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50,000 Monkeys at 50,000 Typewriters Can't Be Wrong

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WIL WHEATON dot NET
WIL WHEATON dot NET

50,000 Monkeys at 50,000 Typewriters Can't Be Wrong

Author: Wil

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

so i have this cool new writing gig . . .

Posted on 31 January, 2005 By Wil

Do you ever have something really exciting that you want to share with the world, but you’re not allowed to talk about it? It drives you nuts that you have to keep it to yourself, so you quietly mention it to Janet, but Chrissy overhears you from the kitchen, and thinks you’re dying, so she tells Larry, and pretty soon you’re attending your own wake down at the Regal Beagle. You think this could be a chance to get Mr. Roper to give you a break on the rent, and maybe get a little something-something from that Kaylnn girl who passes out skates at the roller rink, but Mrs. Roper finds out the truth, and somehow you’re learning an embarassing lesson in front of all your friends, rather than getting lucky on the waterbed in your cousin’s van conversion.
In other words, I’ve been sitting on this big news for weeks, and I just got the green light to announce it. So pay attention, Chrissy:
I am writing a weekly column for The Onion A/V Club! Yeah, that’s right! The Onion A/V Club! Wooo!
Check out the spiffy announcement:

The Onion A.V. Club also extends a hearty welcome to a new contributor who comes to us from Hollywood via the Internet. Each week, actor/author/gaming enthusiast/icon/renaissance man Wil Wheaton, who maintains an online presence at wilwheaton.net, will take a look back to games past with his Games Of Our Lives column, reaching beyond Pac-Man and Donkey Kong to find the dusty arcade games and worn-out cartridges that paved the way for the games of today.

(When I read that, I told my editor, “I love it. Can I just tell you how happy I am that it’s not all ‘Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek Star Trek (tiny font: writes some stuff too.)’?”
He said, “Well, the original draft referred to you as ‘the spunky lad who saved the universe’ and then went on to say ‘Star Trek, Star Trek, Star Trek.’ Then I had second thoughts.”)
Can you freakin’ believe that I get to write for them?! Holy shit! Writing this column is as much fun as doing Love Machine at ACME each week. I get a chance to be funny, add something pretty prestigious to my resume, and I finally have an excuse for playing so many classic video games. I mean, how many people do you know who could deduct an X-arcade Controller? 🙂
I did an interview with The Onion A/V Club in 2002. If you haven’t seen it, you can read it here.
My first Games of Our Lives appears tomorrow. Check it out, and let me know what you think!

leave me just out of reach

Posted on 28 January, 2005 By Wil

I just got off the phone with my manager.
The casting people loved me, and thought I gave a great reading, but . . . (wait for it) I’m not going to get a chance to bring The Script to life. The producers want to go in a different direction, and some of my essences (too smart for my own good, Passionate with a capital “P”) worked against me. The tiny silver lining is that the people I read for know what I look like and what I’m bring to a role now. That’s good, because there will be other shows . . . sigh.
I still haven’t heard anything about the

torture is not an american value

Posted on 26 January, 2005 By Wil

I am joining a growing list of Americans who oppose the confirmation, of Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General.

As the prime legal architect for the policy of torture adopted by the Bush Administration, Gonzales’s advice led directly to the abandonment of longstanding federal laws, the Geneva Conventions, and the United States Constitution itself. Our country, in following Gonzales’s legal opinions, has forsaken its commitment to human rights and the rule of law and shamed itself before the world with our conduct at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. The United States, a nation founded on respect for law and human rights, should not have as its Attorney General the architect of the law’s undoing.
In January 2002, Gonzales advised the President that the United States Constitution does not apply to his actions as Commander in Chief, and thus the President could declare the Geneva Conventions inoperative. Gonzales’s endorsement of the August 2002 Bybee/Yoo Memorandum approved a definition of torture so vague and evasive as to declare it nonexistent. Most shockingly, he has embraced the unacceptable view that the President has the power to ignore the Constitution, laws duly enacted by Congress and International treaties duly ratified by the United States. He has called the Geneva Conventions “quaint.”
[. . .]
With this nomination, we have arrived at a crossroads as a nation. Now is the time for all citizens of conscience to stand up and take responsibility for what the world saw, and, truly, much that we have not seen, at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. We oppose the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States, and we urge the Senate to reject him.

