Category: Games

poker tournament just for bloggers

Posted on By Wil

I don’t have as much time to play poker as I did in days gone by, but I still love a good game of cards, whether I’m sitting at a kitchen table with my friends, a casino with strangers, or at PokerStars.

A few years ago, PokerStars started this freeroll (that’s what you call a tournament where you don’t pay anything to enter, but there’s still a big pile of money to win) for bloggers, called the World Blogger Championship of Online Poker. I played in it when I was on Team PokerStars, and I’m pretty excited to play in it this year as one of the thousands of bloggers hoping to scoop up part of the prize pool.

Anyone with a blog can enter the tournament. All you have to do is sign up and paste some code into your blog that gives the following SEOtastic result:

Texas Holdem Poker

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 5575088

And as long as we’re talking about poker, if I convinced PokerStars to
do a freeroll for people who signed up via my blog, would you all come out
and play in it?

a little PAX video: NES

Posted on By Wil

I just came across some video of my PAX keynote:

This is me talking about the first time I played NES, with my brother, in a department store. It contains what is probably my favorite line of the entire keynote.

I watched a lot of video from PAX while I was supposed to be working on my GiR today (which actually makes sense, and fits this week’s column) and was viscerally reminded of how much fun I had there. If you can only attend one convention a year, make it PAX. Trust me.

West Coast – I’m on WPT tonight

Posted on By Wil

Wil_wpti1_1
I just found out that I’m on the World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel tonight. It’s the WPT Invitational from Commerce Casino, where I outlasted all the other celebrity players and finished 23rd to land $10,000 for City of Hope. I doubt I’ll get much screen time, but my friend Burns! just called Anne to tell her that he saw me.

So . . . now you know! If anyone gets an mpeg or something, let me know and I’ll link it up.

Update: WWdN:iX reader Andrew sent me the following captures:

XviD (9 MB)

mpeg2 (30MB)

It ‘s a great segment. I got a lot more camera time than I expected, and so did Darwin!  If anyone wants to seed .torrents, let me know and I’ll update again. Thanks, Andrew!

(image via Dr. Pauly)

Future Shock: W2 + E3 = ROCK

Posted on By Wil

I wrote a column for The AV Club about my trip to E3, and it hit the web about an hour ago. It’s my first foray into my version of gonzo journalism, and I’m really happy with the way it came out.

Take the largest video arcade you remember from your childhood. Now quadruple its size, put it in the middle of Shibuya Crossing, dim the lights, and crank the volume to 11. Toss in a bunch of celebrities, charge $300 for a stale slice of pizza and a soda, crank the volume up to 11 one more time, and you’ve got E3: the Electronic Entertainment Expo.

E3 started during the halcyon ’90s, when Pets.com ruled the world. Now every May, gaming giants like Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, and Sega gather at the Los Angeles Convention Center to present their newest hardware and software releases to a very select audience: about 30 percent entertainment media, 5 percent distributors, and 65 percent people who have managed to scam press passes so they can spend a day playing video games and checking out booth babes (who this year are required to wear nothing more revealing than miniskirts—the trade-show equivalent of burkas).

[. . .]

Four televisions, eight guitars, and a small crowd stood beneath a mockup that looked remarkably like a concert stage. I could hear Kiss’ “Strutter” being played with varying degrees of proficiency as Gen-Xers rocked out in the highly anticipated co-op mode.

“Hey, isn’t that Guit—” Spencer asked.

“Muh… guh… huh…” I answered, walking on autopilot to the front of the booth.

“Hi, I’m Wil Wheaton,” I said, “and I love your game.” Probably not the most professional way to introduce myself, in retrospect. “I’m writing about Guitar Hero II for The A.V. Club.”

You can read the entire story at The AV Club, and while you’re there, you can check out my Games of our Lives column for this week: Congo Bongo.

I feel really good about this column, and I’m really happy that the type of writing I’ve perfected over the years on my blog earned a spot in an actual print publication.

Oh, and if you think it’s worthy: digg story. Thanks!

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too much is never enough

Posted on By Wil

You know you’re playing too much Guitar Hero when you see the Arena Rock Essentials at the iTunes Music Store and think, "Dude, I totally need to buy that."

Afterthought: If you could pick three songs for Guitar Hero II, what would they be?

I’d pick:

  • Money by Pink Floyd
  • Miserlou by Dick Dale
  • One by Metallica

Ryan would pick:

  • Rude Mood by Stevie Ray Vaughn
  • Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin
  • Hot for Teacher by Van Halen

Nolan would pick:

  • I Need to do My Homework, So Don’t Bother Me by I Am Nolan’s Responsibility

Anne would pick:

  • How about you play less Guitar Hero? by Guitar Hero Widows, Inc.

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