Author: Wil

Well, it's official. Evil Wil Wheaton is going back to The Big Bang Theory! 

From TV Guide Magazine:

Geeks everywhere will be happy hear that Star Trek star Wil Wheaton will be returning to hang out with TV’s hippest nerds on The Big Bang Theory.

“We were very excited when Wil Wheaton appeared as Sheldon’s nemesis, and right now we’re looking to see if he can come back to give Sheldon an opportunity to settle the score,” Executive Producer and Co Creator Bill Prady announced to TV Guide Magazine when the Academy of Televisions Arts and Sciences hosted an Evening With the Big Bang Theory on February 18th. "Fingers crossed that we can do that, I think an arch enemy is someone who appears from time to time."

Even though my personal motto is Don't Be A Dick, I've wanted to play an arch enemy for pretty much my entire career, and I love that Bill described me that way, because I was kind of hoping I'd earn that position in the Big Bang canon.

I've known this was a possibility for just over a week, (coincidentally, I found out the day after I did my Big Bang Theory Q&A post) but didn't get the official offer until this morning. 

After my manager called casting back and confirmed, I called Bill to thank him for bringing me back. He sort of chuckled, and asked me if I wanted to know what their plan for the episode was before I accepted the offer to come back. I told him, "You could have me do nothing more than eat Chapstick the entire episode, and I'd come work for you again, because I had so much fun last time."

He then told me what the episode is about. I'm not revealing any details, but it's safe to say that it's a lot more awesome than just eating Chapstick.

I start work on the 24th, and we tape on the 2nd, if you wanted to try to get tickets to the show.

I'm going to go do the Snoopy dance until I fall down, now.

I just realized that I mentioned this on Twitter over a week ago, and it's been on a lot of the gaming sites, but I never actually carved out a little hunk of blog-o-state to mention…

I am giving the inaugural keynote address to PAX East in Boston on March 26th. 

I've been working on my keynote, which involves throwing away about five words for every one I keep, every day for a couple weeks. I know I'm getting close to having a zero draft to start rewriting and perfecting, because my brain's been waking me up several times a night for the last five or six days to give me a great idea that can go into one section or another.

When Robert Khoo offered me the keynote, my first thought was, "No fucking way. The 2007 PAX Prime keynote was the best speech I've ever given in my life. There is no way I can top that, or even equal it."

"I need to think about it for a couple of days," is what I said, though. I mean, it would have been silly to just pass on it without even trying to come up with something, right?

So the first thing I did was accept that the 2007 Prime address was a perfect storm of timing and delivery and hard work. I was never going to top that, so I wasn't even going to try. If I did this keynote – the inaugural keynote for PAX East, no less – I would just have to give it permission to be its own thing, and accept that the 2007 keynote is something awesome that's in the background.

That simple acceptance took a lot of weight off of my shoulders, and an idea began to come together. I remember walking out into the back yard that afternoon, where Anne was playing with our dog. "I can totally do this," I said.

"Well, thanks, but I think I have it covered," she said, tossing this thing that started life as a knotted rope toward the back wall for our dog to chase.

"Oh. Right. I forgot that you weren't part of the conversation I was having in my head. I mean, I can totally do this keynote. I have an idea."

In my head, I heard Captain Sternn say, "Take it easy, Charlie. I've got an angle…" and hoped that the ultimate conclusion of my plans would be a little less … explosive.

I told her what I wanted to do with my keynote, then I got on the phone with my friend and editor Andrew and told him. Andrew is a geek like me, and Anne is a geek-adjacent normal person. They both give me honest feedback about my crazy ideas, so when they both thought it was a solid plan from their different perspectives, I decided to accept the invitation.

I called Robert and told him my idea. He thought it was a good idea, and we ended the conversation sort of like this:

Me: Yeah, so I totally want to do this. I think it will be awesome.

Robert: I'll see you in Boston, then.

Me: Awesome.

Robert: Awesome.

Incidentally, I appear to have a class feature which gives all members of my party +5 to saying awesome.

I hung up the phone, and about five seconds elapsed before the panic set in. "What have I done? What have I gotten myself into? I can't do this! I suck! They're all going to laugh at me!"

Ah, the panic. Years ago, it would have paralyzed me, but I've done this long enough to recognize that it's just part of my creative process. Now I can actually use it to get me to the next step, which is I suck, followed by this is stupid, before eventually arriving at hey, this is actually pretty cool.

As I said, I've been working on this night and day, pretty much exclusively, for about three weeks. I'm trying to take breaks to write other things, record RFB, and maintain progress on Memories of the Future Volume 2, but it's incredibly difficult to take my brain off the task at hand. Part of my brain obviously needs to vent pressure, though, because every day I'm adding something new to my little book of story ideas. When this is all over, I may even be able to turn some of them into actual stories.

