technology makes you stupid

Posted on By Wil

It's been over 80 for the last few days, and I'm going up to Portland for the rest of this week to see my sister, so I took advantage of the warm weather and went for a run yesterday afternoon.

My brain quickly tuned out and started working on this story I'm about to publish, so my feet went their own way, taking me up a street I usually go down, and out onto a fairly major street that has a bike lane.

My brain stopped rewriting long enough to notice this, and said, "Hey, I bet we'd enjoy riding a bike. I wonder how much something like that costs?"

"That is an excellent question, and a very good idea," I thought back, "I'm glad we thought of it."

When I got home, I texted my friend Atom, who is an avid bicycle, uh, riding guy. (Bicycler? Bicyclist? Bicycloid? I don't know. Math is hard.)

Hey, I said, I'm thinking of getting a bike. Can you give me some buying advice?

Sure, he replied. Do you want a touring bike or a mountain bike or a racing bike or what?

Um. I want a bike, I texted back. The last time I bought one, I just wanted something that could do wicked jumps off the curb, you know?

Why don't you get on IM so we can figure this out, he replied.

Sure. What's your IM name?

He told me.

I tried to add him to iChat, and couldn't get it to work.

I picked up my cell phone and texted to him: I can't get it to work. Do you do Skype?

No, but I'm on Google Talk.

I'm not on Google Talk, I said. 

Did you try Adium? He said.

No, let me try that. I replied.

I set my phone down and typed Adium into Google.

I paused.

I looked at my phone.

I looked at my computer.

I looked back at my phone.

I picked up my phone and texted him, Hey, I just remembered that I can use my phone to call you. Maybe I'll just do that.

Your phone makes calls?!

Yeah, it isn't an iPhone, I said. I laughed in my empty living room, very pleased with myself.

I picked up my phone and dialed his number. 

..well, that isn't entirely accurate; I looked him up in my contacts list, and pushed the appropriate buttons to initiate a call.

The phone rang. When Atom picked up I said, "Man, technology really does make you stupid, doesn't it?" 

In which I am a proud father

Posted on By Wil

"I have to tell you," Jonathan Coulton's wife said to me on the last night of the cruise, "how wonderful your boys are."

"I have two daughters," Peter Sagal's wife told Anne, "and I hope this isn't weird or creepy, but I really hope they meet guys like your sons."

"Dude, you know you raised your kids right when they are awesome and not lame even when you're not around," my friend Kathleen said.

In each of these instances, I was as proud as I was relieved. When they were growing up, it was important to me that I protected Ryan and Nolan's privacy, and I kept them out of the public eye (visually, I mean) as much as I could. I knew that #JoCoCruiseCrazy would be the first time a lot of people would actually see them. I knew that most of those people would have cameras, and I knew that it was unrealistic and unreasonable to expect those cameras wouldn't ever be turned on my kids. Before we left, I had long talks with both of them about all of this, and I urged them to comport themselves in a way that would make them and us proud. They assured me that they understood in their own way: Ryan told me, "Yeah, I get it. Don't worry." Nolan rolled his eyes at me and said I was being "lame."

Ah, youth.

Anyway, I had a great time on the JoCo Cruise, but before I actually recall it in my own way, I needed to get this out of the way.

I've waited almost ten years to do this. Internet, please meet my family:

We are Wheatons

That's Anne, me, Ryan, and Nolan.

This is probably my favorite picture that's ever been taken of me and Ryan:

Wil and Ryan have moustaches

Please enjoy the bonus Kevin Murphy photobomb.

So with this important formality out of the way, I can now get down to the very important business of recounting some of the things I loved about the cruise. Until I get the thoughts out of my head and into words, though, I highly recommend reading Stepto's and Molly's blogs, as well as JoCo's Open Letter to the Seamonkeys.

We Demand MacNeil!

Posted on By Wil

A friend of mine recently accomplished one of those things which is worthy of being celebrated with champagne, so I went to the store this afternoon to get her a bottle.

I picked out a bottle of Veuve Cliquot, which is Anne's and my favorite, and walked up to the register to pay. On my way, I thought I saw Amanda Peet standing in the cereal aisle. I don't mention this to drop names, (which is pointless anyway since I'm not sure it was actually her,) but because it was so surreal to walk past, glance down the aisle like you do in the store, and a few steps later have my brain say, "Hey, Wil, I think that was Amanda Peet." By the time I'd registered what I thought I'd seen, there was no way I could go back without officially being a total creep, so I left this mystery woman in an eigenstate and continued walking to the register.

