Category: Travel

I spent the weekend in Portland, visiting my sister and her family. I also saw some friends, and recorded an episode of Livewire Radio. It was a gorgeous weekend, with perfect weather, so we got to walk even more than we usually do when we visit.

We were walking downtown with my sister and her son when I spotted this in the street next to the crosswalk:

I got really excited, because it’s the first Toynbee tile I’ve ever seen that wasn’t just a picture on the Internet. While I was taking this picture, Anne was counting down the seconds on the crosswalk. Hearing “…4…3…2…1” while I was taking the picture made the whole stupid thing a little more thrilling than it should have been, but I’m easily entertained.

One more picture (as promised in the title) before I get ready to go to the set:

Steel Bridge is one of my favorite bridges in the country, and this weekend was the first time we walked across it and up the opposite bank of the river. When we were about a quarter mile from it, heading toward a different bridge to cross back to downtown, a boat came up the river toward Steel Bridge. “Dude! If we hurry, we can get up to the bridge and stand right there when it goes up!” I said to Anne.

“You think we can make it?” She said.

“Yes. I know we can.”

“Are you sure it’s going to go past the bridge?”

“Unless it makes a U-turn in the middle of the river, it has to go past the bridge,” I said. “Come on! It’ll be cool!”

We turned around and walked quickly back toward Steel Bridge, the boat slowly gaining on us. When we were about 500 yards from the bridge, the boat blew its horn, presumably to alert the bridge person that it needed to go up … but when I looked at the boat to see how far it was from the bridge, I saw that it had blown its horn to alert nearby vessels that it was making a U-turn in the middle of the river.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I said, laughing, as we walked onto the bridge and began to walk back across it. “Well, it would have been cool.”

Anne laughed with me, and held my hand.

I really like Uber, and I’ll take Uber over a taxi every single time I can. I really like being in a clean car, with a friendly driver who genuinely cares about my experience, because I’m rating them and that matters to them. Basically, they work a little harder to give me better service, and I pay about a 5% premium for that.

Earlier this week, though, I took Uber to and from the Stone Company Store in Pasadena, and both drivers gave me this aggressive sales pitch that made me very uncomfortable. They both wanted me to contact them directly when I needed an Uber car, so they could drive to wherever I was, wait for me to request an Uber car, and then they’d answer the request.

Both times, the pitch was a very hard sell, accompanied by boasts about their clients in Bel Air or Beverly Hills, and left me feeling like I’d rather not ride with either of these guys again. When I’ve hired a driver, I just want that driver to get me where I’m going safely and comfortably. I don’t want to feel like I’m getting a high-pressure sales pitch when I’m basically a captive audience.

I’m putting this out there because I want to know if this is happening to anyone else in LA or any other cities? Is this some new kind of official Uber policy? Or did I just happen to get two seemingly random guys who were working off of almost the exact same script?

It’s the third day of the WIL WHEATON VS PAUL AND STORM MEGA ULTRA SUPER TOUR 2014, and we are in New York City tonight.

Last night in Philadelphia, we played one of the best shows we’ve ever played. I haven’t put together precisely why, but something just felt solid and locked together on the stage in a way that it hasn’t in the past. We always have fun, and we always feel good about our performances, but last night we all just felt connected in a way that we haven’t before, like we were sharing a brain.

The audience was great, and even demanded an actual for realsies encore from us!

Here’s a couple of shots from the theatre:

We stayed up very late, and didn’t get into bed until almost 3am. BUT! Before we left the theatre, we made another tribute to a classic American film:

Then, today, while we were on the road, we made two more featuring a pair of classic commercial jingles:

We keep joking about being “on the road, man”, knowing full well that driving for a couple hours at a time doesn’t really count, but it’s been really fun to hang out together as we drive from city to city. I’m getting to see a lot of, uh, refineries, and trees and also trees, and even some trees. We’re driving over lots of beautiful rivers and past houses that are older than the city I live in. I’m getting a real perspective on just how much of a dystopian urban sprawl I live in back in Los Angeles, and taking some small comfort in knowing that drivers near Washington, DC, are even worse than the ones we have at home.

Last night, the manager at the Live Café in Philadelphia told us that he loves it when nerd crowds come to shows, because they’re always awesome and polite and really fun to be around. I told him, “We have a wonderful audience, and I love to perform for them, because we all love the same things, and we’re basically here to celebrate those things together. And, as a general rule, nerds tend to be more awesome than dudebros.”

It sounded better in my head, and the post-show bourbon probably didn’t help with the translation, but my point was that we are very lucky to perform for the audiences who come to see us, and I’m grateful that I get to do what I do.

In a few hours, we’ll be on stage in New York, and tomorrow, we’ll be back on the road to Boston.

because I’m talking about the rooooaaaaddddd….

Last night, we stayed in downtown Philadelphia. Our hotel room had a great view of city hall, which is topped by a giant statue of William Penn, holding a proclamation about the city’s commitment to fighting off bears or robots or something.

BUT! When you look at it the right way — like out our hotel window, for instance — it looks like he’s wagging his wiener at New Jersey.

He was truly a great American.