I don't like to work on the weekends if I can help it, but I'm doing Big Bang Theory all next week, and this keynote isn't going to write itself while I'm off being Evil Wil Wheaton, so here I am.
When I write something, especially something this important, I spend most of my time letting ideas incubate and grow (which to an outside observer looks an awful lot like I'm goofing off) broken up by intense periods of writing a few hundred words at a time, staying as many steps ahead of the "this sucks" demon as I can. I also have to take breaks fairly regularly to keep my mind from going all HAL-9000 on me, and a silly post like this one is perfect for accomplishing that particular goal at this very moment.
So … check out this nifty image:
This came from one of those spam blogs that just keyword scrapes the tubes for everything it can find on a topic and then automatically generates posts that sound like a possessed child when read aloud.
I'm guessing that Parsons' phot car was some kind of magic device that traveled around the Midwest in the early 20th century, selling snake oil and little photo cards. This particular picture was snapped right before the subject bought eighteen ounces of liquid heroin tonic ("GUARANTEED TO CALM EVEN THE MOST NERVOUS OF WOMEN OR YOUR MONEY BACK!") for the princely sum of five cents. It looks like it was taken in Danville, Illinois, which is about 200 miles away from Wheaton, Illinois, and I suspect that the 'bot what powers this particular blog put "Wheaton" (as in me) and "Parsons" (as in Jim Parsons) together when the Big Bang news hit the wires, and somehow it landed on this picture. Or maybe it wasn't anything like this, and the whole thing is a coded message I left in the future for my current self to find, which makes me want to ask Future Me why I couldn't have just sent myself a nice letter that was easy to understand … unless …. OMG FUTURE ME IS IN ROBOT PRISON IN DANVILLE AND ONLY BE FREED IF ME AND JIM PARSONS DRESS UP LIKE DANDY BOYS FROM THE 1900s AND MOUNT A RESCUE!
Okay, Future Me. I hear you, and I'm coming to save you … just as soon as I race over to Jim's house, pick him up, convince him to come with me, and then build a time machine, you idiot. Way to send the message to the wrong version of us in the past, stupid. JEEZE!
Um. Right. So…
The page where I found this image had a bunch of stuff related to my name, so it tripped my google alert yesterday. When I looked at the site, I was quite amused to see this picture, which was titled “Evil Wil Wheaton Bible”. Because, really, who doesn't want an evil bible named after them and represented by a picture that isn't apparently evil or biblical? I was equally amused to see several anti-spam software advertisements surrounding the scraped content.
Okay, I think I've amused myself just enough to recover the mana I needed to cast Keep Writing Keynote, so I'm going to get back to it before They're All Going To Laugh At You has its next turn.
Discover more from WIL WHEATON dot NET
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
please tell me you’ll let us know when the “Evil Wil Wheaton Bible” is translated into it’s original klingon.
I want to see the 10 Commandments in the Evil Wil Wheaton Bible. I am sure that #1 would be “Thou Wilt Not Be a Dick” but what about the rest?
Ummm, that photo bears a slight resemblance to Evil Wil….
yes this was definitely my moment of much needed zen. particularly after i spent two hours fighting with facebook so that i could have my “evil wil wheaton” profile badge back. apparently facebook fears evil wil wheaton as much as moonpie does! and well they should. 🙂
Actually, Wil Wheaton's Ten Commandments go like this:
1. Don't Be a Dick.
2. See #1.
3. See #1.
4. See #1.
5. See #1.
6. See #1.
7. See #1.
8. See #1.
9. See #1.
10. See #1.
EVIL Wil Wheaton's Ten Commandments go like this:
1. Be a REALLY HUGE DICK.
2. That's it. I don't have time for this.
3. Seriously, the ice is melting in my whisky.
4. GO TO 1.
Danville, IL happens to be my hometown. I’ll be at the parentals’ house in a couple weeks, so I could totally borrow my dad’s time machine and rescue you and Parsons from that robot prison if you like. Y’know, just to save you the trouble.
Fantastic! Now go get yourself a drink and keep on that keynote..can’t wait to hear it!
The very informative blog in question: http://theworldtrends.com/the-evil-wil-wheaton-bible.html
Includes such gems as “Evil Wil Wheaton returns to The Big Bang Theory httpbit.” I imagine the cut-off url as someone blowing a raspberry.
That’s what I thought, too. Just without the evil beard.
There’s a period after “car” so I think it’s short for “carriage.” In olden times they did weird abvtn, like Chas., Wm., and Wil.
