and i thought that i had a weird day . . .

Posted on By Wil

Neil Gaiman:

Got to Cornwall about 4:30 am (I slept for an hour or so in the car, then read a script). Dropped off by car and driver at hotel. Glad to see someone up and about to check me in. Take my bags to front desk, tip driver handsomely. Driver drives away. Night-porter slowly establishes that I’m not actually staying in that hotel, but another several miles away, and that driver was a bit overenthusiastic in dropping me off at hotel. Also that you can’t get a taxi in rural Cornwall at five in the morning so I am stuck there. I sit in the lobby and write Batman. Somehow, in my jet-lagged state, this all seems quite normal.

There’s something magical in the air. It’s just over the horizon, so I don’t know exactly what it is, but I can feel it coming on the wind.

memphis to mars

Posted on By Wil

Anne and I are painting cabinets and working in the house today, so I only have time for three quick things while I eat:

  • This Savage Chickens comic made me giggle.
  • I read on Lifehacker yesterday that the final release of OpenOffice.org version 3.0 – which finally includes native Aqua support for OS X – is now available. I’ve used OpenOffice.org for all of my books, and I just love it. I haven’t had a chance to do more than start up 3.0 to make sure it compiled correctly, but it looks beautiful. Congratulations to everyone who worked on it.
  • Did anyone else see Bill Maher last night? This economist, Stephen Moore, was the real life version of the character Stephen Colbert plays on the Colbert Report. For the first ten minutes of the panel, I thought he was doing a bit, stealing from Colbert. When I realized that he wasn’t . . . wow.

It’s so beautifully autumn-like in my neighborhood today, I could just fall over with joy. It’s in the mid-60s, completely clear, and a little breezy. This is my favorite time of year.

ETA OMG: Congratulations to Sean and Tara!

and now, your daily dose of zombies

Posted on By Wil

Think Geek has way, way, way too much fun with the Dismember Me Plush Zombies:

When I see stuff like this, I am inspired to make silly short films like this of my own. Then I look at all the other stuff I have to do, and I’m a little sad that I can’t. Then I remember how lucky I am that I get to do all the things I get to do, and I feel like a dick for feeling sad. Then I watch the video again, and want to make a silly short film of my own. Then, I resolve to break the cycle, realize that it’s probably time for a Guinness, and all is right with the world.

(Seriously, though, isn’t it awesome to live at a moment in history when any creative person with a small budget can make something awesome and freely share it with the world? That wasn’t possible as recently as ten years ago.)

in which wil has a weird (and awesome) day

Posted on By Wil

“wilw: I think I may die from too much fun today. I’m working on Naruto this morning, then Family Guy this afternoon.”

This morning, I finished my arc on Naruto. I can’t say anything specific (I actually shouldn’t have said I was working on it at all until it aired. Oops.) but my shows will start airing in about a month, and I can tell some behind the scenes stuff then.

After I finished recording, I had about 2 hours before I was scheduled to work on Family Guy, so on the way I stopped at this pizza place I’ve always wanted to eat at in Burbank called Dino’s. Oh my god. I had this pizza called the caponata: roasted eggplant, green olives, garlic, onions, tomatoes, capers and fresh basil. OM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM.

While I was there, I read an actual newspaper, which was a rather exciting and retro experience. I used to read the Los Angeles Times and the Daily News every day, and the New York Times on Sundays, and today was the first time I’ve held a newspaper in my hands that wasn’t The Onion in over a year.

After lunch, I drove down to Hollywood for Family Guy. On my way down Highland, I saw at least a dozen different street corner prophets, hollering at traffic about one thing or another. In the median at Highland and Melrose, I saw legendary Hollywood crazy person Melrose Larry Green. He had a political sign, but he was waving it around so much, I couldn’t read it. Dang.

I record Family Guy (and Cavalcade) in an office building down on Wilshire near LACMA. It’s a really cool place, where the Evil Monkey tells people to recycle, a Family Guy pinball machine is available on free play, and a ping pong table takes up much of the waiting area near the recording booths. There were two people playing when I got there, and after I read my sides (holy shit is it a funny scene) I looked up to see Seth Green playing.

I sort of knew Seth when we were much younger, because he was one of those guys I’d run into at auditions all the time. He was a little nerdy, and always really nice and unassuming, with a great sense of humor. I remember once, back in 1998 or 1999, I said to him, “You know, Seth, you’re a little nerdy, and you’re also nice and unassuming, with a great sense of humor. You should do a TV show where you satirize movies and popular culture with animated action figures.”*

I wasn’t sure if he’d remember me since it had been so long, but it turns out that he did, and after talking to him for a few minutes I was really happy to see that he’s the same exceedingly nice and easygoing guy I sort knew all those years ago. Before I left, we played some ping pong, and discussed the awesomeness of being on Team I Have An Awesome Beard. He recently moved to team I Don’t Have A Beard Because It Was Too Itchy, but the bond between bearded and formerly-bearded brothers was still strong. And awesome.**

When I recorded my lines, Seth MacFarlane directed me. My scene was with Peter Griffin, and I am as proud of myself as I’ve ever been that I didn’t lose my shit when Seth read me into my first line in Peter’s voice. I also told him that I’m still laughing about Surfin’ Bird, and nearly convinced him that members of The Trashmen were all deadbeat dads to the same former groupie, so the increased sales on iTunes was finally feeding her numerous bastard children. (This was way, way funnier than it seems now. Making outrageous shit up like that and committing to it completely is one of my favorite ways to amuse myself.)

