Author: Wil

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

pico and sepulveda … pico and sepulveda … pico and sepulveda

Posted on By Wil

Even the best day can be improved by a little Pico and Sepulveda …

(Of course, a day which requires me crossing the intersection at the actual Pico and Sepulveda is usually a very bad day, indeed.)

I took my first visit to the Forbidden Zone a few months ago, and though I Twittered the hell out of it, I don't recall if I wrote about it on my blog. Alas, maybe one day there will be a way to search the online universe for things we wish to find.

I love this movie so much, and I wish I'd seen it when I was younger. If I had a litmus test for friends, "loves Forbidden Zone" would certainly be on it.

making a note here: HUGE W00TSTOCK SUCCESS

Posted on By Wil

Friday afternoon, Anne, Storm, and I walked up the street in Seattle toward a towering red brick building. Next to the kind of ancient metal fire escape that inspires poets to write about life in the city, a sign was painted on the side of the building. It identified the building as a theater, that was available for, among other things, Legitimate shows.

"Also, you guys can do a show here," I said, in reference to us, using a voice I'd made up a second earlier and assigned as The Voice Of The Building.

We walked through a backstage door, and entered a twisty maze of passages, all alike. It took us a few minutes, but we eventually found our way to the stage. I was entirely unprepared for what I saw: a towering space with two balconies, epic ceilings, and magnificent lights everywhere.

"I can't believe I get to perform on this stage," I said.

A few hours later, the house was almost full (I think we got just over 1000 people through the doors, and capacity is around 1400) and w00tstock 2.0 began. 

For my contribution to the show, I read When You Dressed Up Sharp and You Looked Alright from The Happiest Days of Our Lives. Paul and Storm joined me for musical accompaniment, and I had an insanely good time performing it. I guess I should have expected audience participation, on account of it being a Rocky Horror piece, but I wasn't prepared for how enthusiastic the response was. When I left the stage, I wished I'd written more opportunities for audience call outs. There is a chance I may release a patch to the story before I do it live again, just for that purpose.

Our special guests were amazing. Stepto read from the Big Book of Enforcement while Paul and Storm chanted the Halo theme, Molly played an unfinished song about how she wants to have Stephen Fry's babies, Hank Green put the whole theater in his hug bucket, and Loading Ready Run killed me with the funny. MC Frontalot rattled our bones with bass, Jason Finn added so much more than "just" drum beats, and that Adam Savage guy some of you may have heard of played some unreleased footage from a future episode of Mythbusters that was as hilarious as it was jaw-dropping.

Over and over again throughout the show, I kept thinking to myself, "I can't believe that I get to be part of making this happen."

It was, as advertised, just over three hours of geeks and music. I'm pretty sure everyone who came to the show had a great time, and I know all of us who were in the show loved every second of it. 

The following morning, Anne and I rode the train from Seattle to Portland (seriously, guys, if you live in either of those cities, it is so worth forty bucks to make the trip) and discovered that it was MOTHERFRAKKING NATIONAL TRAIN DAY when we arrived. I mention this because it was awesome, but also because it provided these adorable paper conductor hats that Molly collected and gave to all of us who sang the Schoolhouse Rock classic "Conjunction Junction" with her in the show. It was one of the highlights of my life to do the part that starts out, "In the morning when I'm usually wide awake…" twice this weekend.

We didn't have Frontalot in PDX, but we did have my friend Matt Fraction, who gave an amazing presentation about comics, why he writes them, why we read them, and why they matter. He did for comics what I've tried to do for gaming in both of my PAX keynotes, and it was just wonderful to watch.

We've done w00tstock five times now, and while I've loved every show, the show we did in Portland was especially meaningful to me, because it's the first time in years that my parents have been able to see me perform. After the show, my dad told me how proud he was when the whole theater went bananas as I walked out on stage … so if you were in the audience at the Aladdin, thank you for that; it meant a lot to both of us.

The PDX show went really, really long and ended up being closer to 4.5 hours. We won't let that happen again, but I was relieved to hear from lots of people in the audience that they didn't mind.

When the show was over, I was ready to fall down and sleep for 14 hours, but there was this plan to go to Ground Kontrol for an unofficial after party. I seriously had to drag myself there, but once we walked inside, I was really glad that I did.

I collapsed into bed around 4am, slept until noon, and spent the rest of the day with Anne and my family, which was awesome. We flew home yesterday afternoon, which I presented to Twitter thusly:

wheatonix$> mv /usr/portland/wil /usr/losangeles

@dragoncontv replied: 

airlinex$> sudo mv /usr/luggage/wil /dev/random 

When I landed, I said:

wheatonix$> file transfer complete

and there was much rejoicing. Well, by me, anyway. And a big high-five to Alaska Airlines for not dropping any packets the whole way back.

