Bad Astronomy reviews Happiest Days

Posted on By Wil

Phil Plait, aka The Bad Astronomer, reviewed The Happiest Days of Our Lives!

This book is really good. Are you a geek? Grew up playing video
games? Go to cons? Watch Trek? Have your own set of d10s, d12, and d20s
(and if you even know what that means, then yes, you count)? Yeah, you
know who you are. You are already one of us, whether you admit it or
not. Come. Join us. Be with Wil and Phil and countless others who enjoy
— nay, revel — in nerddom.

Wil’s writing makes this way of life less of the fringe it was when
I was a kid and more of a real thing, a legitimate lifestyle choice.
Sure, you get razzed by others, but this is really how we are.
You get a taste of it through Wil’s eyes, through his reminiscing.
There’s a nice mix of real-guy-with-a-life-and-family mixed in with
fanboy mixed in with being an actual TV and movie actor. Also, I play
poker, so his story about a Hollywood poker speakeasy made me laugh.

To mark this occasion, I am happy to announce that within the next 24 hours I’ll begin accepting orders from everywhere in the world. In addition to the US, we’ll ship to The Canada, The UK, The The European Union, The Australia, and The Everywhere Else. International customers: please understand that the shipping costs are insane, and because I have to fill out each custom form by hand, shipping times will take at least two weeks, but I’ll do my best to make it shorter.

I’m still working on a solution to sell the hardbacks. I’m getting closer, and I don’t think I’ll be able to use PayPal as a shopping cart and storefront, because the problem I’m currently having, item numbers aren’t showing up in multiorder shiping, has existed and remained untouched by PayPal since April.

We’re currently looking at lots of different cart and backend options, and we may have found something that is going to work for us, and is Open Source as a bonus! We looked at Yahoo shopping, Z Shops at Amazon, and Google Checkout, but they all had various deal-killing issues.

xkcd goes postal

Posted on By Wil

Today’s xkcd is even more relevant to my life than it usually is, since I’ve spent a lot of time at the post office lately.

a different perspective on numb three ers

Posted on By Wil

The art department at Numb3rs created the best fake comic convention I’ve ever seen for last week’s show. The level of detail was phenomenal, including things like a stack of flyers welcoming participants to the con, booths from Wizkids, and WOTC, and appearances by several different real life comic creators.

One of those comic creators, Tony Fleecs (In My Lifetime, POSTCARDS: True Stories that Never Happened) talked to the comic podcast Word Balloon about his experiences on the set. It’s an enjoyable listen for comic readers, and people who just want to know what it’s like to be on the set of a television show from the perspective of someone who doesn’t work in the TV industry every day. He also said some nice things about me, which made my sugar hangover a little more bearable.

(Thanks to reader Ethan J., for the link!)

the thursday hangover

Posted on By Wil

When I woke up this morning, my head was throbbing, I felt sick to my stomach, and my whole body felt toxic.

"Oh my god." I thought. "I have a hangover."

I kicked off the covers, and sat on the edge of my bed, my head in my hands.

"This doesn’t make sense," I thought. "I drank two beers in four hours last night. What the hell?"

Anne walked into our room, holding her head in one hand, the other across her stomach.

"Oh my god," she said. "I am never eating candy again. I have such a sugar hangover."

"I am so relieved," I said. "I thought I was even more old and lame than I am, and I had a hangover from two beers."

She looked at me.

"I know, it’s a silly thing to be happy about."

We walked out into the living room together, and saw the shameful evidence of the previous night’s debauchery: fun size candy wrappers littered our dining room table. A half-eaten Baby Ruth sat on a pile of Butterfinger crumbs, and a salad bowl, that was filled to overflowing with treats for our neighborhood ghouls last night, was nearly empty.

It was a monument to excess, standing defiantly against our efforts to live a healthy and balanced life.

As I scooped up handfuls of wrappers, a half-melted Kit-Kat stuck to the side of my hand. I was revolted by the smell of it, the way it felt, the soft chocolate pressing crispy bits of delicious crunchity wafer into my skin.

"I can’t believe I thought it was a good idea to mix Nestle with Hershey’s last night," I said, the memory of a furious game of Sorry! flashing through through a chocolate-stained lens of shame.

A few minutes later, it was all cleaned up. "I’m going to go back to bed," I said, "and hope that I don’t see a chocolate-covered baby crawling on the ceiling."