WIL WHEATON dot NET

Paging Leeroy Jenkins

Posted on 14 April, 2006 By Wil

My friend Sean Bonner is a self-described "casual player" in World of Warcraft. Sean is also the co-creator of Metroblogging.com, so he recently added Metroblogging: Azeroth to the list of Metroblogging cities.

Yeah, "casual," not "totally into it." I totally believe you, Sean.

I don’t play WoW (for reasons which will become apparent in a moment) but six million people do, and a Metroblog for a virtual city is just too geeky to ignore, so I interviewed Sean for SGNews Geekwire this morning:

W – Unlike something that would make a great April Fool’s gag, like Metroblogging: The Island from Lost, this could actually take off, because to many people, Azeroth is a real place. When you did it, did you think at all that it would have a life longer than the typical "I kiss you" meme?

S – Oh totally, we didn’t do this as a prank, and that’s exactly why we didn’t do it on April Fools. It’s something we’ve been thinking about for several months now at least and finally had enough people who wanted to give it a shot. So we put it together in all seriousness, just like one of our other cities, to see what happens.

[. . .]

W – How much time do you spend playing?

S – More than I want to admit?

W – Hah. That’s a great answer.

S – That’s actually a kind of deceptive question, but you wouldn’t know it if you don’t play.

W – Oh, perfect. Another Geek meme I’m not in on.

S – Dude, seriously, it’s nuts, you should check it out.

W – No way. I lost a year of my life to a MUD, and that was free and just text over telnet. I’m going to have to go to a meeting now, just because you brought it up.

Technorati Tags: WoW, Warcraft, metroblogging

some further reading

Posted on 12 April, 2006 By Wil

Well, I turned in Games of Our Lives, and I get to walk away from the computer and do some marathon training, but before I go, I thought I’d point out some of the stories I’ve worked on recently at CardSquad and SGNews:

At SGNews, (which is safe for work):

I edited a story that Seanbaby wrote about Lara Croft entering the Guinness Book of World Records. Seanbaby is hellafunny, and his story cracked me up.

I also wrote two stories of my own, about a disposable MP3 player that just costs nine bucks, and a story about Apple offering (or not offering) adult movies in the iTunes Music Store.

There’s also a story I wrote last week about this guy who modded a 1988 Ford Escort into a street legal Landspeeder. For reals. It’s a story that I’m particularly proud of, because I got to work in a ton of geek jokes.

At CardSquad:

I opine that the F-Bomb Rule has got to go.

Also, Bodog was sued over their reality show,
which is quite a lucky bit of free publicity for them, just a few days
before the show is set to air.

In poker-related news, this
Sunday I’m filling in for Isabelle Mercier in the Tournament
Leaderboard Heads-Up match at PokerStars. Two weeks ago, I filled in
for Joe Hachem and won, bringing my record in those matches to 3 and 1.
I’m hoping to make it 4 and 1 this week. Even if you don’t have a PokerStars account, you can download the client for free and watch me play, if you’d like. I’ll put up all the details on that later this week.

Okay, I’m off to run, then walk, then run a little bit more, then curse about how much my side hurts, then run again. Anne will have a post about the marathon in the next day or so, maybe even tonight if I can bug her enough to write it.

. . . one last thought, because I think it’s important to mark moments like this: I have a really great life, and I’m incredibly grateful for that. I can head out at 1:10 in the afternoon on a Wednesday, after writing stuff that I’m proud of and enjoyed working on all morning, to train for a marathon that I’m running in to raise money for cancer research in June. Later today, I’ll get to play Risk with Ryan and Nolan, then watch Lost tonight after having BBQ for dinner with my family. And I know that, if my dog could talk, she’d say, "I love you, Wil, so I’m going to keep hitting you with my paw until you get up, take me outside, and throw the ball."

Okay, maybe it’s more about the ball than it is about me, but I’m still one of the luckiest guys in the world.

there is always soma, delicious soma

Posted on 12 April, 2006 By Wil

When I work on Games of our Lives, I usually listen to Fred on 44 or Ethel on 47. I used to listen to Lucy on 54, but it’s recently become totally unlistenable, thanks to the addition of Sheryl Crow (on the “alternative” station?), and the heavy rotation of Foo Fighters and Red Hot Chili Peppers, making my satellite radio just as annoying as my regular radio. Way to go, XM.

Today, however, I’m listening to some fantastic radio from the internets that I thought I’d share with the five of you who don’t know about it already: SomaFM, from San Francisco, specifically the Secret Agent station.

