In which Wil goes to Germany (updated)

The following was written about ten hours ago, on another continent. I thought I’d published it before I left, but it turns out I saved it as a draft, instead. Good times.

I’m sitting in the lounge at LAX, waiting to board my flight to Heathrow. Sometime tomorrow afternoon, I’ll end up in Germany, do my best to adjust to jet lag, and then spend the weekend at FedCon.

I’m super excited to talk about Star Trek, read from Memories of the Future, talk about Eureka, and get my geek on with European fans for the first time since Anne and I went to London in 1996.

I’m not taking a cell with me, because it costs something like a million zillion eurobucks to do anything with it, so Anne and I will be out of instant concoct for the first time since we’ve known each other. That’s going to be weird, but I understand that primitive people during the 20th century did that all the time, so I’m embracing the novelty. Until I get to my hotel room, connect my laptop to the Internet, and talk to her online.

I will be mostly Internet silent while in Germany, which will be weird for me, but I will make every effort to deploy the obligatory I AM IN YOU messages when I reach my various destinations.

Have a good week and weekend, everyone.

This was written more recently:

I’m sitting in a lounge at Heathrow, waiting to make my connection to Germany. Our flight here was pushed by a massive tailwind that got us here something like 40 minutes early, but also gave us the worst turbulence I’ve ever experienced. I hardly slept at all, so I feel a little blurry. My body thinks it’s about 5am, and even though I keep showing it my watch, it isn’t buying it.

I’m glad I have a day to adjust, so I’m not doing my Zombie Wil Wheaton impression all weekend.

And I may as well update this post again now, thusly:

I’m in my hotel room in Germany. The window is open, and I can hear the occasional European siren do the Doppler effect on one of the streets outside. I know it’s silly, but it’s one of those things that’s romantic to us Yanks.

My flight to Germany was nice, and I got all stupid and giddy when we flew over London and I could pick out landmarks. I tried really hard to stay awake so I could see France (having seen London, I need to see France, and then someone’s Underpants), but I didn’t even make it to the Channel. The flight attendant woke me up about 15 minutes before we landed, so I missed the whole thing. Oh well, there’s always the trip back on Monday.

I’m super excited for FedCon. The hotel is full of people who are also excited to be here, and the staff I’ve met totally have their shit together, which is pretty important to me.

My schedule is on the FedCon website, but here are some important things:

> I’m doing a Q&A Thursday night at 9pm.

> I’m doing a Q&A with Marina Sirtis on Sunday at 1pm.

There are also signings every day, and some photo sessions, too.

Okay, I think that’s it. I’m hoping that if I make myself stay awake for a few more hours, I’ll be able to sleep until something close to a normal time tomorrow morning, and I won’t be too exhausted to see at least some of Dusseldorf while I’m here. I mean, it would pretty much suck to come all the way to Germany and not see any of it.

I really, really, REALLY hate DRM. Especially when it screws honest people.

I'm sure that many of you know that I hate DRM so much, it makes me want to punch babies. I have promised that I will never knowingly infect anything you buy from me with DRM.

So you'll probably be as surprised as I am to learn that Lulu put Memories of the Future, Volume 1 into the iBook store and into my Lulu shop (yay! awesome! Memories in a native eReader format!) but put that horrible, intrusive, disgusting, annoying, stupid Adobe DRM bullshit into the files.

I've heard from a non-zero number of readers who legally purchased MotFv1, and were (rightly) furious that they had to install some bullshit software they didn't want, just so they could read something that they paid for.

For example:

Adobe Digital Editions doesn't run on Linux and Lulu, like most companies who sell digital content (*cough* audible *cough*), doesn't care.
For Linux users like me there are three options:
a) Find a Windows machine or Mac at work or with friends, then install
ADE there (thereby also using one of my six devices I'm allowed to read
on for someone else's computer)
b) Spend hours getting it to work in wine on my Linux machine
c) Bittorrent it.

I think it's pretty obvious which one is the least work. If I'm inclined
to buy another ebook I'm much more likely to bittorrent it and the
donate on the author's web page than buying over Lulu.

I completely agree with this email, and others like it. This is the sort of thing that drives honest people to piracy, because the pirates are providing a better end user experience for them than the legal alternatives.

I tried to revise the file so that there is no DRM, but I can't do that without uploading an entirely new file. I tried to download the file Lulu made (which, other than the DRM bullshit is really nice and well-formatted; I would totally use their conversion service again in the future, if I was given the option to do it without DRM) so I can convert it to a non-DRM'd version and re-upload it, but it keeps telling me that there's an error with the file — yeah, no shit, that "error" is what I'm trying to eliminate! — and since I'm leaving for FedCon in just a few hours, I don't have the time to keep banging my head against the wall trying to fix it.

