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.

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.

Last week, I mentioned one of those “so cool I can’t talk about it” projects. Today, I can go ahead and reveal what it was: I composed that post about an hour before I put on pointy sideburns and a space suit, brought Lieutenant Commander Wesley Crusher back to life as the Assistant Chief Engineer of the USS Titan.

Before I tell you why, I would like to point out that it was particularly gratifying to see that his rank, considering this, from Dancing Barefoot:

“One time, when we were renegotiating our contracts, we were all asking for raises.

“We all felt a salary increase was appropriate, because The Next Generation was a hit. It was making gobs of money for Paramount,” (I like that word – gobs) “and we felt that we should share in that bounty.

“Of course, Paramount felt otherwise, so a long and annoying negotiation process began.

“During that process, the producers’ first counteroffer was that, in lieu of a raise, they would give my character a promotion, to lieutenant.”

I pause, and look around. I wrinkle my brow, and gaze upward.

“What? Were they serious?”

A fan hollers, “Yeah! Lieutenant Crusher! Woo!”

I smile back at him.

“My agent asked me what I wanted to do. I told him to call them back and remind them that Star Trek is just a television show.”

Okay, that was risky to say. It’s pretty much the opposite of just a television show to these people, but I’ve gotten the audience back, and they giggle.

“I imagined this phone call to the bank,” I mime a phone, and hold it to my ear. “Hi . . . Uh, I’m not going to be able to make my house payment this month, but don’t worry! I am a lieutenant now.” I pause, listening to the voice on the other end.

“Where? Oh, on the Starship Enterprise.”

I pause.

“Enterprise D, yeah, the new one. Feel free to drop by Ten Forward for lunch someday. We’ll put it on my officer’s tab!”

It’s for Star Trek: The Tour, which starts in Long Beach on January 17th, where it’s going to live for about a month before it goes on a national tour later this year.

In addition to the encounter thing that I’m in, there are some really cool things for Trekkies on this tour, including full-size recreations of the NCC-1701 and NCC-1701-D bridges (where you can trade some of your gold-pressed latinum for the opportunity to sit in the captain’s chair and pose for a picture) corridors you can walk through, and more costumes and props than you could feed a Targ. Sadly, there is no Ten Forward where we can all have a drink on my officer’s tab, but there is a killer app that I can’t wait to try out: There is this thing where you step into a blue screen environment, and through the magic of teleprompters, multiple camera angles, and creative editing, perform in a mini episode of the original series, where you’ll get to act with Kirk and Spock. I’m hoping that I can improvise some dialog with Kirk about his, uh, luxurious maine of carefully-styled hair.

Two down, two to go! Be sure to drink your Ovaltine!