Paul and Storm are in LA for the Nerdist podcast tonight, so we were able to meet up at Lucky Baldwin's last night to discuss our future w00tstock plans. I can't reveal any of the things we talked about, but I think it's safe to say that we have only just begun.

Before I try to get caught up on all the e-mail and stuff I missed while I was gone, I wanted to take a moment to sincerely thank everyone who came out to watch the shows this weekend, and to everyone who was in the shows this weekend. I am incredibly grateful that I get to be part of making something like this happen, but it's nothing without all of you guys.

w00tstock 2.x is this weekend

Posted on By Wil

let it woot at Wootstock with adam savage, paul and storm, and wil wheaton 

Okay, how awesome is that poster? Rich Stevens designed it for us. A T-shirt version will be available at all the 2.x shows, until we sell out of them.
 

So it turns out that w00tstock 2.x kicks off tomorrow with 2.0 in Seattle, and 2.1 on Saturday in Portland.

I've been so busy with so many different projects, it really snuck up on me. I can't believe I get to visit two of my favorite cities, hang out with some of my favorite people, and perform some stories I love for houses that are nearly sold out, all in the same weekend.

I'm hoping to get official bootleg recordings from the sound boards at both shows, because that's something I really wish I'd done during our 1.x shows, and the idea of bootlegging my own show delights me. If I am able to make it happen, I'll find a way to share it with everyone who couldn't make it to the shows.

I don't want to give anything away, but since I'm one of the producers of this show, I know pretty much everything that our guest performers have planned, and I am so frakking excited, I could put a toaster in an airlock. Here's the Seattle guest list:

And here's what's up in Portland:

There are a couple of FAQs that I keep seeing on the Twitters and elsewhere, so I'd like to answer those right now:

Q: Can I record/photograph/transcribe the show?

A: Yes. w00tstock is released under Creative Commons by-nc-sa 3.0 license. We want you to record the show, use your recordings to get excited and make things, and share them with the world.

However! We ask that you don't use flash photography, and that you're respectful of the people around you. If your recording is somehow interfering with your fellow w00ster's enjoyment of the show, that's a problem. Basically, if you follow Wheaton's Law, you'll be fine.

Q: Are you guys signing autographs while you're in town?

A: After the show, most of us will be in the lobby to sign books, CDs, DVDs, boobs, posters, and other stuff. 

Q: I can't come to the show. Will you be appearing anywhere else in town while you're here?

A: Sorry, no. In an effort to make ourselves feel like real touring rockstars, we pretty much get into town, do a soundcheck, eat dinner, do the show, go to sleep, and leave the next morning to start the whole thing over again.

Q: Can I bring my kids to the show?

A: While w00tstock is technically an all-ages show, it's at least 3 hours long, andspends a lot of time in PG-13 territory. You know your kids better than I do, but I'd say that kids as young as 12 will enjoy it, provided they can sit through a show this long.

Q: Will you come to NAME OF MY CITY for another w00tstock?

A: If you can get 300 of your friends together, we'll probably come do a show for you.

Okay, I think that covers most of it. Did I mention how excited I am to do the shows this weekend? Did I mention that we have awesome special guests? Did I make a mysterious reference to some puzzling things? Yeah, I think I did, so I'm going to go pack my suitcase and my Gabe Bag now. See you soon, Seattle and Portland!

It turns out I had a fairly geeky weekend

Posted on By Wil

In an effort to force myself out of this non-creative, unmotivated funk I've been in post-Eureka, I now commence a braindump from this weekend:

I pressed the plunger down on my coffee press and tried to clear the sleep from my eyes while Anne put the orange juice back into the fridge. The morning sun shone brightly through the kitchen window … a little too brightly for me.

While I poured my coffee into one of my many nerd mugs, I asked Anne, "will you come with me to the comic shop today?"

"Don't you usually go on Wednesdays?" 

I lifted my mug, and looked at her through the rising steam. "Wow, you noticed that. Okay. Yeah, I usually go on Wednesdays, but today it's Free Comic Book Day. Will you be my date?"

"Sure," she said, "if you'll be my date to Home Depot."

Anne loves home improvement. She's mechanically-inclined, and can build, remodel, and fix just about anything around our house. Home Depot is her comic book shop, game shop, and used record store all wrapped up together. I, on the other hand, break everything I touch, make a terrible mess of things when I try to paint, and don't really do home improvements as much as I cuss a lot while failing in every attempt at masonry.

"Sounds like a fair trade to me," I said, "what are we getting at home depot? Is it free scrap lumber day?"

"I want to look at flooring countertop samples," she said. Our water heater recently — well, it didn't blow up, exactly, but it leaked like crazy as it slowly died for about two weeks, and we didn't realize what was going on until the water it put beneath our kitchen floor began to reveal itself in creative ways that aren't as bad as they sound, but potentially very expensive to repair.

Oh, and speaking of repair, here's how insurance is supposed to work: You pay your premiums on time, and when you need to make a claim, the insurance company does what you've been paying them to do for a decade. 

