Author: Wil

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

good morning

Posted on 20 November, 2010 By Wil

I woke this morning to the sound of rain falling outside my window, and discovered that both of my dogs had jumped up onto my bed overnight and were snuggled into me to keep warm.

When I lifted my head from my pillow, I saw that both cats were also on the bed, tucked into tiny little "I really want to stay warm" lumps of fur.

My dog Riley, near my feet thumped her tail heavily against the bed.

"Yes, I'm awake," I said. The thumping became serious wagging.

Seamus, our other dog, stretched out his body to maximum extension and grunted, happily, before rolling onto his back and pushing his head into my ribs. One of the cats began to purr.

I stretched, rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, and scratched Seamus' chin. I was pretty sure he smiled at me.

The day wasn't five minutes old, and I already felt peaceful and loved.

Anne appeared in the doorway, a mug of coffee in one hand. "Good morning," she said.

"It sure is," I replied.

I am slowly but steadily finding my way back to that mysterious land where I feel motivated and inspired to write something every day. I blame Fallout: New Vegas for wrapping me up in an interesting world every night, and a giant stack of comic books that reminded me how much I love superhero stories. I've been working on a short short story (about 2K words) that I hope to release soon, but holy shit is it kicking my ass. I have a ton of respect for authors who can stick with a full length (or even 10K or 15K) story, because I am having a very hard time getting out of the "well, this was a good idea, but the execution really sucks" part of the process.

Anyway, that's not why I sat down to write this post. This post is about this frozen box of pretzels I bought yesterday, which can allegedly be heated to perfection in the microwave, dusted with salt (that comes in a handy packet and everything) and then enjoyed the way one enjoys a pretzel that does not suck.

What. A. Load.

Seriously, I don't think there's enough beer and mustard on the planet to make this pretzel — which is more chewy unsatisfying lump of salty dough than what is traditionally understood to be a pretzel — enjoyable.

But it's sitting here, on my desk, looking all sad and lumpy and pathetic, one bite taken out of it, almost apologetic. If this pretzel-like thing could talk, it would probably say, "Hey, man, I'm sorry. When I was at the pretzel place where they make pretzels, I came out of the oven and I was perfect. I was warm, I had that pretzel thing going where the outside of me is slightly thicker than regular crust, so the inside of me was all soft and kind of lighter than regular bread, but when they froze me and put me into the box, well, something just died inside of me, man."

I feel like I should apologize to the pretzel for hating it so much — it's not entirely its fault that it sucks as much as it does — but unlike everything else that surrounds me, this particular inanimate object doesn't seem interested in having a conversation with me that I can transcribe. Uh, beyond the one prepared statement, I guess.

I guess it's my own fault for ignoring a lifetime of disappointing microwavable bread products and ignoring the sage advice of my wife, who said, "That's going to suck, and you're going to be pissed that you bought it, and you keep complaining about feeling tubby so why are you eating pretzels, anyway?"

I guess the moral of the story is: don't go shopping when you're hungry.

In happier news, I have three pretzel-shaped frozen hunks of bread to throw at the next group of surly kids who refuse to get off my lawn.

in which i join forces with @reddit for a pretty awesome auction

Posted on 18 November, 2010 By Wil

Some of you may know that I love Reddit (and now, I guess, you all know that. And while we're in this parenthetical, is it weird that I say "you" when writing to a few million people, many of whom I'm never going to actually meet? Is it weird to be so familiar? I think saying "dear readers" or "my readers" would be even more strange. I hate the term "my ____" because it implies ownership, and that's just … really, really not how I roll. Wow, this is a neurotic and rambling parenthetical, isn't it? I guess I'll end it now and go back to the post at hand. Let's never speak of this again.)

Recently on BoingBoing, Cory said this of Reddit, which sums up why it is the online community where I spend pretty much all of my online community time (yeah, that's a line item in the time budget):

…it's just as possible to build a society on social norms of mutual aid, compassion and whimsy as it is to build one on juvenile, meanspirited trolling and cynicism.

It's not too hard to find people who are being dicks, just like anywhere else in the world, but Reddit self-corrects better than any other online communityI've ever been part of. I have some theories on this, but I think it's because the core of Reddit users are all people who left other sites because they wanted to spend their online community time at a place where people weren't dicks, and protecting that (leading by example, usually) is important to us.

So, there. Now you know why I love Reddit so much (and here's me at Reddit, if you care about that sort of thing.)

