So it turns out that I do, in fact, have a sinus infection. Because it’s the first one post-sinus surgery, my doctor decided that the best course of action would be to blast off and nuke the site from orbit.
I asked him if maybe we could do something a little less extreme, but he assured me that it was the only way to be sure. Since my sneezes weren’t going “achoo!” like they’re supposed to, but going “Ftagn!” instead, I’ve decided to follow his advice, and I’m on Prednisone + Zithromax for the next five days.
I’m already feeling better, if not entirely back to normal, but I’m looking forward to getting my command and control systems back online within the next 24 hours. I have this overwhelming urge to blast my quads and rip out my delts, but I understand that will go away IN JUST A FUCKING MINUTE GODDAMMIT WHAT?!
Oh. Um. Sorry. Meds talking and whatnot.
In place of an actual blog entry, here are a few things that have been on my mind:
I was going to write this myself, but Charlie Stross explains why I won’t be using Google Chrome better than I can. He even manages to avoid the phrase EPIC FAIL which I wouldn’t have been able to do. Competing with IE = good. Competing with Firefox = profoundly stupid. Having the most abusive EULA I’ve seen in years? That’s just fucking priceles, Google. Nice work on that one. I’d like to amend this paragraph, after hours of consideration and lengthy discussion with other people. Apparently, Google claims the EULA was “boilerplate” and they’re going to update it. If they update it, great. But does anyone really believe that a company like Google puts out a new browser, one that is as highly-anticipated as Chrome, and doesn’t fully vet the EULA? What did they do, borrow lawyers from John McCain? If Google is going to change their EULA to something less evil, that’s fantastic, but I don’t believe for a moment that this was a mistake. Google isn’t that incompetent. As for my statement: “Competing with IE = good. Competing with Firefox = profoundly stupid.” Yeah. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I’d like to blame the sinus meds, but that’s a pretty 80s excuse, isn’t it? I haven’t felt well for several days, and I typed without really thinking things through. Competition, as a commenter said, is very good, even (and maybe especially) for Open Source products. I hope I’ve earned the right over the years to ask for a little slack. If I haven’t, I’d like to point out that this mountain is covered with wolves, and the bar is right over there. Thanks.
Cory Doctorow has a really good idea for publishers.
Today is one of those days where it’s 97 outside, 81 inside, and only Miles Davis can keep the inside of my house cool.
Coilhouse has a fascinating article about a Modern Pirate Utopia in Hong Kong that has to be read to be believed. Coilhouse kind of rules. I highly recommend their magazine.
Doctor Horrible @ checked me on Twitter. I don’t think this should make me as excited as it does, but OMGOMGOMG! The Doctor Horrible soundtrack is #2 on iTunes US, #1 in the UK and Australia. The number one album in the US is some rap thing that makes me stabby just to look at. Come on, American geeks, let’s show the rest of the world what we’re made of! (Also, the soundtrack is really awesome and fun to listen to.)
Moe’s just isn’t the same since he got rid of the dank. Come on, Moe! The dank!
I played a little bit of D&D 4e with Jerry, Mike, The Other Mike, and Scott Kurtz when I was at PAX. I got to play a Tiefling Rogue who was trying out to be the new intern at Acquisitions, Incorporated. It was massively fun, and it made me want to play D&D about as badly as I’ve ever wanted. I’m taking advantage of my . . . current condition . . . to read all of Keep on the Shadowfell in the hopes that I’ll be able to convince Nolan and some of his friends to let me run it for them.
I got an insanely cool D&D thing via John Kovalic, but I’m forbidden to reveal it until he does.
I was mentioned rather favorably, in some very nice company, by one of the executive producers on Criminal Minds! “…we have scary locations and amazing guest stars like Jason Alexander, Luke Perry and Wil Wheaton.” OMGOMGOMGOMG.
