This week’s LA Daily is a day late:
On my bio, it says that I’m an actor, writer, husband and father. I love being every one of these things, and somehow I’ve managed to strike a good balance among them in the ten years I’ve kept all these plates spinning in my life.
It’s been remarkable that I’ve managed to keep them all going without a catastrophic failure for so many years, and I guess it was not so much a question of if, but when, one of them would wobble and crash to the floor.
…and crash it did, in a spectacular display of EPIC FAIL.
‘Tis true, your EPIC FAIL did cause you to be late on your work, but you got to spend time with your family. In my book, and yours as well, that’s more important.
So, for better or worse, plagiarism and all, you did the right thing.
Now, time to go throw the frisbee!
Somehow Wil, even your epic fail is fun to read. How are we ever going to cut you some slack when your fail is better than half of our attempts to fake the talent you have in just a single armpit hair?
PS. I’m wearing my “Wil Wheaton’s Critical Mass” shirt to work today while trying to make people leave me alone so I can read my pdf of Sunken Treasure. My son calls it “Geometry dice shirt!” incidentally.
Myself being a slave to corporate America you haven’t lived until you missed a deadline. Regardless of the reason.
You’re only human, after all. 🙂
And I think you recovered pretty well. Who doesn’t like unicorns?
Robots don’t miss deadlines. What kind of robot are you?
Wil, it is refreshing to see that you are just as normal as the rest of us. Just don’t make a habit of it. 🙂
Unicorns!! “Come on Charlie, come to the Candy Mountain”
I think we all understand the brain crash well. I just wish I could walk away for a month. 🙂
Recuperate!
Deadlines are a constant bane of my own existence. Even when I am the one setting the deadline. Robots may dream of electric sheep, but people dream of interaction with loved ones. I for one am constantly making that dream a reality.
What if Spider-man gets bitten by a radioactive Unicorn! And that makes it so he can’t shoot webs any more; he can only shoot Rainbows and pink, Sparkley MySpace Hearts! Oh sure, he can still swing around on his Rainbows. But he can’t tie up villains like the Vulture or Mysterioso, because his Rainbows and Sparkly Hearts just tickle.
And he can’t take off his mask, because Peter Parkers eyes have now grown so huge and sad and disgustingly cute, he looks like Huckleberry Pie(Strawberry Shortcakes boyfriend). And the only cure was to get to the other side of Gumdrop Mountain to get help from the Magic Wish Bear.
But how can he get from Manhattan to the other side of Gumdrop Mountain in time?
Ahh, I can’t give away the whole story. Not before the plush toys hit the store shelves along with the direct to DVD movie, “Spider-Man Meets My Little Pony.”
Oh, well allow me to tell you, person-I-just-made-up!
Oh, crap. You make people up? I’ve been worried for quite some time that you actually made me up. “But no,” I thought, “Wil wouldn’t do that sort of thing. I’m probably real.” And here I go and find out that you do do that sort of thing. I guess it is back to the drawing board of my existential crisis.
Man, I really hope I’m not someone’s chalk drawing on a board somewhere.
Hardly and EPIC fail. That term is so overused, not like when we were kids and people knew what “epic” meant.
Now, if you plagarized A Modest Proposal, submitted it, got published, and the sued… THAT would be an epic fail.
Enjoy the downtime.
Wow! As a writer, I’ve been there many times. You sit staring at the blank screen in front of you, like staring down a giant sumo wrestler, and desperately try anything to jump start that useless 3lbs of gray matter sitting in your skull. And you prey to all the gods you can remember the manes of that this is just a bad dream you’ll soon wake up from, to find your finished article sitting there.
You win the prize for making the most out of nothing. A great column.
Never worry, Wil. You’ve just loved the fur off your brain. You’re a real writer now. Whatever that is. This may be the first time for you, but just like Cylon massacres, this has all happened before and will happen again.
And, speaking of deadlines, it’s NHL Trade Deadline Day (aka Christmas in March for hockey mad Canucks).
So, essentially “Patrick O’Sullivan for Justin Williams.”
Discuss.
Actually, I believe, based on a picture Wil had up here quite some time back of a unicorn and a rainbow, that he’d become a Unicorn that farted rainbows.
