Category: blog

in which a crappy dented ping pong ball finds a new home and a DVD auction is relisted for charity

Posted on By Wil

A couple of weeks ago, I was cleaning out y garage to make space for my tabletop games and homebrewing supplies. I came across a bunch of cool things and posted pictures of them on Twitter.

Two of the things I found ended up as eBay auctions to raise money for the Pasadena Humane Society: a Stand By Me DVD, and a crappy dented ping pong ball that I made Internet famous for two days.

The DVD sold for $1000, and the ping pong ball sold for $1135 (I KNOW RIGHT). The buyer for the ping pong ball was awesome, paid immediately, and posted a fantastic unboxing video that you have to watch right now:

The other buyer was … not quite as awesome. I won’t go into it, but I had to cancel the sale after a number of attempts to resolve a number of increasingly unreasonable demands. The good news is that the DVD has been relisted! Yes, you can now bid on this DVD that was living in my garage!

Anne and I are very close to our fundraising goal for the Wiggle Waggle Walk, and it would be awesome if we made it. We need your help, and there are so many of you reading this, just ten bucks from you will quickly add up to get us there.

I mean, how can you say no to this face?

I mean, seriously:

 Here’s that link to our team one more time.

And, of course, the DVD auction (which I should add will ship to the winner with a bonus copy of Different Seasons that I also found after the auction was created)

I am on vacation

Posted on By Wil

I’m looking at this:

And doing a little bit of this:

But don’t worry. Until I get home, I’ve left this guy in charge:

 

 

in which I do not attempt to speak French

Posted on By Wil

When I was in Montreal for Comicon, I had this idea to open my talk with a little bit of French. I’d apologize for not really knowing much French, but through the magic of Google Translate, I could say “good morning Montreal…” and a few other things. It would quickly fall apart into “my hovercraft is full of eels” territory, and we’d all have a good laugh at the stupid American.

The problem was, even though I had the computer talking to me and the words right in front of me, I couldn’t learn it, because French is hard. Then, I got worried that the audience would think maybe I was making fun of their language and culture, instead of my own. So I shelved the bit, and instead explained what I was going to do and why I didn’t do it. Very meta, Wheaton.

Oh? How nice of you to notice. Thanks.

So my talk (which I’ve learned is called a “conference” in Montreal) opened with that bit of pseudo humour, and then moved into what I thought was a really nice discussion about gaming and how much I love being a nerd.

At one point — and I can’t remember how exactly it came up — I mentioned something about the Stanley Cup, which turned into something about how 1993 was soooooo long ago*, which turned into something about the Maple Leafs**.

I engaged in some good-natured gloating about my beloved Los Angeles Kings being the Stanley Cup champions, and when 1500 people rightfully booed and hollered at me, here was my response:

Yes! Yes! Give in to your hatred!

“Yes! Yes! Your tears taste so good!” I declared. Then, we all had a good laugh together.

As the moment passed, I realized that I had made a careful and deliberate choice to not insult the audience’s language and culture … so I insulted their religion instead.

Post updated to include link to an audience recording of my talk.

Oops.***

*That’s when the Habs beat the Kings in the Finals

** If you don’t know why that’s funny, just forget it. You’re probably not a hockey fan and explaining it to you would only bore you and annoy the pig.

*** GO KINGS!