We’re late to the party on this, but Anne and I have been watching Weeds on Netflix via our Roku box. We’re into the 3rd season (which we had to get on DVD) and I’m not as crazy about it as I was the first two. The acting and writing is wonderful, but the storylines that dominate the 3rd season are leaving me a little cold. I don’t believe a single Nancy does in this season, even though Mary-louise Parker is a phenomenal actor.
Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere is online for free from his publisher. This is one of my favorites, and I heartily recommend it, even though I’m pretty sure most of you reading this have already read it. However, Neil says, “For those people who grumbled about reading American Gods online, here’s Neverwhere. You can read it online, and it’s also downloadable. That’s the good news. The bad news is you don’t get to keep it forever. It’s yours for thirty days from download, and then the pdf file returns to its electrons. But if you’ve ever wondered about Neverwhere or wanted to read it for free, now is your chance. And free is free…”
“America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this.” A-fucking-MEN.
During my panel at PAX, I was asked a great question that I couldn’t answer to my satisfaction: What episode of Next Generation best defines the series? The answer depends heavily on how you’d define the series as a whole, and the best I could come up with is “Star Trek is all about possibilities. It’s about hope, so when you look around our totally fucked up world, you see that there is a better future for us.” Which TNG episode best exemplifies that? Is that even what Star Trek is about? My answer sucked so hard, I can’t even remember what I said. I blame the ConSARS.
A bit of blasphemy: I finally saw Dark Knight, and I was not blown away. Heath Ledger was spectacular, but I felt like the movie climaxed in the first 10 minutes, and was 2 reels too long. Maybe I’ll refine my feelings on subsequent viewings, but it didn’t send me into a Batgasm like Batman Begins did. However, it’s the second act of the trilogy, and if it’s anything like all the other trilogies I’ve seen, it’ll end up being my favorite when the dust settles.
I first became aware of the Xbox 360 game Braid when Buckman mentioned on his blog that the developer licensed a bunch of Magnatune music (which I’ve listened to and love) for the game. Monday night, I couldn’t sleep, so I downloaded the trial. 30 minutes later, I bought the full game, which is similar to Portal in a lot of ways. It’s one of the most visually beautiful games I’ve ever played. Check it out if you’ve got XBLA.
You can listen to one of the artists, Jami Sieber, with this nifty little gizmo:
John Scalzi’s Denise Jones, Super Booker, at Subterranean Online, dovetails brilliantly with Soon I Will Be Invincible, which I am still reading and still loving. And every single time I see, think about, or say the title, my brain fires up a chorus from Pat Benatar’s timeless classic song, “Invincible,” from the, uh, equally-classic film The Legend of Billie Jean .
And now that I’ve put it in your brain also, I’ll sign off for today.
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It’s a real shame about Chrome, because it is SO much faster on my comp than FF. But thems the breaks, as they say.
Hope that sinus infections clears out soon! I got the conSARS after SDCC and it took 2 weeks before i felt like myself again!
You may have already read this, but the EULA Google used for Chrome was boilerplate and not intended to affect users.
I can’t believe you just linked to “The Legend of Billie Jean” my worst favorite movie ever. I just watched it this weekend. And hail to the Fark! Feeling stabby… epic fail… you’re full of WIN. Even with the sinus plague.
PS. I love Waiter Rant!
Ugh! Sinus infections Suuuuuuuuuuuck!! I get them more often than I’d like.
And Neil Gaiman kicks ass! I need to read that one again.
Feel better Wil.
Google admits it made a mistake and is fixing it.
As for competing with Firefox, it’s an open source product. Mozilla will have just as much access to Chrome’s source as anyone else and will be able to incorporate anything they feel is better in Firefox, making it better too.
In the end, all Google wants is to provide a superior application experience for its websites, and it felt that the current crop of browsers (IE/FF/Safari/Opera) weren’t quite cutting it. Google isn’t competing with any of them, Google is competing with WINDOWS.