On my way home, I hoped to complete my strange trip into Hollywood with an Angelyne sighting, but I got to see a hobo getting all Office Space on his shopping cart instead, while a bunch of other hoboes watched . . . and guarded theirs.

There was no traffic on the freeway, and I got home in 27 minutes.

I think it’s safe to say I had a very weird day.

*This never actually happened.

**Awesome.

Disneyland for Gamers

Posted on By Wil

OMG:

True Realm – A HUGE two-day “gamer theme park” that is packed with TWO DUNGEONS and TD mini-events!

It is a shared gamer-geek dream that someday there would be a “theme park” just for medieval fantasy gamers – and it is finally here! Due to the overwhelming response from volunteers and players regarding the “True Dungeon: Director’s Cut” event, we have greatly expanded the scope of the event to create a medieval fantasy cityscape loaded with cool gaming events. Not only will the “theme park” be DOUBLE the size of the Gen Con Indy True Dungeon event, but there will be TWO unique True Dungeon modules offered as well as many cool TD mini-events. You can spend two full days completely immersed in “True Realm” while living out your “True Gamer” dreams!

True Realm will be housed inside a 40,000 sq. ft. cavernous warehouse, and it will be divided up into the Dungeons and the City. The Dungeons will take up about 28,000 sq. ft. and it will be the area where all the True Dungeon events are held. The City will be a 12,000 sq. ft. detailed medieval fantasy cityscape complete with cool, high-quality facades and lighting.

I did True Dungeon once at GenCon SoCal. I absolutely loved it right up until I died in the spider room. Now, I realize that telling “how I died in True Dungeon” is like telling a bad beat story in poker, so I’ll go ahead and give you all 1d6 GP if you read this story and ever play in one of my campaigns.

We were in the spider room. Most of us avoided getting webbed, including me, the cleric, and the fighter. I was a Bard, so I started singing a song to inspire the fighter. The fighter started wailing on the spider, who decided that the best defense was to only attack me. The cleric was so busy laughing at my song, he never healed me (thanks, Cal) and I died pretty quickly after taking two massive blows on successive turns.

Here’s the thing: afterward, the woman running the room made a very big deal about how she “didn’t take it easy on Wil Wheaton.” Gosh, thanks for that. Her, um, “logic” was that the spider saw that I was powering the fighter, decided that I was a more serious threat than the fighter – who was beating on it with a sword – and acted accordingly.

Okay, let’s just take a moment and consider this. Dungeon Masters, I’m talking to you now: What’s the Monstrous Spider’s average intelligence?

Taking a look at the 3.0 Monster Manual (which is what we were using at the time) a Monstrous Spider has an intelligence of wait for it … zero. Now, I’m just a simple country chicken lawyer, but isn’t it kinda hard to know that the guy wailing on you with a sword would be a slightly smaller threat if you took out the Bard who was inspiring him with song when your fucking intelligence is zero? I’ve only been running games for 20 years, though, so maybe I’m using some arcane interpretation of the rules that wasn’t operative at the time.

It was an incredibly frustrating way to die, because it seemed unfair and arbitrary. I wouldn’t mind dying some kind of heroic death, or falling into the Pit of Infinite Falling You Dumb Ass because I did something stupid, but getting thumped because the DM for that room didn’t want to “take it easy on Wil Wheaton” seemed really lame to me.

For what it’s worth, I’ve talked to other people who played that year, and lots of them have similar complaints about the way that particular room was run. Everything else, though, was spectacular, and I’d highly recommend the experience, which is wonderfully memorable whether you survive or not.

Anyway, enough about me. Where and when is this magnificent True Realm happening?

True Realm will be open on Friday, April 3rd and Saturday, April 4th 2009 from 9:30am until 11:00pm. The two True Dungeon adventures (as well as the two TD mini-events) will have start times from 10:00am until 10:00pm. The event will take place in a very easy-to-find warehouse in southern Illinois just six miles west of Interstate 57 at Exit 58.

There are a ton of events, including mini-events called True Raid and True Grind that are exactly what they sound like. What can you do when you’re not crawling through one of the dungeons? Get your emm effing geek on, that’s what:

Between the times you spend playing all of the ticketed events, you can have fun enjoying many free activities like the aforementioned Bard’s Contest and the Costume Contest. Or, you can visit the Inn or the Tavern for some refreshment while picking up an open game or trading some tokens. Also, you can sit down to strategize with your team for an upcoming event, or you can just sit back and talk about old gaming exploits while enjoying a turkey drumstick – barbarian style.

Okay, I’ll have to bring my own Tofurkey drumstick, but I think I can handle that, because this sounds like the greatest thing for gamers since they put dice in a bag.

(Thanks to reader DM for the link!)