Funny

So last night I hardly slept, I was so giddy and excited about going to work on Trek X today…my call is 8:30 AM, which means that I have to get up at 6:45, and leave by 7:45.
So I go to bed last night at about 10, so I don’t look like hell for the movie. Too bad, because I didn’t get the call at 11:30 last night that my call time had been pushed to 11:30 this morning.
I found out that my call had been changed when I was walking to the stage from the parking lot, and my cell phone rang. It’s Anne, and she tells me that she checked our messages and my call had been pushed.
I’m sure that this is somehow funny, but I’m a little scared now…what if this is all an elaborate (and expensive) practical joke, and I’m really on SpyTV?
We’ll find out more, later today.

Wired

I did this interview with Wired News about 2 weeks ago, and it’s running today.
I am just beyond happy.
I spent quite a bit of time talking with Noah Shactman, who wrote the story, and it seems like he really ‘gets’ me, and what this whole thing is about.
I’ve also done an interview with Salon, and People magazine is coming over this afternoon to take pictures for a feature story they’re going to be running very soon.
It’s just weird, all this stuff that’s going on in my life right now…I’ve spent the last few years just doing my own thing, you know? Enjoying being married, raising kids, working on a few movies here and there, but mostly just writing and doing things I’ve always wanted to do, like sketch comedy and improv…and now that I’m ready to make a return to movies and TV, those opportunities are presenting themselves to me. I think a lot of it has to do with me being ready to balance my family and acting responsibilities and desires. A year ago, I really just wanted to be with my wife and step-kids, and that’s what I did. I wasn’t ready for success as an actor again…but now that I’m ready for it, it seems to be happening. Glad the Universe is listening to me. At least for now. 🙂
I had a meeting with a VERY big casting director last week, and he started out the meeting by telling me that
I was totally wrong for this project, but he really respected me as an actor, so he’d talk with me, since I
was already there…then, after we’d spoken for about 10 minutes, he told me that he was totally wrong about me. He said that I was smart and funny, and I held myself very well, and lots of people were aware of my work, so I would be right after all. His exact words were: “Well, Wil, you’ve completely changed my mind about you.”
How cool is that?
Changing people’s minds is exactly what I’ve been wanting to do, and this Wired article sort of validates that, and so does the meeting I had last week. That meeting yieldied a test deal, and we’re just trying to work out the details.

Nemesis

I read the script for Star Trek X last night.
Holy shit.
Holy, Holy, Holy shit.
It’s easily, far and away, the best Trek movie since maybe “Wrath of Khan”? Certainly the best TNG movie. I am so excited to be in this movie, I can’t even begin to describe it. Matter of fact, I’m so excited that I’ve decided to go ahead and write another installment in the SpongBob Vega$ Pants saga! That should be up later
tonight, or tomorrow.
I talked to Brent Spiner yesterday, and he told me how excited they are that I’m going to be working with them. I’m gong to call Rick Berman today, and tell him “Thank you” and let him know how excited I am…I’m really, really nervous about that phone call…so hold a good thought for me.
I am having my final costume fitting tonight, and I work Wednesday and Thursday. I will take all the pictures I can get away with, and I’ll post them when I get the OK from Paramount.

News

We’re completing the move to the new server tonight. When that happens, I’ll be able to move all the old GM
entries to Movable Type, and that stuff will be available again.
I’ve had to take the Soapbox offline until the move is finished, and I’m still fixing the gallery. Please check the update page for info about that stuff.

Lowtax!

Well, we all gave it our culture-jamming best, but it looks like EW is determined to listen not to the teeming masses of internet weenies like us…
—
Fan Flare
Britney tops our yearend poll nominees. But fans went beyond Madonna, Nicole, and Julia to contribute surprising finalists by Michael Small
THE KID With two hits this year (”Moulin Rouge” and ”The
Others”), Kidman made the cut .
Glance at the results of EW.com’s nomination poll for the Entertainer of the Year, and you’ll see some usual suspects — Julia, Britney, Madonna — but also a few surprises. For instance, James Marsters.
Though he plays the spiky-haired Spike on ”Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” he seems like a long shot compared with his show’s main star, Sarah Michelle Gellar. But Gellar didn’t even make the top 40, and Marsters finished in the top three with Madonna and Britney Spears (who earned the most votes).
Well, it just goes to show, ya don’t always know what will happen on the Internet. Especially when it comes to a poll. As EW.com viewers seem very happy to prove, online polling methods are far from scientific. Fan groups tend to regard it not just as an opportunity — but a duty — to get their favorites on the list. But because
we’re looking for the year’s top entertainer — not necessarily the person with the most avid fan base — we reviewed the top contenders and, when the voting was roughly equal, selected only those for whom
2001 was an important year.
That disqualified some fan favorites, including Insane Clown Posse, the Detroit-based, makeup-wearing hip-hop performers who put out two albums last year but lost their major-label deal this year. Likewise for Wil Wheaton, a favorite with entertainment fans from the
discussion site Fark.com. Wheaton, who played Wesley Crusher on ”Star Trek: the Next Generation” until 1993, appeared in some indie movies this year and runs his own website, but it’s a stretch to say that 2001 was his shining hour. (Maybe next year, though, when he has
a cameo in the movie ”Star Trek: Nemesis.”) Another contender who didn’t make the final cut is Dave Grohl, frontman for the Foo Fighters and guest drummer for Queens of the Stone Age. Though he toured this year, Grohl didn’t release an album.
Then there are those who got thousands of votes — but only from a few sources (a hacker’s trick that our polling system can detect and correct). One that’s worthy of special mention: Rich ”Lowtax” Kyanka, who runs the humor site SomethingAwful.com. To reinforce their case, fans launched an email campaign in his favor. We received praise (”he is undoubtedly the most brilliant man of this decade”), incentives (”I will gleefully pay newsstand prices for any issue of your magazine with any mention of Mr.Kyanka”), and near poetry (”[His site is] amusing like a clown. And sometimes scary like a
clown too, but a good scary. Like a roller coaster.”) Alas, the repeated votes from few addresses (and the similar phrasing in many of the emails) were a giveaway of something fishy. So Kyanka didn’t make the cut. At least until next year.
Which leaves us with the 10 finalists. Other than Spears, Madonna, and Marsters, there’s Christina Aguilera (who qualified for her ”Lady Marmalade” video), Nicole Kidman, ‘N Sync (Surprise! Well, not really

If you are a regular visitor, you know that I run this whole site entirely by myself, which, until now, has been really cool. Unfortunately, because it’s just me here, I can’t fix things when they go wrong. And boy, have they gone wrong. Something happened in the last week, and Greymatter, which is what I use to power my journal (the centerpiece of this site), barfed. I lost all my entries, and all their comments. All is not completely lost, though, asI have a call for help in to Noah Grey, who wrote GM, and I *do* have all the archived entries on my local hard drive.
Sadly, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get them back. I’m currently looking at php-based alternatives, including phpNuke, and phpWebsite. So it will most likely be days, if not a week or more, before the site comes back to normal.
The good news is, I’ve made this backup solution, using Blogger, and all the other areas of the site are working, with the exception of the gallery, but the authors of gallery are helping me repair that. I also had to take the soapbox offline until we move servers, but fear not! The data is secure. The bad news is, you can’t comment on these entries.
Thanks for your patience. I hope you’ll keep coming back to WWDN. I should be back to normal next week, just in time to report from the set of Star Trek X.