“In a lot of ways, for me, W00tstock felt like finally finding a home base.”

When Paul and Storm and Adam Savage and I had our first conversations about what would become w00tstock, we knew that we wanted to put on an entertaining show for our fellow nerds that would be successful enough to warrant more than the three shows we originally planned.

Sunday and Monday, we're coming to Chicago and Minneapolis for our sixth and seventh shows in less than a year (Minneapolis is sold out, but there are about 100 tickets left for our Chicago show), and that just blows my mind. I mean, I thought we'd do maybe two or three cities in a whole year, and by Monday, we'll have done six in six months. 

Storm wrote a nifty thing at the w00tstock website to let people know what w00stock is, and why we think you'll dig it, but you don't have to take our word for it! Here's a blog entry from a wootstock attendee in Portland who wasn't sure she was going to enjoy the show:

I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to relate to a lot of things.

And then we got there.

For what is possibly the first time in my entire life, I was surrounded by people who GET IT.  They understand blogging.  They got my cultural references.  They tweet.  We joked about being “I play a bunch of 3 letter words on Words with Friends because I don’t care about strategy, I just want to make words” players.  We lamented people who throw sheep at each other and ask for help growing their livestock on Facebook.  We compared our various levels of geek for different things.  I could use the word “Dooce” in a sentence with someone I had never met before and it wasn’t followed by “Whuh….? Is that an internet thing?”   I told people that I write content for websites and didn’t have to explain that it is too a real job. Will talked with people who appreciated his “Gamer” shirt and compared gaming stories. I admitted to one person that I know jack crap about science and was told “but you blog! That’s so cool!”

There were fans and geeks of every stripe there and it was just fun.  Nobody was trying to “out-geek” anybody else.  Nobody was trying to explain how their form of geekiness was better than someone else’s because of x, y, z.  Instead of “really? You don’t like that?”  it was “Have you ever tried [this]? I didn’t like that either but then I [insert suggestion here] and was amazed that I liked it after all!”

For the first time since we’ve met, my husband and I had the exact same level of fun at something we chose to do together.

In a lot of ways, for me, W00tstock felt like finally finding a home base.  I was in a space with a few hundred other people who just…understand. It didn’t matter what particular brand of geekiness you subscribe to or if, like me, you don’t really subscribe to any particular subset.  We were there to have fun.  We were there to learn about cool stuff and hear awesome songs and listen to awesome stories and be introduced to new cool people to follow on Twitter and online. We were there to get our respective geek on. We were there to take part in the kind of thing we had always wanted to take part in but hadn’t because we’d had a bunch of people telling us that it wasn’t cool/serious/arty/enough.  It was amazing.

The best part about being a nerd right now, at this moment in time, is how easy it is to find other people like us, so we don't feel so goddamn alone and weird. My favorite part of being at certain conventions, like PAX, is that feeling of being surrounded by people who "get" me; it's that feeling of being home. I don't think any of us thought that we'd be able to recreate that sensation at w00tstock, but I keep hearing from people who come to the shows that that is exactly what happens. I don't want to overthink it or anything, but I'm overjoyed to learn that.

I don't know how long w00tstock will last, or if enough people will remain interested in it to do a full-on tour sometime in the near future, but no matter what that future brings, these shows we've done so far have been incredibly special to me, and I'm so grateful that I've been able to be part of making them happen.

woke up in the rain and everyone turned over

The way I remember it, the last day of school was always the hottest day of the year, capping at least a week of warm and sunny weather that brought with it the promise of spending every day of our impending summer vacation by the pool or at the beach. I didn't care that my parochial school forced us to wear dark shirts and corduroy pants when it was over ninety degrees outside, because in just a few days, the only corduroy I'd wear for months would be in the form of two-toned OP shorts.

Invariably, the first day of summer vacation arrived under cloudy and cold grey skies, and June Gloom settled in and stuck around until at least the Fourth of July.

I always felt cheated and ripped off. Why did the weather tease us so cruelly, and with such unforgiving regularity? Moreover, why did I fall for nature's cruel tricks year after year, and why was I suddenly wearing corduroy pants to stay warm?

I thought about this yesterday morning, as Anne and I prepared to walk our dog around the Rose Bowl. Mornings are almost always cool and damp down in the Arroyo Seco, and fog is quite common, especially this time of year. 

