WWdN in Exile – Page 40 – WIL WHEATON dot NET

the obligatory phoenix comicon schedule post

Posted on 24 May, 2010 By Wil

My official and complete schedule for the Phoenix Comicon has been finalized and posted. It looks an awful lot like this:

Wil Wheaton Presents: The Awesome Hour! – Fri at 4:30 pm
Wil Wheaton RockBand – Fri 10:00 pm at the Hyatt
Felicia Day & Wil Wheaton: The Guild - Sat at noon
Star Trek: TNG Reunion - Sat at 4:30 pm
Geek Prom with Felicia Day- Sat 10:00 pm at the Hyatt
Super Happy Fun Time with John and Wil – Sunday at 3:00 pm

In addition, there is a non-zero chance that I'll drop into the Eureka panel on Sunday, and I think the con has me doing at least one of those photo-op things, too.

When I'm not at one of the scheduled events, I'll be at a table in the exhibitor's hall, signing autographs and stuff. I will, as usual, sign just about anything reasonable you bring me, though I reserve the right to determine what does and does not fall under that description. For your convenience, I'm bringing some 8x10s, Memories of the Future, Sunken Treasure, and a small number of Happiest Days of Our Lives Special Editions.

I'm really looking forward to this con, and all of the panels I'm doing, especially the TNG reunion panel. In fact, thinking about that panel inspired quite a bit of bloggery, and I just cut 2000 words out of this post, because I thought it deserved its own entry, which will post in a little bit.

The Empire Strikes Back (1950)

Posted on 19 May, 2010 By Wil

I think this may be the most impressive Star Wars parody/tribute/whatever I've ever seen, and I've seen some truly great ones.

This makes me want to do a 13 episode webseries, probably serialized 3 minutes at a time, that's entirely done in the 1950s Sci-Fi style, with locations at Vasquez Rocks, sets that look like the inside of a submarine, with square-jawed heroes and bullet-bra'd heroines.

some of us are looking at the stars

Posted on 14 May, 2010 By Wil

On January 28, 1986, I was home from school with the flu. I remember that, no matter what I did, I couldn't get warm, so I was sitting in a hot bath when my mom knocked on the bathroom door.

"There was an accident with the space shuttle," she said, in the same voice she used when she told me that my grandmother had died.

For the next few hours, I sat on the couch, wrapped up in as many blankets as we had, and watched one of the local news networks – probably ABC – cover the unfolding disaster. Because of the fever and the years between now and then, I can't recall a single detail other than how impossible the whole thing felt. How could something like that even happen? And did it mean that we'd never put people into space again?

This morning, I sat in my office and watched the shuttle Atlantis launch into space via a NASA TV stream through VLC on a monitor that is bigger than my family's 1986 television. When mission control gave the order to go with throttle up, I held my breath like I have every single time since the shuttle program was reinstated in 1988, and when the shuttle separated from the boosters and glided into orbit, I got something in my eye. Just take a moment, if you don't mind, and think about what it means that we can leave our planet, even if we've "only" gotten as far as the dark side of the moon. Think about what it means that something as incredible as putting humans into space and bringing them back safely to Earth today earns less media attention and public excitement than the typical celebrity breakup.

It is amazing that we can do this, and even though I've come to believe the shuttle program isn't the best way to spend NASA's tiny budget (which is a pitiful fraction of what it should be), I hope that there was a child watching the launch today who will feel inspired to reach out to the stars and see what's out there.

We humans are a flawed species, to put it mildly, and I think we could do a much better job taking care of our planet and each other … but when I see what we're capable of doing, it gives me hope that the future I pretended to live in twenty years ago will actually arrive some day.

FSMspeed, Atlantis.

pico and sepulveda … pico and sepulveda … pico and sepulveda

Posted on 12 May, 2010 By Wil

Even the best day can be improved by a little Pico and Sepulveda …

(Of course, a day which requires me crossing the intersection at the actual Pico and Sepulveda is usually a very bad day, indeed.)

I took my first visit to the Forbidden Zone a few months ago, and though I Twittered the hell out of it, I don't recall if I wrote about it on my blog. Alas, maybe one day there will be a way to search the online universe for things we wish to find.

I love this movie so much, and I wish I'd seen it when I was younger. If I had a litmus test for friends, "loves Forbidden Zone" would certainly be on it.

making a note here: HUGE W00TSTOCK SUCCESS

Posted on 11 May, 2010 By Wil

Friday afternoon, Anne, Storm, and I walked up the street in Seattle toward a towering red brick building. Next to the kind of ancient metal fire escape that inspires poets to write about life in the city, a sign was painted on the side of the building. It identified the building as a theater, that was available for, among other things, Legitimate shows.