I don’t know, I think your answer to the Star Trek question was pretty good. It’s a hard question. Name one episode that exemplifies Star Trek:TNG for you and/or Star Trek:TNG in general? Great question, but a hard one. 🙂 For what it’s worth “Star Trek is all about possibilities. It’s about hope, so when you look around our totally fucked up world, you see that there is a better future for us.” is exactly what I think Star Trek is about, imho. You worry too much about your ConSARS — you gave a great panel!
Good luck battling the sinus infection. Have some more Greek yogurt!
I got the same vibe from Dark Knight. I felt like by the third ‘act’ they were just dragging it on. The Joker scenes were fantastic but…eh. I liked Iron Man better!
Man, lame first comment from me. I can’t believe I registered to post this. Uh. Feel better!
Yeah but the last line in that piece is still unsettling:
Ina Fried of News.com points out, Chrome’s “Omnibar” can also access all keystrokes a user types, and Google will store some of this information along with IP addresses.”
Thanks for the Neil Gaiman link. That is a pretty awesome way to start my day!
Hey, feel better. Prednizone, gee, I was on that just a couple months ago for iritis. It seems like steroids are the new antibios.
Re: Dark Knight…
The last thing I heard from 1st Showing News is that WB is waiting on Christopher Nolan on whether or not he wants to do another sequel. I have heard no mention on Batman meaning to be a trilogy. The article did say that WB would probably do a sequel no matter what, considering that The Dark Knight has grossed over 500 Million dollars (pinky to mouth), but we are still waiting on Nolan for any definitive news.
Which TNG episode best defines the series? Easy: the final episode. It exemplifies the spirit of the series: the need yet danger of exploration; the insatiable human desire to figure things out; the ability to trust (not have faith, but have *trust*); the need, when it arises, to sacrifice for others; and above all (almost literally “above all”, given the symbolism of the very last scene) the value of friendship and the importance of not letting time slip away.
Per ardua ad astra.
Marley – I agree with you about Iron Man. You are not alone.
Wil – The Legend of Billie Jean is pure cinematic gold! “Fair is fair!”
*defiantly throws fist into the air*
Is the Dr. Horrible soundtrack being sold anywhere other than iTunes? My work laptop runs Ubuntu, so no go there, but I’m also not interested in installing iTunes on my home Windows box.
Wil, Thanks for the link to subterranean press. I haven’t seen it before and it looks cool. I always find out about the neatest stuff on your blog.
I recently made a comment in response to “five simple ways to just keep writing” I said ignore rule #1: write more and blog less.
Just so we are clear,I was only joking. I appreciate your blog, but I know that you need to get work done.
Take care of that sinus infection and those ribs.
I had I think the same sinus surgery about 16 years ago. Until recently I was getting 2-4 sinus infections a year.
I now swear by Flonase (or the generic). Any time I get any sinus or throat stuff I hit the Flonase twice a day for 2-3 days and I coast right through without developing a sinus infection.
Wil rules. I loved your books, btw.
Love the link to Doctorow’s suggestion to publishers, but I doubt publishers would know what to do with their robots.txt files even if it Googled them.
The Inner Light, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inner_Light_(TNG_episode)
that episode is, without question, the best episode of trek ever written because it’s the story of why sci-fi exists. that episode is about why we (as in we humans) tell each other tall tales about the stars and aliens and all that nerdy stuff. stay with me here, i know that’s a bit of a broad statement to make:
we tell stories about these “others” because they let us look at a piece of ourselves outside the usual context, and star trek is a great example of that, e.g. Romulans and Vulcans.
when we’re told those stories, they let us live another life and see the world (or another world, or universe) through someone else’s eyes. they let us escape from ourselves and be someone else for a few of their weeks, or years, or even their entire life.
that’s what The Inner Light was. Picard was an entirely different man for an entire lifetime, and when he came back he had all of that other man’s experiences to draw on — he was richer and deeper for the whole rest of the series because he had literally lived two lives.
in my opinion, that’s what the point of that episode was and why it won a Hugo. in that episode, Picard was every sci-fi fan and the Ressikan probe was every sci-fi writer and the story was about why we’re so in love with this whole crazy, fantastic thing: it lets us tell stories to each other about ourselves by living other, vastly different, imagined lives.
and yeah, i guess i sound like a bit of a fanboy. that would probably explain why i have the captain’s pips tattooed on my neck ;P
Posts like this are why you rule Wil; with you around who needs the news? Thanks for keeping us up to date even while SICK! Good luck with the sinus infection.
