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WIL WHEATON dot NET
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50,000 Monkeys at 50,000 Typewriters Can't Be Wrong

Wil Wheaton’s 2009 Dwarven Dungeon Delve of Doom! Benefitting the Child’s Play Charity

Posted on 7 October, 2009 By Wil

I'm about to head out to RinCon, and before I left, I wanted to make sure I let everyone attending know that I'm doing what I think will be a pretty awesome fundraiser for Child's Play while I'm there.

First, some history: Way back in the olden days, when 8 bits were enough to blow your mind on a 13-inch television and digital watches were a pretty neat idea, the concept of the Dungeon Delve was born. It's pretty straightforward: a group of players and a Dungeon Master sit down together, and the players have 45 minutes or so to make it through the end of a short dungeon, while the Dungeon Master does his best to kill them. The delve ends when the players defeat the final boss (or solve the final puzzle, or something like that), the time limit is reached, or the players all die horrible but noble and heroic deaths.

It's different from the collaborative storytelling experience that we experience in my regular D&D games, but it's still a hell of a lot of fun, and the time limit makes it perfect for running at conventions.

So, with that bit of historical context in your heads, allow me to announce …

Wil Wheaton's 2009 Dwarven Dungeon Delve of Doom! Benefitting the Child's Play Charity.

I'm going to run two delves; one on Friday at 6pm and one on Sunday at 12pm. There are five spots open for each delve, and they'll be available on a first come, first served basis starting on Friday when the con opens. 

Because I'm doing this to benefit the Child's Play Charity, I'm asking for a $50 donation to get into the game. For that donation, you get:

  • A "very special, very awesome" gift bag from my friends at Wizards of the Coast. I don't want to ruin the surprise, but I talked to my friend there yesterday, and OMG is it going to be awesome. And special. But mostly awesome. 
  • Your very own set of dice to take home with you, engraved for the occasion, and provided by the good people at Gamestation dot Net.
  • Your old pal, Wil Wheaton, as your Dungeon Master.
  • You'll also be supporting an absolutely wonderful and worthy charitable organization.

We'll provide the characters, the minis, the dice (though you are of course welcome to use your own) and the dungeon. All you have to bring is your imagination and a donation to Child's Play.

To get into the game, all you have to do is sign up at the main registration desk before the available slots are filled. Even if you've never played D&D before, you can still have a lot of fun, in a relaxed and non-serious environment, with players and a DM who will certainly help you understand what's going on.

I'm pretty sure these spots will fill up very fast, but even if you can't get into the game, there will be space to come and watch us, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

an open letter to the guy who put just a geek the audiobook on his website for people to steal

Posted on 6 October, 2009 By Wil

Hi there, guy-who-I-won't-link-to-for-obvious-reasons,

I'm Wil Wheaton. I wrote Just A Geek, and I created the audiobook you're helping people steal. You may not know this, but I 'm just one guy, without a publisher, so when you help people steal this copy of Just A Geek by making it available for download, you're basically stealing directly from me. You're not stealing from some big publisher with deep pockets who is trying to rip you off with overpriced stuff; you are stealing directly from me, an indie artist and publisher who counts on every sale to make a living. I have to tell you, guy-who-I-won't-link-to-for-obvious-reasons, what you're doing sucks. It sucks a lot.

I worked hard on this audiobook. I invested almost 50 hours into the production, spread out over several weeks. I priced it under the average market price for audiobooks of its length, and I deliberately did not put DRM on it, because I don't believe in treating my customers like they are criminals. I mean, let's face it, guy-who-I-won't-link-to-for-obvious-reasons, DRM only punishes honest customers, because people like you, who steal from people like me, always find a way around it.

I notice that you have a nice big banner at the top of your webpage, imploring the people who are visiting your site to click on the ads you've put there, so you can keep the site running. I also see that you have a link for people to donate money to you. That's, um, that's rather ironic, isn't it? You are stealing from me and other authors, and then asking your fellow thieves to click on ads and give you donations, so you can make money from our work. Maybe it's just me, but that strikes me as what we would call "a real dick move."

I realize that I can't stop you from doing what you're doing. Even if I went through the hassle of filing DMCA takedown notices and filing complaints with the various authorities who handle this sort of thing, you'd just open up a new site somewhere else, and start all over again. But listen, guy-who-I-won't-link-to-for-obvious-reasons, maybe you don't realize that you're actually taking money right out of my pocket, and maybe you don't realize that what you're doing is no different than walking into a store, putting an audiobook under your jacket, and walking out with it. You're stealing from me, guy-who-I-won't-link-to-for-obvious-reasons, and I hope you'll read this, and stop.

I'd really appreciate it if you'd take these links down, and replace them with links to the place where people can purchase it from me, support my work, and ensure that I continue to release audiobooks without DRM or other annoying restrictions.

Thanks for listening,

Wil Wheaton

Memories of the Futurecast: Episode Five

Posted on 5 October, 2009 By Wil

Futurecast700px-CHoly crap! It's time for Memories of the Futurecast.