Hey, you and Jim can dress up as matching superhero’s, and go rescue caged Wil. Maybe you could do what Koothrappali suggested, and both walk really fast at the same speed, and look like one really fast moving superhero guy….haha.
Your first, or last, line of the keynote HAS to be: His name was Aeofel.
Anything less would dishonor his memory.
EVIL Wil Wheaton’s Ten Commandments go like this:
1. Be a REALLY HUGE DICK.
2. That’s it. I don’t have time for this.
3. Seriously, the ice is melting in my whisky.
4. GO TO 1.
This needs to be a t-shirt.
Best of luck with the writing, your creative process sounds remarkably like my own. Oh and big old congratulations on the Big Bang Theory return, couldn’t happen to a nicer person.
By the by, seeing as how I’m over the other side of the pond and can’t attend, any chance of posting your keynote speech after PAX East?
Too late. Laughing already. Thankfully, it is with you, not at you. Great zen post. Love it.
But THAT IS a photo of you, Wil!
hey, i have distant relatives in danville, illinois. or at least i used to. they might be dead now for all i know. maybe i’m distantly related to evil wil wheaton? or at least the guy in the photo.
Ohhh a magical photo-taking CARRIAGE!
That's even cooler and more weird.
AAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
What this tells me is that at some point you’re going to build a time machine out of a Delorean and travel back to 1885.
You’re not the only person this is happening to. Last week, a spam blog linked to mine and when I clicked over I found the spam blogger using your fellow Guild-mate Felicia Day’s picture to advertise “Depression Self Help” and calling herself/itself “Young Wendy.” I laughed out loud.
(I got my Guild season three DVDs in the mail today, and I’m very much looking forward to a re-watch. Any news about whether you’re going to be in season four?)
Actually, that is one-half of a photo with you – the other half shows the the Court House clock and Doc Brown.
Hey, I saw this cool thing and wanted to let you know.
Timothy Hutton has a picture of “Sunken Treasures” written by a cool cat named Wil Wheaton on the “Recently Read Books I Recommend” page of his blog.
I’m probably WAY late to this party, and you already know about it. But, just in case it’s news, here’s the link:
http://timhutton.net/2009/12/reading-list-for-this-week/
How entirely random and fun! It certainly brightened up a brief respite between patients on my Saturday night, which is usually spent working. (Ugh-but hey, I’m off on Mondays and get to laugh at all the peons heading out to work and bitching about it on Twitter, so that’s something, right? It all evens out. Cosmic karma or some such thing.)
WOW!
You know, he asked me for a copy of Sunken Treasure when I worked on the show, which I thought was just about the coolest thing in the world. I love that he actually read it!
Not sure Future Wil could pull of a name like Clint in the past….Evil Wil, well, sure….but Future Wil, not so much.
I’m also not sure Robotron 2080 shooting will make up for not playing “Wild Gunman”, but you never know. Vanguard shooting, maybe….
You could always hit the past folk with “Beware, I live!”…the creepy voice should get them to scurry.
And of course, if you introduced a “How We Roll” shirt back then, imagine the possibilities….
oddly enough, I thought that was a novelty pic of you that had been done sometime shortly after your TNG days. :s
It’s usually known as the “Wicked Bible” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_Bible), but I suppose it could also be called the “Evil Bible.” It was printed in the 17th century and left a crucially important “not” out of Exodus 20:14, resulting in the reading “Thou shalt commit adultery.”
The printer was fined £300 (and lost his license) and most of the copies were immediately confiscated. There are eleven still in existence today. If you happened to own one, it could perhaps be called the “Evil Wil Wheaton Bible.”
At first I thought that was a novelty photo of you, too, then realized it wasn’t you, and thought that was an ancestor of yours. Seriously.
::cue Twilight Zone music::
It is comforting to know that I’m not the only person always on the lookout for messages and visits from my future self. Every time I’m at the mall I suspiciously watch all of the older people trying to determine if they look like I will after I get a hold of a time travel device.
You do the exact same thing, right?
I mean, I’m not alone in this am I?
What you clearly misunderstood is that “Bible” refers to the FAMILY bible which records the alternate reality pedigree that resulted in Evil Wil. This is a daguerreotype of Zebulon Wheaton, the patriarch of said family and he…well, I’m afraid his exploits are simply too heinous to discuss here.
It does look like you….Maybe a long lost family member?!
so I’m going to get back to it before They’re All Going To Laugh At You has its next turn.
Just so long as you don’t hear that in Piper Laurie’s voice.
