Author: Wil

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

the geekiest thing i’ve ever posted on my blog

Posted on By Wil

Newsflash: I’m proud to be a geek. I can’t imagine life without comics, hobby games, dice, science fiction, movie soundtracks, and the people who love them. Well, I can imagine it, but it’s just about the most boring goddamn thing I can imagine.

When we were younger, it was cruel and hurtful to call someone a geek. These days, though, it’s a badge of honor, and I’d like to think that I’ve been able to play a very small part in the geek pride movement.

So with that in mind, I now post the geekiest link I’ve ever posted on my blog, everything you ever wanted to know about Retconning, but were afraid to ask.

Retconning comes from "retroactive continuity," meaning "taking the
continuity of your storyline and retroactively changing part of it so
things didn’t happen the way they happened," and there are many ways to
do it. Let’s talk about them together, shall we?

I’ve posted some geeky stuff in the past, but I honestly think this is the geekiest of them all.

(5d12 GP to DJE for the link)

good news, everyone!

Posted on By Wil

Well, good news to everyone who is going to Phoenix Comicon, anyway (which is in just five days, demonstrating how effectively a convention can sneak up on me when I’m doing other things.)

UPS just dropped off 25 copies of Just A Geek and Dancing Barefoot, which I purchased from O’Reilly at great expense to myself and my heirs. So if you’re hoping to get your hands on The Collected Works of Me, Wil Wheaton, we’ll probably be able to exchange shiny gold rocks for bound collections of dead trees and words.

the best thing i have ever read on the internets

Posted on By Wil

Jonathan Coulton:

Really? This is a good use of your time, to make someone you’ve never
met feel bad just because they made an amateur fan video about
something they really like? Where’s your thing that you made and put
online for everyone to see, you chicken-shit cockhole?

He writes this in response to the idiots who have left hurtful, cruel, hateful comments on a fan-made cover of Still Alive that’s on YouTube.

Not that my opinion matters at all, speaking as someone who’s endured something similar for two decades, I deeply respect the courage this girl has to create something like this, and put it out on the Internets where chicken-shit cockholes can take cheap shots at her from the safe anonymity of their own miserable little lives.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t point to xkcd and Penny Arcade, which are both relevant to this post.

UPDATE: Yes, I am wilwheaton on YouTube, and I’m touched in the bad place that anyone thinks I’m worth impersonating.

propelled!

Posted on By Wil

I’m working like crazy to get this Angel One review finished today so I can get started on some other (awesome) stuff that’s been bouncing around in my brains.

Until I have something new and interesting of my own to talk about, I’d like to share some really cool links I’ve found while Propelling in the last 24 hours:

Gordon Freeman crank calls Coast to Coast AM

Video Games – A theoretical physicist named "Gordon" called up the conspiracy wonks at Coast to Coast AM to tell ’em all about a mysterious government agent — a "G-Man" if you will — that he keeps seeing around. Lots of fantastic Half Life and Portal jokes for those who can read between the lines, here.

Marching band’s classic video game themed halftime show

Popular Videos – In this video, the UC Berkeley marching band performs a video-game-themed halftime show, playing the beloved themes from such old friends as Tetris, Zelda, Mario Brothers and others, all the while marching in animated formation and reenacting scenes from the
game. Bravo! [via boingboing]

The History of ‘It’ Girls (And Their Predictable Downfalls)

Celebrities – History has no dearth of young women who, once thrust into the limelight, manage to screw things up in astounding, stupefying ways. From extremely public and scandalous affairs to drug addiction to homelessness, It girls through the ages have been there, done that, and few have lived to tell the tale.

Now, it’s back to Angel One, where — contrary to what you’ve read in travel guides — they’re not as into the snu-snu as they once were.

Cloverfield

Posted on By Wil

I saw Cloverfield yesterday afternoon, early enough so I could avoid a theater filled with douchebags. I understand that this was a good thing, because people I know who saw it at night with the aforementioned douchebags were so annoyed by them, and so pulled out of the movie by them, it seriously fucked with their ability to enjoy the film.

If you haven’t seen it, I recommend it. I gave it 3 out of 5, but only because the first-person shaky camera stuff made me violently seasick, causing me to look away from the screen more frequently than I did with Blair Witch (a movie, by the way, that I enjoyed as much as "meh" can be enjoyed, and which doesn’t deserve to be compared to Cloverfield, IMHO.) On story and effectiveness, I give it a 4.6 out of 5but the camera stuff really messed with me, and I suspect it will mess with other viewers, as well.

Assume there will be spoilers in comments, because I’m starting the comments off with my extended commentary on the film, which you should not read if you haven’t seen it yet.

The Bad Astronomer (who I owned in a Techonobabbloff yesterday) has some nitpicks and a review that I agreed with pretty much all the way, too.