I'm sure it's an enormous surprise to learn that I've spent a lot of time recently thinking about games and gaming, so I've found myself looking through old blog posts for research, inspiration, and to confirm or deny that strange "I think I've written about this idea before…" tingle that's recently set up camp in my brain.

So here's something I found today, which may or may not find portions of itself rewritten for my PAX East Keynote, but should zap some of you Gen X gamers squarely in the happy place…

There are all these video games that remind me of the happiness of my childhood: Journey, Riddle of the Sphinx, and Dodge-Em on Atari 2600. The robot gyroscope game, Excitebike, and Super Mario Brothers (the turtle trick!) on NES are just a few. Writing about those, I can feel the orange shag carpet at the house in Sunland, the blue berber carpet in La Crescenta, and I can see the little television in my friend's bedroom where we played RC Pro-Am until we had "NES Thumb."

Do you associate certain games with certain arcades or places?

• Donkey Kong will forever be associated with Verdugo Bowling Alley in La Crescenta, because that's where I first saw it. In fact, I thought it was some weird bowling game because the barrells on level one look like bowling balls, if you're nine years old and in a bowling alley.

• Centipede will always be Shakeys Pizza in Tujunga, where this young couple in their 20s let me play their last man at the cocktail version because their pizza was ready, and Ms. Pac-Man will always be associated with this head shop in Sunland, where I got to the pretzel level on the first try.

• Super Pac-Man, Defender, Gyruss, and Mouse Trap take me back to Sunland Discount Variety and Hober's Pharmacy (they've become interchangable in my memory) and Donkey Kong Country on SNES will always remind me of when I lived in Nice, France, during production of Mr. Stitch, and my brother and I beat it when my family came out to vist me for Christmas.

• Crystal Castles is Alladin's Castle at the mall in Eugene, Oregon, during the filming of Stand By Me, and Burger Time and Tutankham will always remind me of the smell of chlorine and concrete, from the basement-level pool at the Eugene Hilton.

Funny, just writing about those places I can almost conjure up sense-memories, like smells and other ephemeral things that I can't quite put into words but I can feel, but I can't quite make them out, like the boobie channel on cable in 1984 that was scrambled but would occasionally resove into view for two or three glorious seconds, which would be the subject of much discussion the next day at school.

Mmmmm… boobies.

If deadlines were dragons, I'd be in the lair with nothing left but my trusty sword and a relentless determination to slay the fucker and take his heart back to The Adventure Hook Tavern as a souvenir.

So in place of a proper post, here's what I did this weekend:

I'm running a 4e dungeon delve at Emerald City Comicon this weekend, and instead of taking one out of the book, I'm creating my own. I haven't done this in at least 15 years, but after about 30 minutes with the graph paper, the Monster Manual and my imagination, it all came back to me. I ended up a little delve that I think could be part of a larger campaign if I wanted to expand it, and I've come up with some pretty cool (if I say so myself) ways to encourage the PCs to do some role playing, even though they're getting pregenerated characters and it's a one-shot.

Okay, I'm going back to work. This dragon isn't going to slay itself.

Ohh! Edited to add this from Level 1 Gamer in comments:

I had the privilege of playing in the one of your Dungeon Delves at Rincon (www.rincongames.com) and had a blast.  I'm happy you are continuing with the idea because it's a great treat for the players and a great way to raise money for charity.  Are the proceeds going to Child's Play again?

I'm sure I don't need to convince anybody here, but if you are going to ECCC, try to get into Wil's Delve.  You won't be disappointed. He's a great DM.

I wrote a post about the experience on my blog if you want to see some pictures and video from one of the Delves at Rincon: http://www.level1gamer.com/2009/11/04/i-survived-wil-wheatons-dungeon-delve-of-doom/

I've put myself pretty much on lockdown until I finish writing my PAX East keynote, because my brain really isn't making it easy to convert my concepts and ideas into a proper presentation that is both thoughtful and entertaining.

I've given myself next Wednesday as the ultimate deadline, because I need to hang a Sword of Damocles over my head if I'm going to get anything done. This provides great motivation and helps with the fucos, but with that helpful pressure I also get some stressful pressure that occasionally leads to things like this coming out of my head:

Gaming played a fundamental role in making me the person I am today, privately and professionately

I meant to write professionally, but obviously my brain thought it would be hilarious to make me feel stupid by making up a word. I also thought this was hilarious (after I corrected it) so I sent it to my editor with the following note: Someday, we're going to laugh about this. For you, that day is probably now. For me, it's next Wednesday.

Andrew replied: Wil, I would never laugh at you. It would be unprofessionate.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating: Andrew and I have worked together on everything I've written in the last ten years that hasn't sucked. I wouldn't be nearly as successful as I am without his Red Pen of Doom, and after all this time together, I understand why authors will go through the fires of Hell to stay with an editor.

I came across one of the most wonderful things I've ever read in my life on Reddit this morning, penned by Redditor alukima, who shares some insights on finding happiness:

I am not witty or interesting; I wont pretend to have anything profound to say. I am 26, female, divorced and spent most of my life feeling empty and hopeless. This may not help anyone, but these realizations helped me find my happiness. The points are in bold.

They didn't lie to you in elementary school, being different is awesome.

In high school and my early twenties I was teased for wearing video game related t-shirts. Now the the same girls who teased me often complain to me over facebook about being suck in generic relationships and "wish they had found something to love the way I love gaming". Also, I recently made a bet that my $15 TMNT purse would get more compliments at a bar than a $900 coach purse. I won.

That's the beginning, and it just gets better from there. Please, please, please go to Reddit and read the rest. I promise that you'll be glad you did. I only have one addition of my own, which I will add … now:

Don't be a dick.

You tend to attract what you put into the world, and every second you spend being a dick is a second wasted. I'm 37, and while I've looked back on times I was a dick with great regret, I've never thought to myself, "You know, I really wish I'd spent more time being a dick to people."

This is one of those "I wish I'd written it, and I'm really glad I found it" things that I see from time to time, and I hope that lots and lots of people read it, internalize it, and share it with others. Thanks, alukima, for adding something good to the world. I hope this comes back to you a thousand times.

My friend Rich, who writes and draws Diesel Sweeties, occasionally gives me wonderful gifts, like that awesome 8-bit drawing of me in the infamous clown sweater that sits on what would be my blog's masthead, if blogs had mastheads.

When I got home from working on The Big Bang Theory yesterday, this was waiting for me:

Today's my last day on this episode, which seemed to fly by much faster than the last one. I'm so excited for the audience to watch the taping tonight, because I know how awesome the episode is, but I'm also sad, because I'm going to miss seeing and working with these incredible people every day.