All of this is preamble to the real purpose of this post: to point out an auction I'm doing with the Reddit admins to raise money and awareness for Fly With Dignity (or EFF, if Fly With Dignity doesn't need it).

Quoth raldi:

Back in 2009, when reddit's first iPhone app launched, kn0thing made a commercial featuring the underused marketing line, "More fun than LARPing with Wil Wheaton!"

Shortly thereafter, we had the motto laser-etched onto the back of a top-of-the-line 16GB iPod Touch and asked Wil to sign it (he's a avid redditor, of course.) We figured we could pick a charity and auction it off. I mean, who wouldn't want a piece of technology signed by this guy?

As the kids say, read the whole thing (because it's funny, and contains pictures and video that 4 out of 5 Bothans found quite amusing, and saves me the hassle of copying the whole thing.)

In addition to a spiffy and nearly-obsolete iPod Touch that is actually signed by me OMG, I'm adding a signed copy of the super swanky leather-bound and slip-cased Subterranean Press edition of The Happiest Days of Our Lives. I'm also including the audio versions of Just A Geek and Happiest Days of our Lives (it is an iPod, after all) and all existing episodes of Radio Free Burrito and Memories of the Futurecast.

Here is the auction.

The Best Chaos Elf, EVER.

Posted on 17 November, 2010 By Wil

Marc Roskin took this picture of me when we were filming LEVERAGE. It's sort of spoilery, I guess, but it's too hilarious not to share.

I'm not sure when this episode airs, The Ho Ho Ho Job airs December 12 on TNT, and I am sure you're going to love it.

on the benefits of being unplugged

Posted on 15 November, 2010 By Wil

There's a saying, possibly apocryphal, that actors act for free, but get paid to wait. If you've ever spent any time on a set, this will probably make a lot of sense to you; a day on the set usually features extended periods of boredom, punctuated by brief moments of terror — oh, wait, that's something else. My bad. Let me try again: filming a television show or movie usually long hours of inaction, broken up by all-too brief moments of actually working. Contrary to popular belief, film sets just aren't that exciting (unless we're blowing something up), and though a job where you clock in for 12 hours but actually "work" for 5 probably sounds awesome, most actors I know (including myself) would rather work straight through and perform all day, if given the option.

Different actors do different things during these breaks in filming. Depending on how long they are, some of us will go to our dressing rooms to relax or learn lines. Others will go to our cast chairs to read a book or learn lines. There's always the trip to craft service to graze while we learn lines, too.

My time on Eureka this season didn't feature that many extended breaks, because the assistant directors did a pretty great job building a schedule that was efficient and focused. There were only a couple days where I had long hours of waiting (which I put to questionably good use), but I pretty much went to work, worked, and went home.

Most of my scenes this season were with Neil Grayston and Felicia Day because [SPOILER]. The three of us are, as the kids say, wired, so during our breaks in filming, it was pretty common for us to retire to our cast chairs with our phones, where we'd sit together and read amusing twitter messages to each other, reference each other in our simultweets, and do other activities that, to an untrained observer, appeared solitary, when they actually weren't. (Erica Cerra was constantly teasing us about sitting within a few feet of each other and talking without ever making eye contact.) It was all amusing and fun, especially when we made stupid cell phone videos together.

One day, though, we worked at a location where there was no internet or cell coverage. As it happened, it was also a day where pretty much everyone in the cast was filming the same scene. During our breaks, we all hung out together and, unable to connect to the Internet, had actual face to face conversations that didn't involve LOLCats or some funny comment on Twitter.

It was, in other words, just like the old days, and … well, I really liked it. I felt a connection to my friends and fellow actors that was stronger than usual, that I didn't even realize I'd been missing. I recall wonderful conversations with Joe Morton about going to see the movies in an actual theater versus watching them at home, and fascinating conversations with Niall Matter about his time working on oil rigs in Edmonton. It was one of my favorite days on the set this past season.

Since that day, about a month ago, I've made conscious efforts to turn off my cell phone, get offline, and spend more time back in the analog world. The first few weeks of this were tough, because I kept feeling like I was missing something important (and there have been countless times I've thought, "Oh! I have to Twitter that!" only to realize that I can't. This is not a bad thing.) I have to tell you, I'm happier for it. It's really nice and quite convenient to be plugged in all the time, but, for me at least, it comes at a price that I wasn't even aware of until I wasn't paying it. If you can handle going offline, even if it's only for an afternoon, I highly recommend it; there's a lot of people and world out there that you don't even know you're missing.