Memories of the Future, Volume One, covers the first 13 episodes of TNG, so each week, I'm choosing something from one episode, and performing an excerpt for you. It will mostly be from the synopses, which is where I think the real humor of the book lives, but from time to time, I may work in some things from the other parts.

Two important things:

  1. This does not mean the book comes out in 13 weeks. It comes out much sooner than that. In fact, it comes out October 13th. Nyahh.
  2. These are not excerpted from an audiobook. These are recorded specifically for this podcast. I'm not sure if I'll do a full-length audiobook, yet, but I'm open to the idea.

Episode Notes:

  • The Memories of the Futurecast works hard to earn its [EXPLICIT] tag. You have been warned.
  • The theme music for this show is from Jive Ass Sleepers' album Gettin' Down to Business. The track is called Private Eye.
  • I think this show is a little quiet. I think I know why, but it's too late to do anything about it.
  • Yeah, I mixed the music near the 6:40 mark poorly. You didn't miss anything, though. Aren't you glad you're not paying for this?
  • This week, it's The Last Outpost! Yes, the introduction of the most intriguing enemy ever, plus Chinese Fingercuffs! There may be technobabble. You have been warned a second time about something unrelated to the naughty bits.
  • Memories of the Futurecast is loooooong this week: almost 25 minutes.
  • Memories of the Futurecast is tubby this week: almost 12MB.
  • Memories of the Futurecast congratulates the Dodgers on winning the NL West, despite doing their very best not to over the last two weeks.
  • Memories of the Futurecast is not just another mouth in the lipstick vogue.
  • Memories of the Futurecast promises not to bug you to follow it on Twitter.
  • Memories of the Futurecast isn't even on Twitter.
  • Memories of the Futurecast misses HOBO DARKSEID on Twitter.
  • Memories of the Futurecast is done talking about Twitter.
  • Memories of the Futurecast wishes Garageband would hurry up and mix the damn show so we can post it and stop adding to this list, already.

Download Memories of the Futurecast: Episode FIVE!

(It used to say Four, because I had a temporary case of the stupids. I fixed it, though.)

not exactly time enough at last

Posted on 4 October, 2009 By Wil

I'm heading out to Tucson at the end of the week for a con my friend is running called RinCon. It sounds very similar to the laid back gaming cons I cut my geek teeth on when I was a teenager, and I'm really looking forward to it. I plan to play in as many games as I can during the weekend, and if you're planning to come to the con, you'll probably find me in open gaming playing Revolution!, Dominion, Pandemic, Munchkin, or hopping among whatever demos are available. I'm also bringing a chapter from Memories of the Future Volume One, and one from The Happiest Days of Our Lives for a reading, and there will definitely be a Rock Band party. The whole schedule will be at the con.

I went to lunch with Anne today, ordered my food, and then, while waiting for it, realized how much stuff I have to do between now and when we leave for the con. I felt so overwhelmed, I totally lost my appetite. I kind of wish we'd been dining at this place I just made up called The Science Fiction Cliché Café, where I could have ordered a device to give me more hours in each day, as well as some clones of myself to do a bunch of work for me. Sadly, we were eating at one of my favorite Indian restaurants, and I couldn't even enjoy my masala (hopefully my stomach will be settled down and I can have it for dinner tonight. Um. I've just overshared, haven't I?)

Anyway, in an effort to get this stuff under control and not feel so completely stressed out and overwhelmed: I had planned to release Memories of the Future Volume One on Tuesday, but I forgot that I'm working a voice job all day, so I'm going to delay the release until I get back from the con. I'm sure this sounds a little silly, but I've worked on this book for so long, and I've worked so hard to get it exactly how I want it, that I want to be able to participate in its release, probably with some kind of liveblog or something. Since I can't do that while working as a voice actor all day, I'm going to make everyone wait for an extra week. I'm real sorry about that, and if you're waiting for the release, I hope you understand.

Let's end on a happier note, from the not-stressful-but-actually-awesome department: it feels like Autumn today. The air is cool, the sun (when it's not behind the scattered puffy white clouds) is warm, and there's just a tiny bit of a breeze, stirring the leaves that will soon be falling from the trees in my neighborhood. Autumn is my favorite time of year, and though I know Summer isn't going to completely relax its 100 degree grip on Southern California for at least another couple of weeks, the preview we've gotten today has been wonderful.

this is the coolest picture you’ll see all day

Posted on 2 October, 2009 By Wil

Well it's been a wonderfully busy week, and now it's over. I finished Big Bang Theory on Tuesday, spent much of Wednesday wishing I was still working with them, and then recorded the voice of Mr. Qubit for the IRREDEEMABLE motion comic yesterday.

Since I'm too busy to write up the stuff that needs writing up, and I really don't like those blog posts that are about not posting to your blog, I thought I'd share this incredible picture that Warren Ellis showed me:

Mr. Spock on a Buick. Hosted by imgur.com

Have a great weekend, everyone. Memories of the Future comes out next week. (I guess I probably should have lead with that, huh?)

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