So: I want readers and potential readers to know that I'm aware of this problem, it is not my fault, and I'm doing everything I can to fix it … it's just going to be a week or so until I can.

The silver lining in all of this is that I was able to do a really neat .mobi conversion that I uploaded to the KDP store yesterday. If everything goes according to plan, you should be able to buy Memories of the Future, Volume 1 for your Kindle by the weekend.

Help me help Safecast help people in Japan

This morning, my friend Sean Bonner e-mailed me this:

As you may or may not know I’ve spent the vast majority of the last month either in Tokyo or working with people in Japan on project I helped start called Safecast. Actually we just changed the name to Safecast, until last week it was called RDTN. We realized that the only information on radiation levels was coming from groups we couldn’t really trust, and decided we could do something better. Safecast has a goal of distributing geiger counters to people in Japan and creating an open data sensor network so anyone can access the information we gather with these devices. We’re also collecting data ourselves – if you have a few moments and want to read this post it’s a great example of what we’re doing right this second.

http://blog.safecast.org/2011/04/24/first-safecast/

If you don’t have a few moments I’ll sum it up for you – we drove up to Fukushima and took readings at schools that are in the “safe” zone. At one of those schools we measured over 50 µSv/hr outside on a playground. To put that in perspective outside today in Los Angeles I measured 0.072 µSv/hr. We also gave some counters to volunteers in the area who will take readings and report back to us, and measured over 5000 different points during the trip. We hope to do this on a regular basis.

Anyway, what I’m asking for your help with is this:

http://blog.safecast.org/2011/04/25/fundraising/

We have a kickstarter and are more than halfway to our goal, but only have 11 days left to hit that mark. While donations are helpful, what we really need is awareness. We need more people to know about what we’re doing, we need more people to know they can help.

I’ve known Sean for almost 12 years, and even though he does amazing things all the time, he never sends out e-mails like this. This is something Sean cares deeply about, and I want to help him however I can, starting with my blog, my Twitter, and my Tumblr.

I keep hearing from people that I have all this influence, people listen to me, I have lots of Twitter followers and blog readers blah blah blah. I think it’s way overestimated … but I’d love to get this project funded and find out that I actually do have a voice that occasionally rises above the background noise.

If you are comfortable with it, please help me give this a signal boost and tell your friends, tell Reddit, tell your eccentric millionaire uncle who likes to fund projects … you get the idea.

Thank you.

Wil buys a new game. It’s super effective!

A pair of twenty-something Bros, dressed and posed in a manner that was such a hilarious cliche, if I described them exactly as I saw them, my editor would have said, "no, that's too cliche," stood near the front of the store, communicating in some kind of Broglish that leaned heavily on the word "fuck" and its many derivatives.

I guess I'm Old Man Wheaton, because I looked around at all the 7 and 8 year-olds in the store and felt mildly offended that these two Bros couldn't be bothered to make an effort to tone it down just a little bit.

But such is the way of The Bro. If they had common sense and a WIS stat higher than d6+2, they probably wouldn't be Bros.

I walked around them, went to the DS games, and felt like a teenager buying his first box of condoms. I felt my face get warm, I caught myself looking around to ensure I wasn't being watched, and I reached for the nearest copy of Pokémon Black Version.

I turned it over in my hand and read the back. "I can't believe I'm actually going to do this," I thought. "I'm 38 years-old, and I'm buying Pokémon for the first time in my life."

The Bros left the store, trailing expletives behind them. Something was, apparently, a lot of fucking bullshit. The precious children I was so concerned about moments earlier didn't seem to notice. Maybe they play a lot of Call of Duty online. Or maybe I'm just an a dad nearing forty.

I nervously drummed my fingers on the game as I replayed the conversation I had with my friend Jerry about two months ago, where he assured me that Pokémon on the DS is a fun RPG that starts anew with each release, and is incredibly fun when you play it with your friends. The last game Jerry recommended to me, Might and Magic Clash of Heroes remains one of the greatest games I've ever played on the DS, so I trust him.

I trust him enough to find myself standing in GameStop*, feeling like I was renting porn, and wanting to ensure that I was getting Big Wet Asses 4, instead of Wet Big Asses 4. I approached the counter.

"Can I help you with anything?" The guy asked me.

"Yes, but you have to promise that you're not going to make fun of me."

The other guy smirked, and the first guy told me that he would not make fun of me.

"Okay," I exhaled and realized that my shoulders were tense. I relaxed them. "Do you have … Pokémon White Version?"

He sort of chuckled. The other guy failed to cover a laugh.

"Hey!" I said, "I can see you judging me!" I said to the other guy.