"I think I should have worn long sleeves," I said to her as we got out of the car.

"No, it'll warm up soon, and you'll be glad you're in a T-shirt." 

Seamus hopped out of the car and thumped his tail against the side of my leg.

"Someone's pretty excited to take a walk," I said.

Upon hearing the word walk, Seamus began wagging his entire body.

We met our friend Marie, who brought her dogs with her. Seamus adores her dog Quincy, and always wants to walk shoulder-to-shoulder with him, which we don't mind at all because it's adorable.

It seems like everyone loves my dog. Almost all the people who came toward and then passed us made some comment about how cute he was, or how happy he seemed. 

"We really hit the jackpot with this little guy," I said.

"We really did," Anne said.

"I can't believe someone abandoned him."

"Yeah, people suck."

"Totally."

We walked around the Western side of the Rose Bowl, along the golf course. It seemed like every group I saw wasn't having any fun, which must have sucked for them because that course is expensive. I used to play golf about once a week at public courses that were close to La Crescenta, like Scholl Canyon in Glendale, De Bell in Burbank, and Eaton Canyon up in Altadena. Even though I was never any good, I still enjoyed it when I played with my friends. Most golfers took it way too seriously for my tastes, though, and getting grouped with guys who seemed to think that we were on the PGA Tour took all the fun out of it for me. If I play at all these days, it's usually at a 3 Par with one of my kids.

There's this saying that golf is "a good walk, spoiled", and I smiled to myself as I thought that I was on the better side of the fence between us, with little risk of anything spoiling my walk.

I guess we'd been walking for about ten minutes when I realized that the sun had burned off the last lingering vestiges of the marine layer, and my face and neck were warm. 

"Good thing I didn't wear long sleeves," I said.

"Told you."

While Anne and Marie talked about mom things, I let my mind drift and opened my senses to the world around me. I heard the familiar low drone of a distant lawn mower, the fairly regular tink! of metal drivers shanking tee shots, and the quiet white noise of the 210 freeway, nearby. I smelled flowers and chemical fertilizer and wet grass, and when I reached down to pet Seamus, I felt heat radiating off his black fur.

I've been working a lot, spending most of my days confined to my office when I'm not on the set for something, and I haven't made much of an effort to get outside and enjoy the world. I don't think it's coincidence that I haven't felt particularly creative or able to write much of anything narrative for my blog. Getting outside and experiencing a significant change of scenery, opening myself up to whatever sensory input I could, felt good; by the time we got to the clubhouse on the Eastern side of the golf course, just over two and a half miles into the three mile walk, I felt like my writing mojo was beginning to return.

"I'm going to write about this," I thought to myself. "I don't know what it's really going to be about, but I'm going to write about it, for the sake of writing. It probably won't be particularly interesting or entertaining, but if I'm going to get to the interesting and entertaining stuff again, I have to grind out some boring stuff."

I walked into the clubhouse to use the bathroom. It was cooler inside than it was outside, and the faint smells of sterno and banquet food lingered in the air. 

When I opened the bathroom door, there were two old white guys inside using the urinals. One of them leaned on a cane, nodding along as the other one said, "…and now that there's so darn many women everywhere, you can't just take a leak on a tree whenever you want to!"

He spoke with equal parts lamentation and indignation, and as they walked over to the sink to wash their hands, I knew that, even if I didn't have something interesting to write about, there was at least one small part that was going to be entertaining.

I washed my hands and went back outside to meet Anne and Marie so we could finish our walk. I told them about a world, forgotten by all but a few aging men who once lived in it, where every tree belonged to every man and no woman ever came between them.

"I'm really glad I came out here to walk with you guys today," I said.

on the internet, nobody knows that you’re a dog

I mentioned this on Twitter, but as Twitter has grown and grown (congrats, Biz and Ev!) it's become very "in the moment" and not the best place to put very important things like this:

There's a page on Facebook that appears to be mine. The problem with this is that I don't use Facebook, and I don't want people to be mislead. (Ohh! Bold text! Wil must be serious!) 

