I made the (mistake?) of ordering a Venti coffee this morning, and I feel like a little hummingbird right now.
So how about a whole bunch of random crap?
- I love Colin Hay’s album Company of Strangers, especially How Long Will It Last? and No Win Situation.
- Sen. Harry Reid (D, NV) nails it:
"After reviewing the Republican record, I know why Ken Mehlman and Karl
Rove want to play politics with national security in 2006 instead of
having an honest debate about who can keep Americans safe. It’s because
this is a debate Republicans cannot win.
Republicans run good campaigns, but when it comes to actually governing
and protecting Americans, they have a record of incompetence."Right on, Senator. Think you can get the rest of the Democrats together on this one, or are you guys going to totally screw it up again?
- We just added a bunch of new bloggers to blogging.la. I can’t wait for the hazing to begin. I have my paddle and everything.
- Those people who freaked out at me because of my last post? Get a life. Failing that, get a sense of humor.
- I’ve read two amazing books recently, which I’ll mention and recommend later on this week.
- One of the points Stephen King makes in On Writing . . . over and over again is that people who wish to be writers must make time to read. I find that the more I read, the more I want to write, because my writing monkey only digs his claws into my brains when I read something and think, Oh! I can do that, too! Watch me now! I can’t wait to write about Friday night.
- Stephen King has a new book out today, about people who become zombies because of cell phones. It sounds really fun.
- iTunes Music Store use is up 247%, according to a survey which includes some rather interesting facts:
The survey also noted that iTunes Music Store customers were 2.2 times
more likely to drive a Volkswagen than any other car. They also
discovered that iTMS customers liked to drink cider and imported beer.
So I guess that on the road of life there are passengers, and teenaged
drunk drivers.
- One of my favorite bits on Futurama was, "I’m Roseanne, your guide to the world of facts." I love that line so much, I wish I could use it whenever I share some useless bit of information with someone, like, "Did you know that a baby’s head weighs the same as a brick of gold on the moon? It’s true. I’m Wil, your guide to the world of facts."
- I think I already knew this, but forgot: Good news, everyone! There’s a Futurama movie in the works, and there’s even a chance that Futurama could have a Family Guy-esque revival on television.
- Nolan told me the other night, "I love it when Professor Farnsworth says things like, ‘I’m sending you on a mission to Planet Certain Death, where you’ll have your faces crushed by killer robots as soon as you land . . . Enjoy!’"
- I got The Wilco Book + CD for Xmas, right before Santa came down and rained death upon the whole world, and it is really amazing. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, because it’s Wilco, after all, that the CD is as good as it is, but it wouldn’t be shocking if they threw together some "B" material to release with the book (which is awesome on its own, by the way). They didn’t. Several of the tracks have earned a coveted five star rating on my iPod.
- I watched I am Trying to Break Your Heart over the weekend. The best moment in the entire film is when Jeff Tweedy’s son plays drums on his lap, and makes Jeff guess which song he’s playing. When Jeff guesses that it’s Heavy Metal Drummer, he starts to sing it while his son plays the drums on his legs. It’s one of the sweetest and most awesome moments I’ve ever seen. In fact, it was awesome and a half.
- Mt friend Kat is taking me to see Jeff Tweedy when he comes to LA. Ding!
- Night before last, we had 70-80 MPH gusts of wind at my house, which knocked out our power for about 18 hours and destroyed several million-year-old oak trees in my neighborhood. One of them almost took out one of my neighbor’s houses. Yipe. Last night, we expected the wind to come back, but it never did. On the way home from school yesterday, the kids and I discussed the wind, and came to the following conclusions:
- I hate the wind, because it’s so destructive and loud.
- Nolan sleeps through it at night, and if he had to pick between wind and rain, he’d take wind.
- Ryan loves the wind, because it feels like it’s cleaning everything up, and it’s got all this raw, unfocused power.
- We all love days like today, after the wind has gone away, where it’s so clear you feel like you could see to the other side of the world, if the damn horizon wasn’t in the way.
- I had a bit of a panic recently when my Powerbook began acting weird. None of the disk utilities on my install discs worked, and I was on the verge of freaking out, when I was pointed toward Disk Warrior. I can’t praise Disk Warrior enough. It completely fixed all the problems, in about an hour, and my Powerbook doesn’t show any of the obvious signs of the abuse it takes from me, up here on the second floor.
- Though you won’t be able to tell when you read this entry, I’m stopping right now to call Allentown, PA, to do an interview. I really liked the reporter, and we talked for about 45 minutes. I hope I made sense, and I’ll link the article when it comes out.