"No, man. I just thought that was funny. We both play Pokémon," The other guy said.

"Yeah, it's nothing to be embarrassed about; it's a really fun RPG," The first guy said.

"That's what my friend told me," I said, "so here I am at 38 years-old finally buying Pokémon for the first time.

"I am given to understand that they are essentially the same. Is that right?"

The other guy said that I had been correctly informed, and added that it pretty much depended on what box I liked better.

"Well, this thing kind of looks like … a dragon? I guess? Yeah, a dragon … and dragon's are cool, so…"

The first guy typed a few things on his computer. "We have White version, but we only have it used."

"I actually prefer to buy games new, to support the developer and stuff," I said, feeling a little self-conscious, like I had just extolled the virtues of fidelity while standing in a whorehouse, or giving a shit about the middle class while visiting Congress.

"No worries," he said.

"Okay, so I guess I'll take this, and Super Scribblenauts."

He rang me up.

"Hey, I … really like the work you do on Big Bang Theory," he said.

I know this sounds weird, but I often forget that when I'm interacting with strangers, there's a non-zero chance that they know my name and have seen me act. It used to make me feel like I had an arm growing out of my head when it happened, but I've gotten over that, and now it actually makes me happy, because I'm proud of what I do.

"Oh, thanks, man! I like being on Big Bang Theory," I said.

"Did you want a bag for these?" He asked.

"No, I'm good," I said, "I'll carry them out in the open so the whole world can know my shame. Thanks for your help."

I walked out of the store, past another employee who was explaining the differences between a couple of FPS games to a guy who was about my age, and seemed as uncertain about his purchase decision as I was about mine, but not nearly as self-conscious.

*I get it; some of you hate GameStop. That's cool, and you're certainly entitled to your opinion, but I don't need a list of reasons why it sucks, delivered in Broglish. Twitter already accomplished that for me earlier today, thanks.

in which a good choice is made

Yesterday morning, my dad called and asked me, "So are the Kings wearing a crown tonight, or a jester's hat?"

"It's a test of their maturity," I said. "They could easily be up 3-1 right now if they were a more mature team. If they can play their game tonight, instead of trying to out-Shark the Sharks like they did on Tuesday, I think they can win. If they win tonight, I think they win the series. But I'm pretty sure they're just not mature enough to settle down, and they're probably going to lose."

"So, jester's hat, then."

Did my dad just give me the tl;dr? Did I just get Trolldad'd?

"…yeah," I said, "probably."

"Well, go Kings!" He said.

"Yep. Go Kings. Love you, dad."

"Love you too."

While last night's game wasn't a collapse nearly as epic as Tuesday's disaster, the Kings still allowed three goals on five shots, including two on back-to-back shots. The defense looked like a bunch of beer leaguers, and I'll be astonished if my beloved LA Kings play more than one more game this year.

Contrary to what my only-mostly-joking Twitter Rageface may lead you to believe, this wasn't entirely unexpected. The Kings weren't even supposed to make the playoffs last year, so they're still a year ahead. This was the year they were supposed to get in (and had they not shit the bed at the end of the season, probably would have beaten Phoenix or Nashville) and maybe get to the second round. So, taking the long view, (say it with me, Cubs fans!) There's Always Next Year.

Later in the day, I was up the street talking with my neighbors, who have a five year-old and a twelve year-old. They know that Anne and I are empty nesters (SCORE) and they invited us up to their house to dye Easter eggs with their family.

I love that I live in a place where I get to stand on my lawn and visit with my neighbors, and I love even more that I live in a place where my neighbors invite my wife and me to spend some time with their family doing what is typically a family activity.

I had a choice to make: stay home and watch the hockey game, or miss at least the first two periods and go up the street. I love hockey, I love my Kings, and I love the playoffs … but honestly, it's just a game. It wasn't a very difficult decision.

A little after seven last night, Anne and I walked up the street to their house, and spent about two hours with their family and another one of our neighbors, turning eggs into art — well, some semblance of art, anyway. I'm one of those artists who can tell stories and perform characters, but I can't even make a good looking stickman with some pipe cleaners and a sign that says, "THIS IS A STICKMAN."

But it was still a really good time. It's been fourteen years since I dyed Easter eggs with a five year-old, and I'd forgotten just how much fun it is to watch that fragile eggshell mind in action, mixing colors, drawing shapes, and offering the unique perspective and commentary that comes from a lifetime that currently isn't much longer than sixty months.

We made eggs that were covered with glitter, eggs that had patterns drawn on in white crayon, and eggs that were shrink wrapped with pictures of duckies and bunnies.

To see my effort to nerd things up, look past the jump:

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