. A casual observer could see this page and think it's legit, because there isn't anything on it that clearly identifies it as a fan page, or a parody page, or something like that. For all I know, it's well-intentioned and I'm overreacting, but I just can't take a chance with things like this. At the moment, it appears to be asking for donations to fight Alzheimer's, which is a noble cause, but if I stood back and let anyone claim to be me while asking for money – for anything – it could have really, really bad consequences. 

There is a fanpage, but I don't recall what the address is. I don't have anything to do with it, because I don't use Facebook at all, and I trust the former soapboxers who have taken care of it since it was created to maintain it.

I'm fairly sure that this fake page will be removed or at least forced to clarify that it isn't actually me (if the picture – which I think is pretty funny, by the way – didn't give it away) before too long, and I hate having to be a dick about stuff like this, but it's important to me that my identity (actual and professional) is protected.

Now, as long as I have your attention and I'm talking about Facebook: I think that Facebook is evil, guys. I believe that Facebook is making gazillions of dollars by exploiting its users, and Facebook doesn't give a shit about how its users feel about that. The only reason Facebook has made any changes to their laughable privacy policies recently is because the company was looking at legal action, and was in danger of losing money.

If you're a Facebook user, you should really understand exactly how much of your personal information you're giving up to play those games, and you should know exactly what those developers are doing with it. You should understand that Facebook, as a corporation, doesn't give a shit about your privacy, no matter what their press releases say.

EFF has some important and useful things about all social networks that you should read if you use any of them, but if you're a Facebook user, you should really read How to Get More Privacy From Facebook's New Privacy Controls.

Personally, I think you should delete your Facebook account and wait for Disapora to get going. I know that's unlikely, though, because Facebook has become a useful and convenient way to stay in touch with people you care about. But please, please consider the consequences of trading privacy for convenience, and think about this, from Newsweek:

If you really expect this company to suddenly become trustworthy, you’ve lost your mind. Over the past five years Facebook has repeatedly changed its privacy policy, always in one direction, and every time this happens, the same movie plays out. People complain. Facebook stonewalls, then spins, then pretends to be contrite, then finally walks things back—but only a little.

Whether you use Facebook or not isn't really my business, and I'm not getting all Dad Voice on you if you choose to use it, but I'm alarmed that Facebook is training an entire generation that personal privacy isn't as important as it truly is. If you use Facebook, please protect yourself, and remember that, on the Internet, nobody knows that you're a dog.

Sunday at the 2010 Phoenix Comicon – Super Happy Funtimes, Eureka, Meeting Stan Lee

This is the last of three posts about the 2010 #PHXCC. If you're looking for the other two posts … you know, I'm not going to link them for you, because I think that would insult your intelligence. You know how to find them.

Sunday:

I woke up Sunday feeling like Monty Python lied when they said that 37 wasn't old. I hurt all over the place, especially my legs from dancing on Saturday, and my arms from drumming for close to two hours straight in Rock Band the night before. In fact, two days later, I still feel sore.

I ate breakfast with my friends Amy and Boyan and their friend Brian, and walked over to the convention center.

"Wow, this does not look like a Sunday crowd," Amy said.

"Yeah, this is as crowded as Fridays usually are," I said.

We made our way past the General Lee, KITT, and an amazing Ecto 1 that had the world's littlest Ghostbuster posing in front of it for a picture. I sat down at my table in the vendor's hall for about two hours before John Scalzi and I had Super Happy Fun Times with John And Wil (woah – my fingers just tried to type Whil).

John has a great recap at his blog, which I encourage you to read because it saves me from doing one of those "What Scalzi said" posts. 

… are you still here? John's post has VIDEO of us amusing ourselves and even some of the audience! Go! Go! Come back when it's over.

…

…

…

Okay. Now, aren't you glad you did that?

Anne asked me how that panel went when I got home. She specifically wanted to know how The Thing, which is what we'd all been calling the Unicorn Pegasus Kitten, went over.

"I think it was received pretty much exactly how we'd hoped, with equal parts WTF and FTW."

Hey, I just realized that WTF is just FTW backwards. Think about that for a minute, Internet, and ponder its deeper meaning.

Hey, I just told that to Twitter. The response is about 95%: Mind. Blown. and 5% Hey, stupid, welcome to 2005. To which I reply: "I know, right?" And "So sorry I'm not as on top of things as you are, Mister Internet Guy" as appropriate.