I used to listen to Soma quite often in the pre-Mac days, when I’d stream music over shoutcast on my Linux machine, but I usually listened to Groove Salad. I forgot about it until I found the Secret Agent station sort of by accident last night, and I’ve been listening to it pretty much nonstop since I got up this morning. So check it out, if you want to hear something you probably haven’t heard before, or are in the mood for something totally different.

And while I’m off to work on next week’s Games of our Lives, I encourage you to take a look at this week’s installment, Bermuda Triangle, which has some cool (in my opinion, anyway) Easter Egg-ish obscure references for your “hey! I got that!” pleasure. While you’re there, you may want to take a look at Guzzler, which I also think is pretty funny.

lost

Posted on 11 April, 2006 By Wil

I just realized that, last night, I front-paged a really huge Lost spoiler. I forgot that lots of non-US viewers read my blog, and I wanted to apologize for that. That sucked, and I’m sorry.

I’ve spent the last 10 days catching up on the entire series, first on DVD and then through iTMS. I have never been so enthralled with a series in my life, not even when I first watched The Prisoner in my teens.

I think it’s so cool that there are things like iTMS (and, uh, other ways which I don’t personally use) to experience an entire series like this. By making their shows easy for me to watch, the producers of Lost have earned a huge fanboy who will now buy merchandise and listen to their podcast, and evangelize on his lame blog about how great their show is.

If you like any of the things that I like, and you’re not watching Lost, you absolutely must. Right now. When you think you’re going to watch American Idol, or Bones, or Medium, or re-runs of that awesome space show with the kid in the sassy grey spacesuit, or anything else at all on television, don’t. Just get yourself the first season on DVD, and spend your allocated television time watching Lost instead. Then find some way to watch the second season (iTMS worked great for me) and keep going. I guarantee you will not be disappointed. It is quite possibly the best drama in the history of network television, ever, and I don’t say that lightly.

ouch. ouch. ouch. ouch.

Posted on 10 April, 2006 By Wil

Remember that one time in Encounter At Farpoint when Counselor Troi wailed out, "Pain! Pain!"

Remember when Mr. Spock was all, "Pain! Pain!" which was totally not Vulcan-like?

Remember when [Lost spoiler redacted]?

Remember that time your company had a Christmas party, and instead of a band, they got an Agony Booth?

Yeah, that’s me right now. Yesterday, I was smashing some trash down in the trashcan beneath the sink, and I learned that a dogfood can lid on its side is an incredibly efective cutting tool, especially against the top of my thumb, just across the knuckle.

If you ever want to see what the inside of your thumb looks like, or you want to bleed twenty-three gallons of blood all over your house on your way from the kitchen to the bathroom (because, having seen the inside of your thumb, you’re kind of in shock and don’t stop to think, "Hey, there’s a sink right here, dummy, don’t go all the way across the house to the bathroom!") or you’d just like to watch your normal typing rate drop by 90%, this is a great way to do that.

Oh, and as an added bonus? You get to wake up about every 90 minutes all night long, because your thumb is throbbing, itching, or both. And if you play your cards right, you’ll get to have a tetanus shot, too.

Yeah. Goodtimes. Good. Times.

Hopefully, I’ll be back to normal by Thursday, but until then, probably not so much new spiffy stuff here or elsewhere, because typing is a real bitch right now.

Afterthought: a bunch of people have asked why I didn’t have the deadly lid and the can in the recycling, where it belongs. That’s a good question; unfortunately, the answer is: I just didn’t walk the lid out there, and the can was being used to hold bacon grease (gross.) If it makes a difference, I’ve had PTSD every time I’ve gone anywhere near the sink in the last 24 hours. And I’m on my way to the hospital to get a tetanus shot tonight, instead of waiting for my regular doctor tomorrow afternoon.

11 PM – Aaaaannnnd I’m back. I went to urgent care at 8, because "that would be faster than the ER," logic which apparently comes from the run-across-the-house-while-bleeding portion of the brains.

Okay, it actually was a lot faster than the ER, and I had no business being in the ER with my ~~gaping and life-threatening~~ little wussy cut anyway . . . but let’s be honest with each other: didn’t "that would be faster than the ER," logic which apparently comes from
the run-across-the-house-while-bleeding portion of the brains make you giggle a little bit? I’m glad, because nothing makes a joke funnier than pointing it out, and going on and on about it.

The attending was impressed with my butterfly sutures and my splinting, didn’t laugh at my totally awesome pirate bandage, and gave me a tetanus booster before sending me on my way with no need for making-Wil-faint stitches. I was going to ask for a "be nice to be cuz I’ve been shot" sticker, with the teddy bear and the hearts and bows, but I figured that being able to take a rusty nail without fear until I’m forty-three years-old was good enough.