Checkout 5 had one person in it, but his cart was overflowing with more meat products than one person could reasonably eat over a weekend. Checkout 8 had three people, all of them with a few items in hand baskets. As usual, it only took a glance at the express aisle to confirm that it was not appropriately named. 

The speaker in the store blared: Lane 11 is now open accepting all orders. No waiting on lane 11. It was extremely loud in the nearly-empty mid-afternoon store, which was a little jarring, but I didn't complain, since it solved my line-choosing problem quite nicely. I turned to my left and headed toward lane 11 quickly, almost knocking over a display box of DVDs and blu-rays that I swear to Steve the Fruitbat hadn't been there ten seconds earlier. While I caught my balance with one be-champagned hand and stopped the display from toppling to the ground with the other, I saw that the blu-rays were on sale for $5. I also saw that one of them was MEGA SHARK VERSUS GIANT OCTOPUS.

I reached out and grabbed it so fast, I nearly broke the sound barrier.

Champagne and blu-ray in hand, I got to lane 11 (which I was still calling 'Checkout 11' in my head) and put my two items on the belt. The cashier scanned them both while I pulled my wallet out of my pocket. While she put them into a bag, she said, dourly, "So … looks like you have quite an evening planned for yourself."

"You know it," I said, as enthusiastically as I could without jumping around or raising my voice.

She recoiled slightly. In a voice that was a combination of suspicion, caution, curiosity and fear, she said, "Well … you … have a …" she paused, like she was choosing her next word very carefully, "nice evening, Mister …" she looked at the receipt … "Wheaton."

I took the bag from her outstretched hand and flashed her a Tom Cruise Crazy smile. "Oh," I said, "that was never in doubt!"

I walked out the doors and into the unseaonsably warm January afternoon, incredibly amused with myself. As I walked across the parking lot, I wondered if Amanda Peet was buying the blu-ray of 30,000 Leagues Under The Sea, with a fine champagne, or if it was more of an Asti Spumante kind of film.

I think about these things, you know.

a nice walk about

Posted on By Wil

It is unseasonably warm here (you're welcome, Southern California; I brought the weather from JoCoCruseCrazy home with me) so project Get Outside And Exercise A Little Bit Every Day has been easier than it was in December.

Yesterday, I took Seamus with me on my walk. The Western sky was beginning to turn red and gold as the sun prepared to char the other side of the world and come back to us as we walked down the driveway and out into the street. 

As we neared the top of our block, a woman I rarely see was working in her front yard, planting something near the curb. She's probably in her 70s, has white hair pulled back into a bun and a heavily-lined face straight out of the Grapes of Wrath.

She dusted the dirt off her hands and stabbed her small shovel into the freshly-turned earth. She looked up at me and smiled. 

"You have a nice walk about," she said.

I smiled back at her. "Thank you! I think I will."

We continued up the street and around the corner, Seamus stopping to smell every tree, bush, and fire hydrant along the way. When we got home, he walked over to his little dog bed and was asleep and snoring before I had put his leash away. I poured myself a glass of water, stood on my porch, and watched the sun set.

Nothing special or unusual happened while we were out. I didn't have any epiphanies or anything while I stood on my porch and watched black silhouettes fly across the gloaming sky. It was just a beautiful half an hour, during which I enjoyed the quiet, simple pleasures of walking my dog and hearing a kind word from a neighbor.

And that, I think, is why it's worth remembering.

 

I wear a fez now. Fezzes are cool.

Posted on By Wil

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One of my favorite things on JoCoCruiseCrazy was our Informal Moustache Formal, organized by the (now dead to me) Paul F. Not Coming On the Cruise Because I Got a "Job" that "Pays Me" and "Furthers My Career" Tompkins.

During the Informal Formal, Kevin Murphy loaned me this most exquisite fez, which I wore proudly until it was time for the Informal Moustache Formal to come to its inevitable and all-too-soon conclusion.

"Thank you," I would say when a gentleman or lady would compliment me on the aforementioned fez, "it is on loan from the Murphy collection."

(Photo by my friend Atom Moore, who has a brazillion pictures from the cruise up at Flickr.)