Author: Wil

Author, actor, producer. On a good day, I am charming as fuck.

life imitates art (or: I don’t know much about brain scans, but I’ll help you fix your computer.)

Posted on By Wil

Earlier today, I got an email from a Star Trek TNG cast member who will remain nameless. I've chosen the pseudonym Jonathan Frakes for the purposes of this post.

"Jonathan Frakes's" email had been compromised, and I'd gotten one of the things it sent out, so I pinged him and offered to help him fix it, if he needed assistance. "It turns out I still have a little Wesley Crusher in me," I typed. Then I thought for a moment and added, "…eww. That doesn't sound right at all."

I walked him through scanning and removing spyware and malware, mostly via text messages… which was hilarious to me, because my text message alert tone is the original Star Trek communicator sound.

It all ran smoothly, but "Frakes" was concerned about his CPU maxing out. "It's using all the power," he typed to me. Then, and I swear to whatever god you believe in that this is true, he followed that up with: "I'm givin it all I can, Captain!"

I typed back, "Okay. Run a level five diagnostic and emit an inverse neutrino pulse through the main navigational deflector."

A moment later "Jonathan Frakes" replied, "All done! It worked. Thanks for your help."

"Any time," I replied. Then I collapsed into a fit of giggles.

This was funny to me, because we're two Star Trek guys (with magnificent beards), making contextually-relevant Star Trek jokes with each other. More significantly, though, is that we did this using handheld computers which were inspired by the show we were on twenty-five years ago.

Finally, in a nice, poetic bit of closing the circle: twenty-five years ago, I helped Patrick Stewart set up his first Mac II computer. It was an incredible technological marvel, that blew me away… and it didn't have a fraction of the computing power or memory of my four-and-half ounce smart phone.

I love living in the future.

I can’t be at Wondercon on Friday, so my panel is cancelled.

Posted on By Wil

I could make up a story about dying or dead mee maws, but the truth is: I have to work on Friday. It can't be rescheduled, and since it's my job and everything, I had to cancel my panel on Friday at Wondercon. 

We tried to move things around, but it just wasn't possible. I'm really sorry, especially because I know a non-zero number of people will be disappointed by this.

HOWEVER! I will come down on Saturday for the Geek and Sundry panel with Felicia Day, because [REDACTED AND VERY SECRET BUT I BET YOU CAN DO THE MATH IF YOU'RE CLEVER].

From the Vault: Sparks McGee

Posted on By Wil

This was brought to my attention by a fellow Redditor in this thread.

I'd completely forgotten about it, which I can blame on it being written almost ten years ago.

Holy shit. Ten years ago.

Enjoy:

To: < [email protected]>
Subject: star trek

Ya know the writers could have solved that whole image problem of Wesley Crusher by

 

A. Giving him a cool name like "Sparks Mcgee" and a peculiar accent, possibly a tattoo

B. Having him kill people randomly on the ship for no apparent reason.

C. Giving him a cool car to drive around in, like a 1978 Trans Am or one of them Dukes of Hazard cars

D. Giving him a cool catch phrase like "I got a course you can plot"

E. Wear a cowboy hat

Then like Picard would say "Number One, where the devil is Sparks Mcgee?"
Then Number one would say "In his muscle car sir", then everyone would laugh except Worf who would say some shit about honor or something. Then people at home would think, "Man that Sparks Mcgee sure is cool, a real rebel."

Internet, I would like to see Sparks McGee Cosplay at the many, many conventions I'm attending between now and the end of the year. Make it happen, Internet. I know you can do it. I believe in you.