Hey, now let's get back to the post in progress…

I assured Anne that if – if - the Unicorn Pegasus Kitten were to hang in our house in some form, it would be confined to my office (ha! like something this epic can be confined, you foolish mortal woman!) and share space with The Velvet Wesley. 

HA! HA! 'SHARE SPACE' SEE WHAT I DID THERE? HA!

Um. Maybe the second cup of coffee wasn't such a good idea. Let's finish up before this gets too weird:

After John and I finished, I had about 30 minutes to eat food and play HSD Button Men with Boyan (his Cheerleader defeated my Goth Girl 2-1, on account of me not having a d4 in my bag for some reason) before I dropped in on Jaime Paglia's Eureka panel.

Jaime brought a preview from my episode All The Rage with him, and it was the first time the audience or I got to see any of it. I was delighted, and Jaime told all of us that he was really happy with the episode and the way I portrayed Doctor Parrish. He implied that there was a very strong possibility that I'd get to come do more episodes in the back half of the season. I think the audience was almost as excited to learn that as I was.

I stayed on the panel and sort of moderated it until it was over, and then we both had to get to the airport. We went in different cars, because we were going on different airlines, but we ended up in terminals that were connected by corridors and electric walkways. I texted him that if he had time before his flight, I'd buy the beer. He said he only had about 20 minutes, but he was waiting with Felicia Day and Stan Lee, because they were all on the same flight, so why didn't I come over and say hello?

I could have met Stan Lee at Emerald City Comicon this year, but I didn't know if he was awesome or cranky, and I didn't want to chance it. I found out after my window of opportunity had closed that he was awesome, and I've regretted it ever since. I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.

I did some quick math, figured it would take about 7 minutes for me to get to their gate if I sprinted, and then did that. I felt like I was going to collapse when I got there, but I totally made it.

"Hey! You made it!" Jaime said when I got there, walking the last two gates to get my breathing under control.

"Yeah, I, uh … I did." Well, at least I wasn't gasping.

"This is Stan," Jaime said.

Stan Lee extended his hand, and I shook it. "Thank you for everything you've done," I said.

"What did I do?" He asked.

"You made my childhood awesome," I said. I was totally into Marvel until I discovered DC's New and Prestige format when I was about 14, and decided that Marvel books weren't dark enough for my dark, tortured, totally mature teenage self … but until then, I was all about Hulk and Fantastic Four and Silver Surfer.

"Maybe you should give me some money, then," he said, with a wry grin.

"I did!" I said, "pretty much all of my non-videogame spending was on your comics when I was a kid!"

He laughed a genuine laugh and I forget what happened next because I made Stan Lee smile at me.

Oh, and for all of you "Pics or it didn't happen" people: http://tweetphoto.com/24832844. Seriously.

We all talked for a few minutes, something really awesome happened, and then their flight was called for boarding. I wished them all safe travels, and ran back to my terminal, because I got it into my head that my plane left at 6:45, when it actually boarded at 6:45. I felt pretty stupid, but I had enough time to get a beer after all, which was nice.

The flight home was annoying as hell: loud kids who were old enough to know better with parents who didn't care we were all forced to share a small space together, and a guy next to me who decided that his seat was for him, and my seat was for his elbow … but if that's my biggest complaint of the entire weekend, then I'd say it was a pretty good one.

tl;dr: The con this weekend was great. I had a lot of fun, nothing sucked, and it was wonderful to see so many of my friends. I met a few thousand people, and talked quite a bit with hundreds of my fellow geeks about the stuff that we love. I sold all my books, and most of my pictures, and most importantly, shared some wonderful moments with people I love. I also got to meet Stan Lee, and make him laugh.

Saturday at the 2010 Phoenix Comicon – the Guild, the TNG reunion, a journey’s end, and geek prom

Since I didn't write about it while I was there, I'm recapping some highlights of the 2010 Phoenix Comicon in a few different posts. This is about Saturday.

Saturday:

During the first round of the NHL playoffs, I made (and lost) another hockey bet with my friend Aaron Douglas. Because the Canucks defeated the Kings, I had to wear a Vancouver jersey. Next year, you frakkin' toaster … next year.

