radio silence

Some days, you just have to accept that you’re not destined to do the things you want to do. You just have to say, "I did my best, but it’s just not going to happen."

Like this fucking podcast, for example. After spending nearly three hours working on it yesterday, only to have my machine completely eat all of it and leave me with nothing but an empty feeling and a tiny ball of rage to show for it, I sat back down today to give it another go. As a bonus, I even convinced my wife to let me take out the old iRiver and ask her some questions about dating, and then being married to a geek. It was awesome.

However, the gods had other plans, because when I imported my audio from my iRiver to my Powerbook, it was totally useless, just like it was after the Grand Slam convention. Only this time, instead of being totally blown out, it decided that it needed to skip all over the place and drop out about every three seconds. I’ve discovered that the only thing this particular iRiver is good for is hitting with a sledgehammer, then setting on fire, stomping into a ball of goo, and launching at the invading Viking army via a trebuchet. (And it’s not even very good for that, to be honest.)

This really needs to just work. I really need to be able to just sit down, take what’s in my head, and put it into a recording. It’s clear to me that if I want to do this podcast on any regular schedule, it has to be as technologically easy as it is for me to write, and I just don’t have the tools for that right now. I have to get some sort of reliable recording rig that is NOT a USB headset into fucking Garageband that crashes, and the iRiver that decides to just stop working one day. I need stuff that just works.

This is all a roundabout way of saying: I’m really frustrated, and
really upset that I’ve poured five hours of my time into this fucking
thing, and I have nothing to show for it. It’s the end of the week, I’m
hungry and cranky, and instead of trying to start all over again and
force a show out by the end of the day today, I’m going offline for
several hours, to have dinner with my wife. Thank you all for your questions and the time you spent asking them; I’ll do my very best to get the technical side of things worked out quickly, so your time will not have been wasted, as well.

Have a great weekend, everyone. Please drive safely.

guinness is good

This is funny because it’s true.

learn to swim

Eventful is getting lots of press, which is great for Brian and his entire team, because I believe that it’s a tool that indie artists and guys like me will be able to use to connect with our audiences in ways that just weren’t possible as recently as a year ago.

But I’m getting really tired of reading things like this:

The Eventful demand system is still new, and right now the system is overwhelmed by a collection of demands to hear former Star Trek actor Wil Wheaton speak. But don’t let that put you off.

I’m sorry, but why would that put anyone off? Because it’d be better if Eventful was filled with demands for huge artists that don’t care about meeting their audience, and wouldn’t listen to demands, anyway?

Yeah, it’s a really terrible thing that I hopped on board with Eventful, and consulted with Brian before it even launched, because I believe in it, and my upcoming trips to Montreal and Boston are perfect examples of how it can work, right? And it’s equally off-putting that because of Eventful, the people who read my blog and I have a way to figure out where and when I should come perform, right? Yeah, that’s just terrible! It’s so off-putting!

And excuse me if this puts you off, Mr. Web 2.0 writer, but could we maybe retire the phrase "former Star Trek actor?" I know it’s hard for you mainstream media types to understand that I’ve done a few things with myself since Star Trek ended over a decade ago, (like publish two books, write several weekly columns, and provide voices for several video games and animated series,) but I have a lot more in my life than just being a "former Star Trek actor," which you would have known if you’d done your homework.

Update: The article’s author has apologized:

I’d like to apologize to you, Wil. I did not mean to offend nor to diminish your work. My tongue-in-cheek comment about how a ton of Eventful Demand posts to see you might be overwhelming to people trying to set up their own demands was not meant as a slight to you personally (although I can see how it was insensitive). As I said to one person who wrote an email to me, it’s clear that you’ve done a lot for Eventful and Eventful has done a lot for you. That’s how good business gets done.

I’ll buy a ticket to see you when you come to SF.

Thank you, Rafe. Whenever I hear "former Star Trek actor . . ." without any mention of anything else I’ve done with my life, I do feel diminished and slighted. Apology accepted and appreciated very much.

the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have

Today is Towel Day, a day when all geeks can carry their towels with them in tribute to the hoopiest frood of them all, Douglas Adams.

I absolutely love that I’m recording an all-geek podcast on this most sacred of days.

Updated: Oh! You know what I love even more? Spending 2.5 hours working on the podcast, then losing the entire thing to some weird confluence of system lockups and crashes.

I’m taking a long, long, long don’t-break-anything walk, and I’ll try again in the morning. Sigh.

the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have

Today is Towel Day, a day when all geeks can carry their towels with them in tribute to the hoopiest frood of them all, Douglas Adams.
I absolutely love that I’m recording an all-geek podcast on this most sacred of days.