After the first two paras, there’s just one thing stuck in my head:
“I am the ULTIMATE badass! State of the badass art! You do not wanna fuck with me.”
Thanks for the giggles, Wil, and I hope nuking the site from orbit works.
Wil, after 2.5 years of chronic sinus infections, I’d say your doctor is exactly right, you’ve got to nuke them. I had the same surgery about 2 years ago, and still suffered from 4 weeks on/4 weeks off Sinus infections (although with much less painful symptoms) until I followed this rule; don’t accept anything less than a 100% clear nose…and I mean 100%!
If I get even a little sniffle I take claritin and 12-hour Pseudoephedrine (the real stuff – now over-the counter thanks to the stupid drug war). If in 24 hours that hasn’t cleared it up, I stay on the drugs and add Afrin for three days. I’m at about 9 months without progressing to a sinus infection, and I’ve spent less than on a single course of antibiotics.
This basic routine was recommended by both my ENT and Allergist and I’m so glad I started following it. It’s quite a change to start taking a sniffle so seriously, but it seems to make a huge difference.
I hope you feel better, sinus infections are teh suck.
I felt the same about Dark Knight. Heath was great, but I found myself wondering “When is this thing going to end?!?” meh.
Batgasm. That made me chortle out loud. Unfortunately, I had one at TDN. All over the theater.
And here I was just gone say you’re welcome at my house anytime, but considering there’s lots of common ragweed around here and the giant ragweed puts yellow snow on everything this time of year, I better not, it could be fatal.
Sounds like you need a shot of instant bliss(a.k.a. Liquid Valium) 10cc ought due the trick. I was given that while being treated for an incident of undisclosable intel nature but it was a non-self inflicted gunshot wound to my left femur. Needless to say my bone was fractured and sticking out of my leg, blood going everywhere and as you can imagine I was totally not screaming bloody fubleepin murder. Almost instantly upon being given a shot of liquid Valium I was like alright everybody you can go home now it ‘s just a flesh wound, yeah it was that good. I swear they could have shot me with a shotgun I wouldn’t have felt. I probably would’ve died shortly after, just wouldn’t have felt it.
On a different note I’ve been rather bummed out today. My cat of 22 years died in my arms yesterday of a lung infection. That was like losing a member of the family. It was like the end of an era. She had been lingering all week, I new it was coming but still. Everybody was like she is what like (referencing her age) as if that made it o.k. I was like, so what if shes an 80’s cat, she was Iconic, she lost the big hair and totally stayed fashionable with the times and I was just getting used to having a drinking buddy. She would get Whiskas cat milk, microbrew for me. She survived alot being in the wild, like coyotes, foxes, hawks, eagles, owls, the occasional rare but unstable hunter. Believe me I’ve lost some cats to predation, they come and go around here, only to find them in a way that looks like Al Qaeda or some other wild animal had a go at em. She was the child of a stray herself, but none lived that long, not even a fraction of her time. One big thing was she couldn’t stand the sound of dogs growling. My dogs, my sisters dogs, believe me if she heard growling even from way out, she would come running, she would get in the middle of a scrap and lay down some swift justice and she prided herself on cleaving flesh from canine with ever paw strike. It didn’t matter husky, german shepard they learned to be quiet, pretty quick. Ah, I think I’ll go have a raspberry flavored Zebra Beer six pack, pop in the DVD of Strays, Pet Cemetary, or Cats and stroll down memory lane….Not! atleast too the selection. Breathe Safely, later.