- This post has way too many indents and sub-indents.
- Bill Hicks just came on iTunes. Who is the modern day Bill Hicks? I can’t think of anyone off the top of my head.
- The movie The Comedians of Comedy is really great, and almost made me forgive Zach Galifianakis for completely stealing a bit from me that I used to do on the J.Keith vanStraaten Show, and using it on Jimmy Kimmel’s show.
- Isaac Hayes’ Joy just came on iTunes. Good thing Anne isn’t home, or this post would be delayed by at least another three minutes.
- Eww! Gross!
- What?
- This post is really fun to write. I think I’ve been taking myself, my blog, and everything in general too seriously lately. (Deadbeats really fucking suck, man, and they can really take a lot of the happiness out of your life) Who cares if everything I write isn’t so goddamned great or important? And who cares if I over-use italics?
- A friend of mine just pointed out to me that I’d created another Prove To Everyone . . . rather than write an entire book about it to slay it, the simple act of identifying the existance of this beast was like turning on the light and realizing that the monster I kept seeing in the corner was just a jacket slumped over the chair. In other words, it was never really there, and only existed because I created it. Wow. I feel like I’ve been breathing through a straw, and I just got to take my first deep breath in months. Thanks, J.
- I think I’ve said everything I need to say, and I’m incredibly satisfied right now. Where is my mind? It’s right here. Rather than push it, I’m going to hit "publish," and go outside to enjoy a little bit of this amazing day we’re having.
I’m Wil, your guide to the world of facts.
Actually, this is one of the better entries in a while. It’s pretty cool.
I’ve been reading Dancing Barefoot at the gym this week while I’m on the elliptical machine. I’m enjoying it a lot!
Enjoy your day outside Wil!
Was that a “My Name Is Luka” reference snuck in there?
I love the shotgun style post.
Oh, and what’s funny is, if you play Bill Hicks’ political stuff for someone who has never heard of him, they usually don’t realize he is talking about 15 years ago. Bill Hicks *is* the modern Bill Hicks!
It took me a minute to get it, but the Isaac Hayes bullet and the following two almost made soda come out my nose.
Very funny, Wil.
You go, girl š
Oh and ditto on the “soda come out of my nose” comment above.
Nice post. Your comment about Stephen King got me remembering that you read From a Buick 8 a while back. Just curious what ya thought of it.
Monster on the chair, eh? Got me thinking about Spalding Gray’s Monster in the Box. What a great oralist/essayist (??) Has he ever been found?
DiskWarrior is great utility. If you are looking for another, check out TechTool Pro 4. It has a great variety of hardware and disk diagnostic tools. From my readings on the Internets, this program is highly recommended. It is keeping my G3 iBook humming along.
The Jeff Tweedy shows will be great. I’m extremely excited to drive out to Dekalb, IL to see him at this very small bar called Otto’s. I’m also very excited about all the hot young college girls that will be there.
70-80 MPH winds. Wow. I don’t suppose you got lucky and it knocked the ugly annoying tree…
Great post, Wil. Your voice really came through.
(You know what I mean, right?)
Yeah, the winds are hitting my area just as hard, although they’re still going strong over here. So I’ll just have to sit inside and watch my Futurama DVDs. I can never get enough Futurama…best banned line ever “Sweet zombie Jesus!”
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks that Bill Hicks is the new Bill Hicks. Bush in the White House and a war in Iraq. Nothing ever changes.
But, to really answer the question, I think David Cross is as close as you can get these days. His bits are more diatribe than comedy. He’s not as concerned with how the world *could* be, the way Bill was (and that’s a shame), but he’s dead-on with the way the world is.
My favorite points of this post :
Stephen King has a new book out today, about people who become zombies because of cell phones. It sounds really fun.(weee, great! I am a big stephen king fan and love his books)
Nolan told me the other night, “I love it when Professor Farnsworth says things like, ‘I’m sending you on a mission to Planet Certain Death, where you’ll have your faces crushed by killer robots as soon as you land . . . Enjoy!'”
(omg those lines are killer)
BRING BACK FUTURAMA!
VIVA LA BENDER!
I watch every adult swim episode of Futurama I can.
Yup can
t wait for the movie, family guy and futurama RAWK!
This post is really fun to write. I think I’ve been taking myself, my blog, and everything in general too seriously lately. (Deadbeats really fucking suck, man, and they can really take a lot of the happiness out of your life) Who cares if everything I write isn’t so goddamned great or important? And who cares if I over-use italics?