"Also, you guys can do a show here," I said, in reference to us, using a voice I'd made up a second earlier and assigned as The Voice Of The Building.

We walked through a backstage door, and entered a twisty maze of passages, all alike. It took us a few minutes, but we eventually found our way to the stage. I was entirely unprepared for what I saw: a towering space with two balconies, epic ceilings, and magnificent lights everywhere.

"I can't believe I get to perform on this stage," I said.

A few hours later, the house was almost full (I think we got just over 1000 people through the doors, and capacity is around 1400) and w00tstock 2.0 began.

For my contribution to the show, I read When You Dressed Up Sharp and You Looked Alright from The Happiest Days of Our Lives. Paul and Storm joined me for musical accompaniment, and I had an insanely good time performing it. I guess I should have expected audience participation, on account of it being a Rocky Horror piece, but I wasn't prepared for how enthusiastic the response was. When I left the stage, I wished I'd written more opportunities for audience call outs. There is a chance I may release a patch to the story before I do it live again, just for that purpose.

Our special guests were amazing. Stepto read from the Big Book of Enforcement while Paul and Storm chanted the Halo theme, Molly played an unfinished song about how she wants to have Stephen Fry's babies, Hank Green put the whole theater in his hug bucket, and Loading Ready Run killed me with the funny. MC Frontalot rattled our bones with bass, Jason Finn added so much more than "just" drum beats, and that Adam Savage guy some of you may have heard of played some unreleased footage from a future episode of Mythbusters that was as hilarious as it was jaw-dropping.

Over and over again throughout the show, I kept thinking to myself, "I can't believe that I get to be part of making this happen."

It was, as advertised, just over three hours of geeks and music. I'm pretty sure everyone who came to the show had a great time, and I know all of us who were in the show loved every second of it.

The following morning, Anne and I rode the train from Seattle to Portland (seriously, guys, if you live in either of those cities, it is so worth forty bucks to make the trip) and discovered that it was MOTHERFRAKKING NATIONAL TRAIN DAY when we arrived. I mention this because it was awesome, but also because it provided these adorable paper conductor hats that Molly collected and gave to all of us who sang the Schoolhouse Rock classic "Conjunction Junction" with her in the show. It was one of the highlights of my life to do the part that starts out, "In the morning when I'm usually wide awake…" twice this weekend.

We didn't have Frontalot in PDX, but we did have my friend Matt Fraction, who gave an amazing presentation about comics, why he writes them, why we read them, and why they matter. He did for comics what I've tried to do for gaming in both of my PAX keynotes, and it was just wonderful to watch.

We've done w00tstock five times now, and while I've loved every show, the show we did in Portland was especially meaningful to me, because it's the first time in years that my parents have been able to see me perform. After the show, my dad told me how proud he was when the whole theater went bananas as I walked out on stage … so if you were in the audience at the Aladdin, thank you for that; it meant a lot to both of us.

The PDX show went really, really long and ended up being closer to 4.5 hours. We won't let that happen again, but I was relieved to hear from lots of people in the audience that they didn't mind.

When the show was over, I was ready to fall down and sleep for 14 hours, but there was this plan to go to Ground Kontrol for an unofficial after party. I seriously had to drag myself there, but once we walked inside, I was really glad that I did.

I collapsed into bed around 4am, slept until noon, and spent the rest of the day with Anne and my family, which was awesome. We flew home yesterday afternoon, which I presented to Twitter thusly:

wheatonix$> mv /usr/portland/wil /usr/losangeles

@dragoncontv replied:

airlinex$> sudo mv /usr/luggage/wil /dev/random

When I landed, I said:

wheatonix$> file transfer complete

and there was much rejoicing. Well, by me, anyway. And a big high-five to Alaska Airlines for not dropping any packets the whole way back.

Paul and Storm are in LA for the Nerdist podcast tonight, so we were able to meet up at Lucky Baldwin's last night to discuss our future w00tstock plans. I can't reveal any of the things we talked about, but I think it's safe to say that we have only just begun.

Before I try to get caught up on all the e-mail and stuff I missed while I was gone, I wanted to take a moment to sincerely thank everyone who came out to watch the shows this weekend, and to everyone who was in the shows this weekend. I am incredibly grateful that I get to be part of making something like this happen, but it's nothing without all of you guys.