this is probably the closest i’ll ever come to having something in common with stephen colbert

Posted on By Wil

Operation Crazy Awesome Idea is nearing the “Time to find out if this is crazy awesome or just crazy,” moment of truth, so that’s where I’m sort of living at the moment. I also have a writing deadline in two hours, so I’m trying not to run around my office waving my hands over my head and screaming like I’m on fire.

Um. Not that I have any personal experience in running around offices while set on fire and — I’ve said too much.

So, while I work on these projects, please enjoy…

Let the Colbertification Begin!
This is one of those things that I should have thought of on my own, but was actually suggested by a whole bunch of different people on Twitter and here in comments. As always, you can click to embiggen at Flickr.
Stats say there are like … an insane number of first-time visitors lately. If you’re one of them (thanks for coming by!) and you want to know what this is all about, you can check out evil and awesome (but mostly awesome) which tells the story of the Infamous Velvet Wesley Crusher, and in which my already nerdy office gets a little bit nerdier, which tells the story of the paint by numbers version of the photo of me holding the Infamous Velvet Wesley Crusher.

Phoenix Comicon Rock Band Video Roundup

Posted on By Wil

Crazy ideas that may or may not be crazy are taking up pretty much all of my free time this week, so my Phoenix Comicon trip report will have to wait until Monday, but since I promised to deliver a Rock Band roundup before the end of this week, here we go.

First up is Karen B., seriously rocking to You Oughta Know. Funny story about this: right before we started playing this song, I said to her, “You know, you have to sing ‘thinking of me when you fuck her,’ even though it’s going to say something like ‘think of me when you carebears’ on the lyrics.”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” she said, clearly uncertain about using the potty mouth.

“I will totally take all the wrath if anyone gives you shit for it,” I said. “Trust me, you have to do it.”

“Okay,” she said.

When the appropriate moment arrived in the song, she belted the FUCK out of that lyric, and I peed a little. Awesome.

Next, we have a little story that I told the kids after struggling through Give It Away, which is totally not a “1” on the Drums, contrary to what the game claims:

THE BEAT, WE HAZ IT!:


Tararebeka shared this picture of me pretending to be cool at the end of the night:

And this picture of me not even trying to hide what a total dork I am just before I pretend to be cool:


Check out Joe’s awesome rock face and stance behind me! FTW, Joe. F.T.W.
You may want to check out Tararebeka’s Phoenix Comicon Rockband photoset, especially if you’re me and you had so much fun that you want to remember what it was like. If you were there, and want to tag yourself, that would be awesome.
Okay, next we have another angle on the now-legen…wait for it…dary Livin’ on a Prayer:

I find it moderately ironic and exceptionally funny that the song I really didn’t want to do ended up being the one that’s viewed the most times, and is actually my best performance of the night. Now I’m stuck with it. Damn you, Bon Jovi. (Not really. Call me. Mean it!)

Here’s a short clip that Ken from XCast put up. It gives you an idea of how much fun we were having, even when we weren’t getting the rock on:

Here were are nearing the end of the evening. If you ever wanted to: 1) Hear me make a Star Trek joke about an Offspring Song or 2) watch a bunch of guys dressed up as EM EFFING GHOSTBUSTERS play that same song, this is the clip you want to see:

And, finally, here is the finale. I can’t sing Steve Perry to save my life, and I wish the vocal track from my Mic was turned all the way off, but at this point, it’s not even about sounding good or even looking good; at this point it’s all about having fun and finishing an epic night with motherfucking JOURNEY, goddammit:


One last time, I want to thank Sean from Harmonix for supporting this event, Lee and Joe and everyone else at Phoenix Comicon for giving us the room and the time to make it happen, but most of all, everyone who came out to be part of the event. It was something really special to me, and though we’ll certainly do this at future cons, this is where it all began and you were part of it. Tell your kids and make them jealous.

boating our software

Posted on By Wil

Yesterday, I started writing a monthly column for Amazon’s End User Blog. For my first column, I looked at a really cool device that’s battling something I call Feature Creep:

…it’s increasingly difficult to find things that do just one thing, and do it very well. I blame this on something I call “Feature Creep” which I suspect comes from too many meetings, too much input from marketing, and not enough product managers and engineers who are willing to stand up and say, “You know what? I don’t think this coffee maker really needs an MP3 player in it. It’s fine just making coffee.”

Feature Creep is everywhere, bloating our software, lengthening our startup times, cluttering up our menus, and draining our batteries, so when I come across something that has successfully resisted it and stayed focused on doing one simple thing very well, I have a little bit of a pants party.

One of the best examples I’ve come across in the last year is the Netflix player from Roku. It’s a tiny little box that streams anything from Netflix’s on-demand library straight into your television, and that’s all it does.

So I’m pretty excited to have an opportunity to do for blog what I used to do for InDigital, and I’m looking forward to examining various gadgets and technology trends in the mysterious future. My column will update on the final Thursday of every month.

(If you missed this on Twitter and don’t know what the title of this post means: I put a really stupid typo into this column that snuck past me and my editor, and I was originally lamenting how feature creep is “boating” our software. Mmmm. Boating. It’s since been corrected, but I can’t help giggling about it.)

in which my already nerdy office gets a little bit nerdier

Posted on By Wil

So … I’m not even going to try to introduce this, because I can’t do it justice with my words:

Velvet Wesley Paint By Numbers #2

Yes, Angie K., who makes awesome things, figured out a way to make a freaking paint by numbers painting of the infamous Velvet Wesley Crusher painting being held by me, and then she painted it.

Angie K. is awesome (as is Mister Angie K., who is better known as Ted, but will always be Mister Angie K. to me, the way I’ll always be “Anne’s boyfriend” to our friend Burns!) I saw them at the Phoenix Comicon this weekend, and she gave me this most lovely gift that I was not worthy to receive. I’m not sure if the photo captures its majesty, but the frame matches the fame on the infamous Velvet Wesley Crusher painting almost exactly.

Thank you, Angie K., for nerding up my office that much more!

(Click photo to embiggen, and see the entire set at flickr.)