While it is vital that we defeat our enemies, we must not become them in the process. As a nation, we must stand united against Albert Gonzales and everything he represents. Torture is not an American value.

ch-ch-ch-changes

Posted on 26 January, 2005 By Wil

I’ve run into a database error with MT-Blacklist, and until I get it worked out, I have to manually approve or deny comments, and it’s taking up a lot of time. It turns out that spammers totally ::heart:: my blog. It also means that if I’m AFK for an extended time, non-typekey users won’t get their comments added to the site for a loooong time.
So until I get this issue worked out, I’m changing my blog configuration to only accept comments from TypeKey users.
Now, listen, privacy is a big deal with me. Here’s what they say about it:

What about my privacy?
We’re committed to providing a service that respects user privacy. Therefore, we will not publish information that you have not chosen to make public, nor will we share your information without your explicit permission. We’re not in the business of selling email addresses, and we give users the option to choose whether they’d like to send their email address to the sites which they are commenting on.

I’m pretty comfortable using Typekey, for what that’s worth. I don’t mind being held accountable for my comments, either, and I believe that the vast majority of WWdN readers feel the same way. Actually, we’ll see how it goes with Typekey enabled. Maybe it will bring back some of the cool interaction that we used to have here a few years ago.
There’s more information about the service in the Extended TypeKey FAQ, and readers are always encouraged to privately share their thoughts with me via e-mail.

i have spoke with the tongue of angels

Posted on 24 January, 2005 By Wil

They say that when you have an audition, you have to walk in there like you don’t give a shit. You walk in there like you don’t give a shit, and you walk out with the part, because if you don’t give a shit, that’s when they want you.
But you’ve read the script, and it is good. So good, in fact, you fall in love with it. You fall madly, passionately, crazy in love with the script, and you’ll do anything to be one of the people chosen to bring the script to life.
You think about it all the time. You wake up in the middle of the night, imagining what it would be like to spend ten weeks on location or four seasons on the set. You get lost on your way to the post office, because you’re wondering who your competition is. You can’t eat, you can’t sleep, you can’t focus on anything else . . . you are in love, after all.

In the days before your audition, you do everything you can to be ready. First, you get to know your character. If you’re lucky, he’s a guy you know. Maybe he’s even you. Not the current you, usually, but still You. A younger you, a more passionate you, a more idealistic you; the You who you were before you fell in love with too many scripts and had your heart broken too many times to count . . . the you who was incapable of walking in there like you didn’t give a shit, because it felt so good to be in love. Then you learn your lines. You spend hours in your house or your apartment reading them out loud, scaring your dogs, worrying your neighbors, annoying your roommates who are sick to death of hearing about The Script. They’ve heard it all before, and you’ve made an unspoken pact among you: you don’t tell them how crushed you are when you don’t get the job, and they pretend not to notice how you wear the same clothes and drink heavily for five days after you get The Call.
The day of the audition finally comes. Your first date. Your big date. Your only date. You spend too much time putting yourself together. You carefully choose your clothes and style your hair a minimum of three different times. Maybe you spray on some cologne, because it makes you feel attractive. Maybe.
You drive to the studio, and hope your voice doesn’t break when you tell the guard that you’re going to Bungalow 15. You park, walk across the lot, and your palms sweat when you sign in. You wait for what seems like an eternity, surrounded by actors who are younger, taller, better looking than you. Actors who clearly don’t give a shit because they don’t have to. You know that they don’t love The Script like you do, haven’t put in the time that you have . . . but it doesn’t matter. You’ve been here before and you’ll be here again, long after they’ve left for location.
Your heart throbs in your chest when they call your name. You smile, take a deep breath, and stand up.
And then you walk into the room, and you’re supposed to act like you don’t give a shit.
Yeah. Right.

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