Today is one of those days where it’s 97 outside, 81 inside, and only Miles Davis can keep the inside of my house cool.
Wow, I so hear that. This heat is just sucking the life out of me.
Sorry to hear about the sinus infection. I hope that clears up before the meds give you evil mutant powers and such.
p.s. I totally agree on the bat I’d give it a swinegasm though.
I thought you looked fairly rough on Sunday…. I’m sorry if I was being overly motherly, but you did look pretty piqued. (You can ask all my staff, I do the same to them. Poor things.) Hopefully with the drugs you’ll feel better soon. -The Tea Lady
I think the Braid/Magnatunes thing is awesome. My husband was playing the demo a while back (and, much like you, got the full game shortly after) and I was like “that music sounds familiar.” I was pleasantly surprised.
It’s a great game, but I seriously suck at it. I’m not good at the puzzle games :(.
Re: “Competing with Firefox = profoundly stupid.”
I’ve been a Firefox user for years now, since it was called Phoenix, around 2002. I think it’s a fantastic piece of software and a gem of the open-source movement. That said, it should not be exempt from market pressure and competition, simply because it’s the incumbent Free Software product in the marketplace. On the contrary, the Firefox developer and user community should embrace the challenge of Google Chrome as an opportunity to adapt and innovate. Part of the beauty of Open Source is that one can easily re-provision parts of other products and integrate them into one another, then re-release them. With the release of another viable Open Source browser, Google has done much to further invigorate the development of other products, including Firefox. I think we can look forward to even more impressive products from both Mozilla and Google in the near future.
My favorite comment on the rap album you mentioned.. “young jeezy is the greatest raper alive.”
… Nice.
Agreed, Heath Ledger FTW, without being headover for the rest of the flick. But that just makes me question…I mean, it seems fairly obvious that they were setting up for a sequel involving the Joker, but now…who can top Ledger? Seriously? I wouldn’t want to go there.
I don’t know anything about sinus infucktions. Here: have a cookie and call me in the morning. *mwah*
“Aliens” quotes FTW!
Sorry you’re not feeling well. Hopefully this one-two medication punch will make you feel mostly like yourself again…
…mostly.
Wil, sounds like we’re in the same “Where’s the Editor?” boat on The Dark Knight. Great work on the Joker scenes–but so great that 1.5 Brandos worth of CGI and 2 hours to wrap things up felt turgid.
Good point about Magnatune licensing! You could make a sweet frenzied action game with nothing but music from their band The Bots. Maybe a “Prince of Jumpman.”
Get well soon! Don’t forget to post pictures of your ripped delts.
Hey Wil!
I hope your feeling better, I know how yah feel since I got sick too right after PAX.
I said hi to you and you waved ^_^ Wish that I got a pic with you this time around but your line was so long lol.
Get better and hope the rest of your week is rocking! oh and my friend was rock banding it with you as well at PAX she has the pic on her myspace!
“Today is one of those days where it’s 97 outside, 81 inside, and only Miles Davis can keep the inside of my house cool.”
I feel about Miles the way my sweet BooBoo feels about Mexican food/ margaritas: they cure all ills.
“America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this.”
Yes, yes, you are. I have a good number of friends in the US. They are universally intelligent, erudite, caring people. When I go to the US, almost everyone I talk to is the same.
It should be a great nation. Once, I believe it was. I am certain it can be again.
Just curious, if your sneezes go “Fhtagn!” do your coughs go “Cthulhu”?
Hold on there Wil, you do realise that your sinus has a substantial dollar value attached to it?
Gotta agree with you on the length of TDK, I enjoyed it but there was a lot of fat they could have trimmed from the film. They should have kept their powder dry and saved the reveal of Two-Face for the next film. I wasn’t totally blown away by Ledger, he gave a great performance but it was just a little too ‘mannered’ for me.I felt like he was trying too hard to make everything he said sound ‘kErR-aZy’.