(not being all fan-girl or anything but WRITE WHATEVER YOU WANT TO! I certainly enjoy it) Hell you could doodle on a napkin and scan it in and post it and say here this is what you get, no more no less.
This is your blog, it’s not like you fricking owe anyone anything. (boy motherhood has really mellowed me out – mostly :p
AWESOME post Wil.
and yea NOLAN RULES! š
I love random… you never know what you’re going to learn. I just finished “Dancing Barefoot” and I laughed and cried (not necessarily in that order). I am knee-deep in “Just a Geek” and am loving it just as much. Your words are captivating because they are so I’m-actually-having-a-conversation-with-you-in-person real, and everything you are describing is easily visualized. I can’t wait for the third book. Way to go, Wil.
Three minutes, eh????
alice
Wow – this post was random, needless to say. It reminded me of some of my journal entries: bouncing from one topic to the next. But it’s all good. I liked this post. It was great.
š
That scene in I Am Trying to Break Your Heart makes me want to have children all by itself.
Spalding Gray’s body was found in the East River in March 2004, according to Wikipedia.
Hazing? With paddles? Gosh, what should I wear?
The modern day Bill Hicks is David Cross (see: Arrested Development, Mr. Show), at least he comes closest.
His two CDs “Shut Up You Fucking Baby!” and “It’s Not Funny,” are two of the most politically vitriolic CDs of recent times.
Ok, this is strange… and unrelated to this post. I finally got around to reading “Just a Geek” (I bought it a few days after it was released).
I was really enjoying it until I came across this sentence:
“There were about 50 people there, all crammed into the back of this ‘They’ and ‘too’ is a lie.
Yeah. Took me a while to realize I’m missing pages 199 through 230.
On your next podcast, Wil, would you just go ahead and read those missing pages to me so I can write them down and staple them in? Thanks š
today was wayyyy too windy
and i hate the wind
but i loved this post š
the wind you speak of has moved into southern illinois…i would appreciate if those you you to the west of me would avoid eating beans…or any foods containing beans until the winds subside.
All praise the mighty Disk Warrior! I had a nearly catastrophic HD failure a few weekends ago and SW saved my ass.
Oops, that supposed to be DW, not SW. š
Being one of the new bloggers you threaten to haze is an honor. Just so long as I don’t have to go through Crossing the Desert and the Unblinking Eye. Or the Wreck of the Hesperus.
This was a great post. I love laundry list posts, because there are always so many things to be written about that are better as items on a list than entire posts in themselves. Kind of like Anthology of Interest storylines.
Does anyone have any info on the Zach line item? Wil, even.
Remember Wil, if you ever get sick of italics there’s still bold, underline, stars (*) and good old-fashioned capslock. And you could through in some 1337 to confuse/annoy people š
Wow, can we say contact high? I think I’m too wired to sleep now.
We had a lot of power outages here due to some crazy wind… Then we got 10″ of snow dumped on us.
I’m on NyQuil.
I don’t get very random on NyQuil.
All I can muster is…
“NADAFINGAH!”
Yeah Wil, cause Reid has such a great record standing up for our rights.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00313
Oh wait he did vote in favor of the Patriot Act, nevermind.
ps – He had a chunk of Abramoff’s cashh too.
What’s that coffee called again and do they sell it in Kansas?
Here’s my random bs:
Dude, where are my elected presidents?!
“Good things come to those who wait.” F@#$ that. I want it all now, damn it! Right now!
“You are your own worst enemy.” Very true.
Just a Geek: Been talking anyone & everyone’s ears off about how great it is.
Fiona Apple’s latest CD: Extraordinary Machine. Wow! This is actually an upbeat CD for Fiona. Maybe she got therapy. Don’t get mad, Fiona. I mean this in the best possible way. I love you!
Since when did the stains on Monica Lewinky’s dress become a threat to national security?!
To quote Morrissey from the Smiths: So pllleeeeaaase plllleeeaaase plllleeeaaase let me get what I want. Lord knows it will be the first time.
Listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival Chronicle: The 20 Greatest Hits right now.
“Could you be loooooved?!” Sorry. It’s been in my head all night. Was listening to the box set of Bob Marley’s Songs of Freedom earlier this evening.
The Sure Thing, Footloose, Valley Girl, The Last American Virgin, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Pretty in Pink, All the Right Moves, Say Anything, Some Kind of Wonderful, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Can’t Buy Me Love, Reckless, Sixteen Candles…Help me launch a campaign to let the youngins’ know that even though we may seem old & out of touch, our teen films take the cake over the crappy ones they so love of today.