I'm not looking forward to I suck and this is stupid, but I know that hey, this is actually pretty cool, is on the horizon, and I'm not going to lie to you, Marge: I'm very excited to finish writing my keynote, and even more excited to deliver it.

See you in Boston. 

Awesome. 

My arms hurt so much today, I can hardly lift a cup of coffee, and I feel quite silly. This is how it happened…

I played ice hockey all through high school and into my early 20s. I loved being a goalie, and after going to lots of Kings games with Nolan in January, I decided that I was going to put on my pads and play again before the 2009 was over.

Well, due to a series of unexpected events, it didn't happen, so I pushed the goal (ha! ha!) into this year and started going to a gym three or four days a week to get back into shape. I've been doing lots of cardio conditioning for the last 6 weeks, and this last week I finally added some light weight work.

Now, I'm not talking anything serious, just some very light weight work. Like ten pounds in three twenty rep sets. Hey, stop laughing at me. I haven't lifted anything heavier than a pen in at least five years.

I deliberately started out light and easy so I wouldn't hurt myself or overdo it. It felt a little silly to be putting the three machines I used on their lightest settings, but I got over that pretty quickly … especially when doing my third set of incline presses was rather difficult.

This was two days ago, and even though my arms ached a little bit and felt a little heavy all day yesterday, I was glad for it. It made me feel like I was leveling a little bit, and gaining muscle XP (yes, there is nothing in the world that I can't view in gaming terms).

So yesterday, I got Bioshock 2. Anne was out all evening, so I settled in for a return trip to Rapture. Just like the first time I played Bioshock, I didn't open the manual or learn anything about the game; I just started playing and let the world and the story unfold while I was playing. I won't spoil it for anyone, but the first 60 minutes or so of the game was more exciting and compelling than any blockbuster movie I've seen in recent memory.

Here's a quick spoiler-free mini-review of Bioshock 2, based on my 7(ish) hours of gameplay: I really like it. I loved Bioshock because of the story and the world, and Bioshock 2 had some very big (daddy) shoes to fill. The story is still unfolding, but so far, it's very compelling. And Rapture … well, things have really gone downhill since the last time I was in Rapture. So I can't say definitively that it's the best thing ever because I haven't played it all the way through, but it's not every day that I pick up a sequel to a game I loved and play it for seven hours straight without complaint.

I took a brief break to eat dinner and watch the Kings (8-1-1 in their last 10) make the Oilers (3-7-0 in their last 10) look like the 1981 Islanders. It's like the Kings decided that the Oilers, being the worst team in the NHL this year, would be a cakewalk, so they didn't need to, you know, show up to play. I gave up after two incredibly frustrating periods and went back under the sea. (Kings eventually lost in a shootout after coming back to tie it while I was fighting with [SPOILER] in [SPOILER] and holy shit [SPOILER] was [SPOILER]!)

"Man, I could keep playing this all night," I thought. "I could take the day off tomorrow, too. I could totally sleep in tomorrow and nobody would care."

"Are you fucking serious?" My dad voice said. "Anne's off work tomorrow. You're planning to clean the house together, get started on the taxes, and work on your PAX East keynote. How the hell are you going to do that if you sleep all day?"

"But … Rapture!" It was the best I could do, on account of I was trying not to let [SPOILER] kill me at the time.

"Hey! I'm talking to you. Pause the game," My dad voice said.

"Sorry."

"You need to act your age, be responsible, and go to sleep. Bioshock isn't going anywhere."

I mumbled something under my breath.

"Excuse me?"

"I said 'okay,'" I lied.

"That's what I thought you said. Now save the game and go to sleep."

"Oh, I have to, uh, get to a save point," I said.

"Nice try, mister, but I've played this too, remember? You can save and exit whenever you want."

I mumbled something different under my breath. Ten minutes later I was in bed.

When I woke up this morning, I tried to lift myself out of bed with my right arm, like I do every day, and I couldn't do it. I had to roll over to my left, all the way across the bed, and hop out on Anne's side (which, to be honest, was kind of cool and ninja in retrospect).

I initially thought that the pain was due to exercising my arms for the first time in years, but the more I thought about it, the more I noticed that the pain was localized just above my right elbow, while my left arm really didn't hurt that much. I replayed yesterday's marathon Bioshock 2 session in my head, and realized that I'd been so into the game, I was fiercely gripping the controller the entire time I played it, engaging all of those muscles that had, just 24 hours earlier, been subjected to ten pounds of weightlifting horror.

Feeling very stupid, and hoping that my dad voice wouldn't find out, I walked into the kitchen and yelped when I tried to make myself a cup of coffee.

"What's wrong?" Anne asked.

I told her.

This is where, were our lives a movie, we'd just go to stock footage: she looks at me for a second, cocks her head to one side, starts to say something, stops, and just slowly shakes her head.

"I know, I know," I said. "Let's not tell my dad voice though, okay?"

"Your what?"

"Uh, never mind … can you help me with this coffee?"