“I spend most of my time letting ideas incubate and grow (which to an outside observer looks an awful lot like I’m goofing off) ”
Bingo. Yahtzee. He shoots and scores.
More employers should get a clue to that system, for the employees that don’t exactly ‘fit’ in the cube farms….. Sigh…
Hey Wil
I guess you get a ton of these but here goes. A friend of mine claims to have met you a couple of years ago and I just would like to verify this (and, if possible, get a chance to tell my friend that he is nowhere near as awesome as he claims to be).
This is what he wrote (and I’m translating from swedish here so give me a break on the spelling etc):
“I’ve actually met Wil once! And no, not “met” as in I saw him around town. I made a grade A interview with him a couple of years ago for First Poker and then we played 5 Card draw. I won!
The sick thing was that this was one of these meet and greet with poker journalists and [poker playing] celebrities, including Ben Affleck [/EXTRA BRAG]. Though, no one seemed to understand WHO Wil Wheaton actually was so I got him all to myself for an entire hour. Obviously, I remembered him from Stand By Me. I learned, then and there, that he’d also been in Star Trek TNG but who gives a crap about that?!
Btw, we almost had sex! But just almost.
Edit: The interesting thing with Wil was that he had just married this girl who had a kid from a previous relationship. Nothing special about that obviously but Wil talked constantly about his bonus daughter as if she was his own. Impressive!”
Ok, so my friends’ name is Jens and he was, at that time hired to write articles for the swedish poker magazine First Poker. Does any of this ring a bell with you?
Beware the Weeping Angels, Wil.
Oh, and don’t blink. Blink, and you’re dead.
Wil, if it IS your future self, sending a message to his past self (in the future) you can take heart that you’ve aged pretty well…
Wil, to aid in your weekend hating relief, I propose coming to a con.
http://chimaeracon.com/
It is April 9-11, 2010 in San Antonio. One of the con admin (you have met and he taught you Frag, Al Griego) said you can do whatever you wanted! Run D&D, do a reading, reinact a scene from STTNG… you name it! I know it is short notice so if you are inclined to hate this particular weekend in years to come, let the wonderful gamers at
http://chimaeracon.com/
disract you.
And YES, this was a shameless beg/plug.
Andrea Little
http://www.twitpic.com/h63d9
Sorry, this story is entirely false.
Whoa weird! It’s especially weird to me, because I’ve only just now started getting into reading The Sandman series and read this one last night that I already can’t remember the name of…(it’s the one where Dream inherits Hell and has to decide who to give it to)…anyway, at the end everyone involved from Neil Gaiman to inkers to everyone in between had a photo of themselves modded to Victorian era photos, coupled with weird-ass descriptions of themselves. Totally awesome.
Yes I am the Queen of Random.
(smile)
Creepy girl says “Because he is the Kwisatz Haderach!”
Had to look up how to write that.
Very clever. Where’s ZZ?
Hello!
I ended up in your blog thanks to another blog. And I said: Whoa! The Wil Wheaton´s blog?? O_o
I started reading some of your blog and, haha, what you write seems really funny to me.
Allow me to introduce myself… I am Evangelina, and I live in Buenos Aires, Argentina (yes, a little far away… haha)Could you believe this? I´ve seen your performances since the middle 80´ and now, this blog, I send you my regards and I´ll be following you.
And, the photography… really awesome! hahaha!
Who needs monkeys with typewriters? It’s probably only a matter of months until a spambot comes up with The Complete Works of William Shakespeare in a spam email, by piecing together all sorts of unrelated Internet crap.
Careful now, you might create a paradox strong enough to rip a hole in the space-time continuum, about the size of… Belgium. 🙂
Holy shit, that was awesome! Best post in this entire thread!
Everyone go watch the Doctor Who episode Blink. Right now. What are you waiting for!
So Wil, the top half of that guy’s face looks just like you, and the bottom half looks just like Ben Affleck. I look at the eyes and nose and hair and I think, “Hey that’s Wil Wheaton!” and then I look at the mouth and chin and it’s so obviously Ben Affleck. Pretty cool.
too bad it didnt come with a note from Future Wil explaining that he is trapped in the past and needs the sum of $5,000 U.S. Dollars (which he will repay you[himself?] with the complete assets of his[your?] $2,000,000 Nigerian bank account.) wired to him.
This is particularly funny to me today because as I was walking into my place of employment today, I had to do a quadruple take because I saw a doppleganger of you.
Apparently, a lot of people look just a little like Wil Wheaton. Whodathunk?
Have you traced your family tree Wil? Cuz that guy really does look like a distant relative of yours…