
For example, following a trackback to I Like Jason, I learned that Battlestar Galactica‘s executive producer (and former DS9 head writer) Ron Moore is providing commentaries on current episodes, in almost real-time! Oh my god, this is, without a doubt, the absolute best use of podcasting to date. As Jason says, “[I]t’s like the commentary feature on a DVD, except you [don’t have] to wait a couple of years for the actual DVD to come out; you load the commentary file to your iPod, hit play when the phrase “The Cylons Were Created By Man” appears on-screen, then pause it whenever a commercial break comes on. And even better, the whole thing’s hooked up to an RSS feed, so that commentaries can be automatically delivered to an MP3 player a few hours before the episode airs.”
If that’s not a brilliant use of tehcnology, and embracing your fans, I don’t know what is. And if that’s not enough, his blog (which I *so* wish was titled “Battlestar GalactiBlog”) does full feeds. SUBSCRIB’D!
I didn’t know Ron very well when I worked on TNG, but he wrote some of the best episodes we ever did, including All Good Things . . ., Yesterday’s Enterprise, and an episode that’s sort of close to my heart called Journey’s End. I haven’t had a chance to watch Battlestar Galactica, yet (though it comes highly reccommended from several friends) but I can tell you this much: Star Trek: The Next Generation was a better show because Ron Moore wrote for us, and I can’t wait to hear him talk about Battlestar Galactica.
I’m inspired, and as soon as I have some time (read: in 2023) I’ll do some commentaries on some of my acting work.
An interesting fact about this entry: It contains the greatest ratio of <i> tags to actual words in WWdN history.

Oh dear.
It appears that TV Guide is holding an online poll about Star Trek, and our dear, sweet young Ensign Crusher is currently leading in the “Most Annoying Character” category.
I know, it’s hard to believe it, especially when we consider that Wesley was given lines such as, “We’re from Starfleet! We don’t lie!” and “I feel strange, but also good!” and the ever-popular “Course laid in, sir.” But it’s true. And so very, very sad.
Not that I care about this sort of thing . . . but actually, I do. I’m really tired of wearing that “Annoying Character” albatross around my neck, and if Wesley is voted most annoying in TV Guide’s big old Farewell to Star Trek issue, I don’t think I’ll ever hear the end of it.
I’m not suggesting that thousands of WWdN readers go take the poll and stuff the ballot box. I mean, that would just be wrong, right?
Normally, I’d stuff this ballot box entirely on my own, but if some of you WWdN readers want to legitimately and honestly vote for another character, like The Computer Voice for instance — I mean, come on! How many times did the stupid Ship’s Computer actually save the crew? Yeah! That’s what I thought. She’s got nothing on Wesley Crusher — I would be ever so grateful.
Provided, of course, that you truly believe there is a different, more annoying character than Wesley — I’d never suggest taking actions which could call into question the legitimacy of an online Star Trek poll. Oh no, not me.
Never.
Perish the thought.
I’m serious! Start perishing (right after you vote, that is.)
Thank you.

This is an entry entirely about beer.
Though I’ve always been a stout drinking kind of guy, over the last year or so I’ve gradually moved toward hoppy pale ales and IPAs for my beer drinking enjoyment.
I’ve discovered that Stone Brewing Company, out of North San Diego County, makes my favorite hoppy beers: The Stone Pale Ale, The Arrogant Bastard Ale, and the Stone IPA.
I like their beer so much, I decided yesterday that I’d call their marketing department and see if it was cool for me to link to them. I got the phone number from their website, and while I was there, I decided to sign up for their newsletter, so I could find out if they were coming to any microbrew fests near Pasadena, and stuff like that. (That’s important, and it pays off in a second, so stay with me here.)
I called them up, and talked to a guy in marketing. I basically said, “I’ve got this website that a few people read. I really like your beer, and if it’s cool with you, I’d like to link to your website, and give you some free advertising, as my way of saying ‘thank you’ for killing off so many of my slower brain cells.”
He told me that Stone doesn’t really do advertising, but if I wanted to link to them, that would be cool. I told him that I’d e-mail him the address of my site, so he could see what my blog is all about, and that was that.
This afternoon, I got an e-mail back from him. Guess what? When I signed up for the newsletter, I was subscriber number ten thousand! I don’t think I win anything, but I thought it was random, and funny, and cool.
I’m totally putting “Number 10,000” on my resume. Take that, 1950s society!