@Spartica, sorry to read of your pet’s passing. I’ve never a pet for so long as that but whenever I’ve lost one it’s hit me hard. At least you were with her at the end instead of discovering her somewhere.
“What did they do, borrow lawyers from John McCain?”
As usual Will you take a shot at republicans. I used to have so much respect for you but realize you are simply another leftist from California who has no clue about anything.
Either way, hope you feel better as sinus infections suck.
Hey Wil,
Chrome is Google’s branded version of their open source project Chromium (http://www.chromium.org). You can download the latest build of Chromium here: http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/
The nice thing about Chromium is there’s no EULA nor is there any extra software installed to periodically call home to Google. It’s released under a BSD license as well.
So you get all the benefits of Chrome without any of the Big Brother bullshit.
I agree with Marley and you regarding Dark Knight. I felt like they could end the movie after Harvey Dent changed and continue the story in the next film. Because I kept thinking it was about to end, the movie dragged on and on. I liked Iron Man better.
Wil – Weeds was best in the first 2 seasons. Season 4 is different entirely. It’s as if they ended the series upon completion of of season 3 and started a new series with many of the same characters for season 4. Some of season 4 is really good, some is really not and overall it’s weird – like, peculiar – and I don’t know if I like it. Mary-Louise Parker is fantastic and I really like Kevin Nealon (Subliminal Man!) and Justin Kirk. Jenji Kohan’s vision has gone strange. She’s taking risks that aren’t working.
Mentioned in the same sentence with Jason Alexander AND Luke Perry? Wil, my friend, you have officially MADE IT. 😉
I tried out Chrome. I was unimpressed. I like some of the ideas they’ve incorporated (Incognito [pr0n] mode, separate processes for each tab), but it just felt… incomplete to me. Also, much as I hate Facebook, I have a ton of friends that use it, and Chrome just doesn’t really play nice with it at all.
Did you record any of your D&Ding with the PA/PVP boys? Because those podcasts were some of my favourites EVER.
Oh… and with regards to Dark Knight. All I have to say is this: the chase scene with the Joker in the transport truck? Friggin’ awesome. Wow.
While it’s cool that Gaiman’s book is available for free download, there are restrictions. Read the fine print, and you see that the file expires after 30 days. Plus there are restrictions on how many you can download and on how many computers.
I could totally understand putting a time restriction on how long the download is available for free, but I don’t like someone else putting restrictions on files that are on my PC. DRM sucks.
Hope that made sense, I’m also on some drugs today. Hope you feel better soon!
Neverwhere has GOT to be one of my favorite books EVER. It’s very visual in the way it’s written (which makes sense considering the source), and is just wonderful!
I also must say I completely enjoyed the BBC version of the movie; if you have not seen this 1970’s Doctor Who-esque film Wil I completely suggest it. You won’t be dissapointed. (IMO!)
Do feel better! You seem to be going thru a battery of beatings and illnesses lately! 🙂
Although obviously not free, but if anyone likes Neil Gaiman’s “Neverwhere”, I’d certainly recommend the audiobook version it. Neil Gaiman himself is the reader and if that writing thing of his doesn’t turn out, he could have a career in audiobooks. It’s a really fun story and he does a great job bringing the characters to life.
As I was reading your chapbook, I caught the mention of your hardcover Sandman collection, and I felt a twinge of envy. Neil is perhaps my favorite comic/modern/gothic fantasy author, and I devour his work at every oppertunity.
Miles Davis can keep ANYTHING cool.
As for the Dark Knight thing, I must admit to being a little mystified by anyone who had the kind of reaction you did. To me, it more than lived up to the hype, and I’m still feeling the aftershocks of Bat-gasm. I guess it might come down to “you can’t win ’em all”
I don’t know … Paul Reiser is going to be PISSED.
I’m a reporter with the Washington Post hoping to interview you for a story…sent an email explaining more, thought I’d post here to let you know.