I had two panels on Saturday. First, Felicia and I did a panel about The Guild that was a whole lot of fun. During the Q&A, just about every question was for Felicia, which I expected since it's her show and everything, but it was still fun to play the part of Mister I'll Just Sit Here And Pretend I'm Invisible.

The second panel was the TNG reunion panel with Frakes and LeVar, which filled the room almost to capacity. We started out with moderated questions, which I felt veered way too close to "hey, let's dish a bunch of gossip" territory. I thought we were all pretty funny, though, and I did my best to keep things moving without bogarting the entire panel. It was pretty awesome when Jonathan said "it's not often that I'm the third-funniest guy on the panel!" after I'd made him laugh about something. 

I think the audience had a good time, and I did my best to balance entertaining them with speaking frankly and honestly about the few very serious questions we were asked. When the hour was up, I wished that we'd been scheduled for 90 minutes, because there were at least a dozen people waiting, and I was enjoying the whole thing.

On the way back to the vendor's hall (which, to give you a sense of how the con has grown, could have held the entire convention last year) I was able to thank LeVar for giving me an incredible gift that he never even knew about.

We stood on this loading dock behind the convention center, protected from the direct heat of the sun by growing afternoon shadows. "I have to tell you something," I said to LeVar.

He looked at me with what I hoped wasn't apprehension.

"Years ago, you asked me if I was going to be in Nemesis, and I told you that I hadn't been asked. You told me that you'd talk to Rick, because I was part of the family and I should be in the movie."

"You are family, Wil," he said.

"Well, you ended up doing something really important for me that was much more than just being in a movie," I said. "When we all worked together on the series, I couldn't appreciate it, because I was a stupid teenager. It wasn't until years later that I realized how lucky I was, and how much I missed all of you guys. It made me so sad that I took that for granted.

"When I worked on Nemesis, I was able to fully appreciate it, and I really needed that, so I could get over the incredible regret that I fuh-" A lump started to grow in my throat, and I took a breath that hoped would let me talk around it. "The incredible regret that I felt because I didn't know how much you all meant to me until I was gone."

I felt a tear spill down my cheek. I didn't care. "So I just wanted to say thank you, for that. I wouldn't have ever been able to move past that and have the life I have today if you hadn't made a phone call that you didn't need to make. Thank you for caring about me, LeVar."

I glanced at Jonathan, and I think I saw his eyes shining just a little bit. Before I realized it, LeVar was hugging me tightly. I forget what he said, because I was trying so hard not to cry. I'm pretty sure that it was the final, unwritten (until now) coda to the Journey I took in Just A Geek.

Saturday night, Felicia and I hosted the Geek Prom, which was mostly awesome. I say mostly because I was incredibly annoyed with the people who shoved video cameras – with lights – in our faces while we were just trying to enjoy ourselves and dance to horrible 80s and 90s prom music (oh, the final Femmes to Gaga ratio was 2:1). I mean, time and place, guys. Not cool.

Fun fact: I hate dancing. It makes me feel self conscious, stupid, uncoordinated, and like a complete idiot. Because I don't particularly enjoy feeling that way, I probably dance once a year, to only one song, and only to make Anne happy when she wants to dance with her husband at whatever thing we've gone to where they have organized dancing. I don't know exactly why — maybe it was because it was dark until the cameras showed up, maybe it was because I knew I was surrounded by my fellow geeks and none of us were under the delusion that we were, in any way, cool. Maybe it was the Stone IPA I had with dinner, maybe it was a combination of all those things but …. I really had fun dancing at the Geek Prom. I felt so guilty when I woke up the next day, I had to call Anne and confess.

"So does that mean we're going to go dancing?" She said.

"Sorry, KSSHHH, BUZZTT, KSSSH," I said, "I'm driving into a tunnel and the last thing you said was KSSHHH!"

"Nice try. I know you're sitting in your hote-"

"KSSHH WHRRSSHH FSSHHH!" I said, "I think I should call you back when we're out of the mountains."

Even though I couldn't see her, I know that I got The Look.

The con posted a ton of great pictures of all of us under the geek arch, which you can witness in all of their carefully-crafted awkward awesomeness at Flickr. We have ideas to make the Geek Prom even better, even more of an event next year, which I can't wait to put into action.

Up next: Sunday.