WIL WHEATON dot NET

How was your PAX?

Posted on 29 August, 2011 By Wil

I’m on set for Eureka, tethering to the Internets through a mobile hotspot, using my iPad to post with the Typepad app.

This is, as they say, less than optimal for blogging. However, I wanted to put a post up for PAX stuff, until I can write a proper post in the next few days.

I had a wonderful time, didn’t get sick, played games with friends, and was given some truly epic gifts, including a Cape Of Dicks (pictures forthcoming). There was also a D&D game for the ages.

Please use this as a PAX thread, to share your PAX stories and pictures. I’ll add my own as soon as I can.

So, while I'm putting together the last few things I need to take to PAX, I realized I forgot to mention something: ten years ago yesterday, I started my blog at WWdN*. Ten years ago today, Metafilter declared that it was "lame,"** and most of the Internet was really shitty to me about the whole thing***. I was so sad and hurt by how cruel people were to me back then, I almost gave up before I'd even started… but for some reason, I was stubborn and just kept going.

I'm glad I made it across what Ira Glass calls The Gap, because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be going to PAX (or doing any of the wonderful things I get to do these days) if I hadn't. Thank you to everyone who has shared the journey with me; I hope to continue earning your time and support for the next ten years.

*I'm going back there, eventually. I'm just, uh, kind of busy at the moment and haven't gotten around to it.

**In fairness to MeFi of ten years ago, it was kind of lame … but we all have to start somewhere, and I recall being judged not on the merits of whatever I was doing then, but on what I had been told to do in 1987. It seemed unfair to me. And holy fuck the haters were everywhere. When I was an insecure 29 year-old, struggling to make ends meet, that stuff really got to me.

***Thanks to a reader, who I'll keep anonymous, for reminding me. I'd completely forgotten.

Ryan and I totally made this.

Posted on 23 August, 2011 By Wil

It's our beer! Click to embiggen at imgur

Today, at long last, the beer Ryan and I made together was ready to drink. We got on the phone and opened our first bottles together …. and it totally tastes like beer! It's sort of a slightly-hoppier version of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, which is pretty much exactly what we were going for. I'll write all about this tomorrow, because right now, I'm going to go enjoy the beer that my son and I made, together, and try damn hard not to miss him.

bring me your tired, your poor, your polyhedral dice…

Posted on 23 August, 2011 By Wil

It's 4pm, and I've been awake for 12 hours, on almost 5 hours of wake-up-every-thirty-minutes-so-I-don't-oversleep, uh, sleep. Truly, I live an exciting life that doesn't afford me the opportunity to get much quality reszezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

*thunk*

*snore*

*drool*

Ah, that was nice. Okay, I'm back.

I have a request, which I hope is reasonable, for those of you who come to see me at PAX: I'm continuing to test the theory that it isn't possible to have too many gaming dice. I left GenCon last year with about 10 pounds of dice, and while it's certainly a lot, I can say with confidence that it isn't even close to being too many.

If you come to see me at PAX, and you have a gaming die or two that you're willing to part with, would you bring it to me? At GenCon, everyone who gave me dice had some kind of awesome story to go with it, which was a delightful and unexpectedly wonderful bonus. And I went home with ten pounds of dice. I'm not saying that GenCon set the bar very high, PAX, but that's exactly what I'm saying.*

I would love it if you helped me get a little bit closer to making this a reality, PAX:

See you on Friday!!

*Challenge accepted?

This is a post about PAX Prime, which is suddenly upon us.

Posted on 22 August, 2011 By Wil

It's raining in Vancouver. Little rivulets of water are running down the window, as low clouds slowly move across downtown, swallowing up the tops of buildings as they roll by.

I have a late call today. I'm in one scene, and then I'm off until next Monday. Tomorrow morning, I'm going home to get ready for PAX.

I can't believe that PAX is already here. In years past, I've counted down for the entire month of August and most of July, but this year I've been so busy, not only have I not had time to count down to PAX, I haven't even had time to play games. In fact, if it wasn't for Pirates and Carcassonne on my iPad, and the occasional attempt to pull three stars on the last few non-three-starred levels in Mario Kart DS*, I wouldn't have played any video games at all**.

I have this bag of travel dice that I keep in my backpack, you know, just in case… I occasionally take it out and empty them into my hand. I look at them for a moment, the way normal people look through a photo album, and then I roll them a few times, just so I can hear the sound they make as they clatter onto the table. It makes me smile for a moment, before then I sadly put them away again. I haven't played actual boardgames more than once or twice since last PAX, and I haven't played an RPG at all. It's good to be busy, and I'm incredibly grateful for it… but I'm so excited to go to PAX and play games for four days, I can hardly sit still right now.

If you're coming to PAX, this information may be relevant to your interests:

My Schedule:

Friday 2:30pm -3:30pm in the Pegasus Theatre – THE AWESOME HOUR WITH ME WIL WHEATON

Wil Wheaton first came to PAX in 2007, when he gave the keynote address that your parents won't stop making you listen to in the car. In 2008, he returned for a panel that asked and answered the burning question, "Can Wil Wheaton really be a panel all by himself?" This year, Commodore Wil Wheaton welcomes you aboard the USS AWESOME for 60 minutes of story-telling, lingerie-dodging, mirth-making, myth-making, iconoclasting, and the obligatory burning-questioning … ing.

Saturday 3:30pm-5:30pm in the Main Theatre - Acquisitions, Inc: The Last Will and Testament of James Darkmagic I

Jim Darkmagic receives a magical missive, informing him that his grandfather has died. There's to be a reading of the Last Will and Testament at the family estate. Not long after the family convenes, wackiness ensues.Join Gabe, Tycho, Scott Kurtz and Wil Wheaton as they guide Jim Darkmagic, Binwin Bronzebottom, Omin Dran and Aeofel "Al" Elhromane through an unscripted Dungeons & Dragons adventure before a live audience.

I'm going to have a booth, and I'll be signing stuff and trading shiny gold rocks for nifty things, like the special edition of The Happiest Days of Our Lives, my short collection of gaming essays Games Matter (expanded to include the complete text of my PAX Prime and PAX East keynotes), and an assortment of delightful 8×10 photographs, perfect for framing or folding into origami dicks. I won't have any of the new 3 Wheaton Moon T-shirts, but I will have a few 3 Wheaton Moon posters. I'm not bringing too many, because I don't know if anyone else in the world thinks it's as funny as I do and I don't want to have to haul them back home.

Anne thinks I should bring some of my cheesy 80s pinup posters, so that's going to happen. I'll also make a few of the Compleat Workes Of Mee Wil Wheatone DVDs. I imagine those will go quickly, though, so get there early if you want one.

I'm not going to spend too much time in my booth, though, because I desperately need to make up for the appalling lack of gaming in my life for the last 365ish days. I'll post a schedule when I get there, and probably blather about it on the Twitterbox, too.

Oh!! I hope that you'll bring me dice, so I can continue testing my theory that it's not possible to have too many dice … but that will be in its own post a little later today.

Wow. PAX is in four days. I can't believe it's actually here.

*Seriously, fuck you, Rainbow Road. Fuck you right in the face with a blue shell.

**Until last night, when I finally finished the single player of Portal 2. IN SPAAAAAAAACE.