Wil,
Trying to word this without sounding like an ass or judgmental, which of course it probably will anyways!
First of all, let me say that I completely agree that family comes first. My family is also #1 in my books but sometimes my ability to further assist them involves them assisting me. Not sure how old the son in question is but does he get involved in the cooking? That sounded like a perfect opportunity for your son to help Dad out and whip up a quick meal. Most teens can probably handle stuff like Perogies, stir fries etc.
With that said I do roughly 45% of the cooking my wife the other 45% and my daughter the balance.
Of course I am not familiar with the intimate details of your situation and for all I know he has a list of chores longer than the Magna Carta and more than pulls his weight. I am not meaning to imply he doesn’t. Just trying to help you out.
You know, if you read that from a certain perspective, it seems like it comes from a very strange place with a very strange culture. I mean, is it really a serious problem if something happens a day late? I suppose the newspaper biz has good reasons for having deadlines, but, at the same time, is a reader really damaged if a column comes out a day late? Would it be so bad if, when these things happen, we all just say “I guess I’ll read it tomorrow?” It’s nice to know the trains will run on time and the papers will be ready every afternoon, but the flip side of that in order to get what we want promptly, we have to give everyone else what they want promptly. I just wonder if we’d all be happier with a few delays in our life in exchange for losing some of this stress and worry.
And lastly…
Have you thought about having or looked into “MAME Cabinets”?
I built one for my man cave (along the wall):
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=85645.0
And for the wetbar:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=87113.0
Great for playing the classics you mentioned as they were meant to be played 🙂
Wil, it takes talent to turn an ‘epic fail’ into an interesting read, as you did. I enjoyed the article. Kudos. And yes, you have your priorities straight. And to put technology and today’s deadlines into perspective, I came across comedian Louise CK’s ‘Amazing World, Wasted on Idiots’ today, and thought you (and your readers) might enjoy it:
Positronic? Pshaaa, more like duotronic.
But… putting family first FTW. Epic fail accepted.
I’ve plagerized myself many times.One time I used the same piece of Coursework for both my Media Studies GCSE and A-Level. Well, I got A* in one and an E on the other so good job you didn’t go as far as I did…
I also had a jolly good chuckle reading that. Great stuff!!
Anyway, I’m supposted to be doing work right now lol this is distracting me!!!!
Amy xxx
Plus, you worked in a Homestar Runner reference, which flips it from “epic fail” to “Chris thinks it’s made of WIN!” so you’ve got that going for you, for whatever it’s worth (approx 1/128¢ at current conversion rates).
I’m sure you will recover. Life is a roller coaster man. Enjoy the ride.
In the mean time, here is the second comic I mentioned before. I hope you like it.
http://www.remedialcomics.com/
Um…Wil…dude…it’s inevitable. I mean, too bad and all, but really, it comes with the territory of BEING A PROFESSIONAL WRITER.
People have caught Scott Adams a few times in the last year repeating jokes that were Dilbert punchlines from years past. I’m sure that happened before, and that people called him on it, but recently he’s posted a few in his blog.
I’m very pleased that what happened was so minor. I was scared for a second when you listed your four priorities and said you’d failed at one. I was worried that Anne was making you sleep in the garage or something…….but then I realized I was being stupid; if something like that had happened, you wouldn’t put it in a public forum. I then realized that whatever happened would at least a little funny and humanizing–and it was.
Thanks.
A big squishy package arrived today…from shirt.woot. It’s your dice t-shirt, I expect.
Woot!
Wil, I’ve been reading your stuff for a long time, I fondly remember the old site, hell I’ve even seen some of the geocities stuff. What I think this LA Daily column proves it that; first off you have your priorities straight, second you aren’t a decent blog writer, or a notable columnist, or any other kind of [qualification]/[type]/writer. You are simply a really damn fine writer. If that’s the best (worst) you can come up with for your epic fail, then I know I’m going to going to be enjoying what you do for quite some time.
Take a deep breath, have a pint of Guinness, and enjoy some time with your family.
Excelsior!
Oh, and just curious, the new module on the ISS; Serenity or Colbert?
Where do you stand?
louisck is too funny! & spoton. thanks for the hit.