My favorite bumper stickers on my wall that piss of Republicans:
Putting the
“Con” in Conservative
Asses of Evil
We’re Gooder!
Leave No Billionaire Behind
Four More Wars!
Something Borrowed – Emily Giffin. Yeah Yeah. I know it’s a chick lit book with a pretty pink pastel cover, but even guys express no shame in adoring it (Yes, even the straight ones!)
The Assassination of Richard Nixon starring my boy Sean Penn. See it if you haven’t. I remember this time last year, movie theaters promoted it with previews, posters, etc. Then, surprise surprise, it was never shown because it was banned. Gee, I wonder who could’ve done this. Who could it have been? Could it have been Satan????!!!!!
I heart random randomness and talking to myself – that’s why blogs are great!
Yes to the Volkswagen
No to the cider
Yes to imported beer (but only if Corona AND Moosehead count)
BTW, do you “live on the second floor”?
Wil..love your acting.TNG rocks!!
It amazes me that someone with your intelligence continues with the Bush bashing and your liberal drivel.
I guess the Left and those who support it will never figure it out.
The only election won by the Dem’s since 1994 was Clinton in 1996…and your side just keeps on losing.
The Left is out of touch with main stream America, hense the sudden change.
And before I get slammed for posting this, please remember that as liberals you and yours are the compassionate, caring ones, right?
Wil,
Always enjoy your ramblings, today more than most, even. Keep up the randomness!
Ballixxe, as a witch and registered member of the Green Party, I’m all about the compassion for former denizens of the short bus. You go, you backward little rightie, you! Meanwhile, the grown-ups will try to figure out how to clean up the mess. š
>>Who is the modern day Bill Hicks? >The movie The Comedians of Comedy is really great,
When I break your Futurama movie news to my boyfriend and I pass it off like it was somehow my idea, like Groening takes his cues from li’l ol’ me, I will become the coolest girlfriend he has ever had and we will enjoy Isaac Hayes songs like we’ve never enjoyed them before.
HEY! Weren’t you in a movie with Isaac Hayes? Yeah Yeah. Book of Days with Isaac Hayes. TeeHee – that rhymed!
This entry is why blogs were made.
While perhaps not the best entry ever, it was up near the top anyway…
Oh, and I have a theory about Fox and F-shows: Fox hates shows that start with the letter ‘F’ (possibly because “Fox” starts with ‘F’?), and kills them off before their time while keeping shows which have passed their prime (simpsons). Something happened which made them realize that Family Guy was an awesome show, now Futurama… Hopefully this trend will continue and Firefly will return… here’s to hoping…
Dude! Three minutes? Come on! We Geeks are better lovers than that. Just ask my geek-loving lady friend…
Although I guess three minutes is longer than most jocks last, so that on its own has something going for it…
/bets Mrs. Wheaton loves it
Word up. Reid’s speech especially the part about double speech was right on. Republicans are SO GOOD at misleading the public. It’s amazing.
Wil,
Loved the post. We all can take ourselves a little too seriously sometimes. I also know the “prove to everyone” monster. As another creative person, I am always trying to prove to everyone, including myself, that my work is good and worthwhile and other people enjoy it or at least buy the thing that I am trying to sell. I believe that it was Stephen King who said that he felt that he was a sham who just got lucky and the muses smiled on him. Don’t worry about impressing us, we already are. Just write!
That was as fun to read as it seems it was for you to write (was it as good for you as it was for me?)
Don’t take yourself too seriously, but ESPECIALLY don’t take what random strangers say too seriously.
Of course there’s a paradox there that if you don’t take not taking things seriously, seriously, then you’ll take not taking thing seriously, seriuosly, but then…
Never mind, just keep up the great writing.
Okay. I liked this one. I won’t go as far as to say the best ever written entry…but its in my top 5 Wil Wheaton posts.
Yea!!! That was fun. lets do it again!!!!!
You had me at Venti = hummingbird.
Sen. Reid is AWESOME. I live in the middle of nowhere NV…a town our county even forgets exists…and Sen. Reid’s staff shows up three times a year at the post office to ask about our concerns. His staffers will sit down with us and discuss it. It’s not lip service either. Our concerns have been addressed and many resolved. As long as he’ll run I’ll vote for him.
I’m originally from UT which pretty well means Mormons and Republicans and Bush adoration. It is so refreshing to have Reid out there…Mormon and not having political orgasms over Bush.
I like NV’s governor too.
Wil, I love reading your stuff. You are so fricking awesome.