Here's how insurance actually works: You pay your premiums on time, and when you need to make a claim, the insurance company finds a dozen different reasons to deny your claim, and then tells you that if you actually want to file the claim anyway, they're going to charge you an addition $1000 over the next three years.

Dear insurance industry: Die in a fire, you motherfuckers. 

Dear insurance industry "regulators" who let this shit happen: You can also die in a fire, you worthless, corrupt shitbags.

Um. Sorry. As you can tell, I'm a little unhappy with my insurance company (and will soon be shopping for a new one.)

So we have to replace our floor, which is currently – wait for it – ancient linoleum that's 40% asbestos. Yay. Making this already-long story shorter: we're putting some kind of wood floor over the linoleum, and Home Depot has a lot of samples we can check out.

So we drove over to my comic shop, ate lunch next door at Zankou (falafel wrap with extra garlic paste FTW), and headed inside. The place was packed, and the line went all the way through the whole store, which was unexpected. I introduced Anne to George and Sean, the owner and manager, respectively, and asked about the huge line.

"It's buy one get one free on everything," George said. I nearly fainted. I made big plans to get a giant pile of books and trades and archival editions … then I looked at the line

"I'm not going to make you stand in this line," I said to Anne.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I know this isn't your scene, and this line is at least 40 minutes long. I think you'd OG if we stood in it."

"OG?" 

"Over-geek."

I look a relief briefly flashed across her face. I knew she would have waited with me without complaint, but asking her to sit in a line of serious geeks with me while we all got our geek on just seemed unreasonable to me.

I collected all the Free Comic Book Day offerings, put them into my Bag of Holding, and promised the guys I'd be back on Wednesday. I'm not going to lie, Marge: I felt a little sad to be leaving without a complete collection of Freakangels trades, but I also didn't want to over-expose my geek-adjacent wife to a geek reactor that didn't have a lot of control rods.

We drove down Colorado toward Home Depot in Monrovia (the 210 was fucked, as it has been 24/7 since it was connected to the 15) which took us right past my game shop.

"That's my game shop," I said.

"Oh, we should go there and get Wits and Wagers," she said. "That game was really fun."

"Wait. You're seriously saying that you want to go to the game shop with me?"

"Yeah. I think we need to maximize our geek today."

Our geek? Our geek? I couldn't even think clearly enough to respond.

In reality, I carefully pulled into the left turn lane, waited until it was safe, and carefully made a U-Turn. In my mind, I pulled a fucking awesome bootlegger reverse, just like in Car Wars. We walked in, talked to a lot of my friends who were gathered for this epic D&D multi-table battle thing, and about 30 super-geeky minutes later walked out with Wits and Wagers, and Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age.

I've recently noticed that, after almost 14 years together, Anne has absorbed some of my geekiness, within limits. She'll watch Firefly, but I can't get her through Blade Runner. She'll listen to me go on and on about Batman and Green Lantern, but she's not really interested in actually reading a comic book. It's all good balance, because it allows me to share these things I love with the woman I love maintaining our own individual interests …. but I've noticed in the last year that Anne is starting to enjoy games and gaming. I'm not entirely positive, and it could probably be its own column if I really wanted to think about it, but I'm beginning to wonder if gaming might be a really easy and subtle geek infection vector for the non-geeks in our lives. 

I put my games into my Bag of Holding, moving it closer to the +2 Geek bonus I understand it gives when properly stocked, and drove out to Home Depot, where we had more fun than I would have expected looking at samples for formica countertops and all kinds of flooring. I'm not revealing exactly how we're going to redo the kitchen, but I think we found a way to keep it affordable (no fucking thanks to our asshole insurance company that won't help at all with the floors) while making it awesome. Eventually, at some point in the mysterious future, there will be pictures.

When we got home, we made dinner, had a quiet evening together and went to sleep early, because we hiked up the Sam Merril Trail to the old White City on Sunday. It was a beautiful hike, but we haven't done it in at least three years. When we reached the hotel ruins and sat down for lunch, I told Anne, "I'm glad we did this, but it seemed longer and more strenuous than I remembered."

Without missing a beat she patted my knee and said, "that's because we're not in the shape we used to be in, and we're getting old, honey."

She was right. Nolan always teases me about hurting my Old when we pl
ay Frisbee, but holy crap does my Old hurt today. My hips, calves, and knees are just killing me.

Of course, I have to turn everything into a game, so I've decided that the hike was two levels above my current ability, and the proper (and only) response to the pain I feel today is to grind it out at the gym until I can not only get to the White City without taking so much damage, but continue on to Inspiration Point, as well.

This actually made me think of something: has anyone done a fitness guide for gamers? Something that makes exercise and healthy eating into a game, with levels and achievements and stuff? I'd love to read and use something like that. We'd call it the d20 diet or something clever.