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50,000 Monkeys at 50,000 Typewriters Can't Be Wrong

Still Alive . . . in Joust

Still Alive may be my favorite song of 2007, and is certainly the greatest video game song to be recorded since I had Pac-Man fever.

Here’s a version of Still Alive, sung about Joust.

My life is complete.

(via JoCo)

15 January, 2008 Wil 12 Comments

The Return of MST3K

I was twenty years-old the first time I saw MST3K. I was sitting on the couch with a friend of mine, looking for something to watch on a Sunday morning, when she stopped on some crappy old horror movie.

"What’s this?" I said.

"You’ve never seen this before?"

"No," I said, "That’s why I asked ‘what’s this.’"

"It’s a show about this guy who is trapped in space with robots, and is forced to watch horrible movies. So he and the robots talk back to the screen."

It reminded me of this show I first watched on KDOC here in Los Angeles when I was a freshman in high school, called Mad Movies. I became a fan for life in a matter of minutes, and developed a list of favorites just as fast: Manos, the Hands of Fate, Rocketship XM and Lost Continent are a few that come instantly to mind.

MST3K’s Joel Hodgson once said, "We don’t ask ourselves, ‘will anyone get this?’ We tell each other, ‘the right people will get this.’" I was inspired by that philosophy, and when I wrote sketch comedy or did improv (both pursuits inspired by MST3K and the British Whose Line?) I used it, and I still use it today, even when I’m not writing comedy.

So now that there’s some context for how much I love MST3K, you’ll understand how excited I was when I saw that most of the original crew has reunited for Cinematic Titanic, which I believe can be safely called The Return of MST3K:

Cinematic Titanic is a feature length movie riffing show and is an
artist owned and operated venture created by Joel Hodgson, the creator
of the Peabody award-winning Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Cinematic
Titanic features the original cast and writers of MST3K, which is
Hodgson (Joel Robinson), Trace Beaulieu (Crow), and J. Elvis Weinstein
(Tom Servo). Filling out the ensemble is Mary Jo Pehl (Pearl Forrester)
and Frank Conniff (TV’s Frank).

While this is exciting to me as a fan, it’s also inspiring and validating to me as a creative person who lives on the Long Tail. Instead of waiting for a network to give them the opportunity to bring their show to viewers, they’re distributing the show on DVD themselves. Between this and Riff Trax, we Misties have a lot to celebrate these days.
 

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some rock climbing to do.

15 January, 2008 Wil 39 Comments

it’s graphic, and it’s awesome

DailyBits compiled a list of seventeen — seventeen! —  free and dowloadable graphic novels.

DailyBits, calls them "sensational" and I agree. Look at some of them:

Fell #1 from Warren Ellis

Detective Richard Fell is transferred over the bridge from the big city to Snowtown, a feral district whose police roster numbers three-and-a-half people (one detective has no legs). Dumped in this collapsing urban trashzone, Richard Fell is starting all over again.

Y: The Last Man Vol. 1: Unmanned by Brian K. Vaughan

When a plague of unknown origin instantly kills every mammal with a Y chromosome, unemployed and unmotivated slacker Yorick Brown suddenly discovers that he is the only male left in a world inhabited solely by women.

Sandman #1: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman

A wizard attempting to capture Death to bargain for eternal life traps her younger brother Dream instead. Fearful for his safety, the wizard kept him imprisoned in a glass bottle for decades. After his escape, Dream, also known as Morpheus, goes on a quest for his lost objects of power. On the way, Morpheus encounters Lucifer and demons from Hell, the Justice League, and John Constantine, the Hellblazer.

Next time someone asks you to define awesome, you may want to point them to this list (you could also show them this collection of people posing with album covers in a rather clever way.) It’s also a spectacular resource to use if you’ve ever wanted to introduce people to graphic novels.

(via Pulp 2.0)

13 January, 2008 Wil 27 Comments

the best thing, ever

Anne and I went into a little coffee place in Eagle Rock this afternoon, on a spur of the moment date.

While we waited, the girl who poured our coffee looked at me from behind the espresso machine and said, "Are you who I think you are?"

I’ve heard this question a lot in my life, and there really isn’t a good way to answer it that doesn’t make me feel like a dick.

"I’m not sure," I said. "Who do you think I am?"

She hesitated before saying, in a soft and uncertain voice, "Are you . . . Wil . . . Wil Wheaton?"

"Yeah," I said. "That’s me."

She blushed and smiled. "You’re my favorite!"

Anne, took my hand in hers and squeezed it. Her eyes sparkled. "He’s my favorite, too," She said.

I looked at my wife. I felt the same way I did when she said, "Yes."

"That’s the best thing, ever," I said.

***
Please read this note. Thanks.

11 January, 2008 Wil 76 Comments

announcement four of four (collect them all!)

I’m going to be at Phoenix Comicon the weekend of January 26-27. I’m excited to come to Phoenix because there’s a decent Eventful Demand for me, it’s only an hour by plane, and it’ll be the first time I’ve been there in over a decade. Plus, it’s a freakin’ comic convention so I’ll bring an empty suitcase with me.

I’ll have softcover and hardback copies of The Happiest Days of Our Lives, Volume 2 of Star Trek: The Manga, and if I can get O’Reilly to delver them to me in time, some copies of Dancing Barefoot and Just A Geek. If everything works out, you could theoretically come to the show, give me some shiny gold rocks, and walk away with The Collected Works of Me, Wil Wheaton.

I’ll be signing books and pictures and babies and robots all weekend, but on Saturday night at 8, I’ll be performing material from Happiest Days (probably Blue Light Special) and reading my review of Justice from TV Squad. (Oh, I’ll also have a few of the limited-edition chapbooks called Space Oddity that I made for the Big Honkin’ Creation Convention in Vegas last year that collect some of my TNG reviews. I think there’s about a dozen or so left.)

Though I used to go to a different city every weekend, I haven’t traveled much for cons for the last several years, choosing to stay home with my family and invest the costs associated with traveling into my home and Global Domination Fund. Perhaps more personal but certainly no less important to me, I also stayed away because I didn’t want to be one of those guys who goes to conventions and tells the same stories about something that happened twenty years ago over and over again. With all the books I’ve written in the last few years, though, and with the stuff that’s coming out this year, I feel like I have something new and unique to bring to audiences, so I don’t currently feel that way, which is really, really nice.

I don’t know where else I’ll be going this year, but if this goes well, I’ll be very motivated to find some other cons in other parts of the country to attend this year. No pressure, Phoenix, but Atlanta wants to talk to you about something.

10 January, 2008 Wil 47 Comments

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It's Storytime with Wil Wheaton


Every Wednesday, Wil narrates a new short fiction story. Available right here, or wherever you get your podcasts. Also available at Patreon.

Wil Wheaton’s Audiobooks

Still Just A Geek is available wherever you get your audiobooks.

My books Dancing Barefoot, The Happiest Days of Our Lives, and Dead Trees Give No Shelter, are all available, performed by me. You can listen to them for free, or download them, at wilwheaton.bandcamp.com.

Wil Wheaton’s Books

My New York Times bestselling memoir, Still Just A Geek is available wherever you get your books.


Visit Wil Wheaton Books dot Com for free stories, eBooks, and lots of other stuff I’ve created, including The Day After and Other Stories, and Hunter: A short, pay-what-you-want sci-fi story.

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