We just walked in from ApacheCon. I’ll give a full report as soon as I have a chance to write it up, but here are a few quick impresisons:
I was scared absolutely shitless when I gave my talk yesterday morning, and The Voice Of Self Doubt was so loud in my ears, I had a hard time hearing my own voice. It took me a long time to shut him up so I could just talk, but when I did, and I hit my stride, I felt like I got some good points across, and I got very positive feedback from a lot of people, including two people who told me that they’d gone into my talk convinced that blogs were lame, but left equally convinced that they were a powerful tool to empower people who have something to say.
Last night, I found out that I hosed the link to ApacheCon in the previous blog entry, with the rookie move of leaving out the “http://” in the link. Brilliant thing to do the day before I go and talk to the people who make teh Intarweb exist. I lost a terrabyte terabyte (jesus, could I be more lame?) of cool points for that blunder. I gotta tell you, there’s nothing more embarrassing (and frustrating) than finding out that I hosed something on my blog, and I don’t have a chance to fix it for over 24 hours. (I’ve since decided to leave the screwed up link, just to piss off the W3C and so there’s a nice LAME mark on my permanent record.)
Last night, I played some 3-6 poker at the Mirage with a table composed exclusively of ApacheCon geeks like me, and it RULED. The Mirage is now my official Favorite Poker Room In The World (details on that in the full report post). Anne and I also discovered a fantastic Tiki Bar, in the Venetian, called “Venus.” If you’re into that sort of thing (and I’m a HUGE dork for ultra-modern lounge culture, Tiki music, and drinks that come in a bowl on fire) you should go there NOW. I heard that they’re going to close it down pretty soon.
At 2:30 this morning, they imploded a hotel across the street from us. I’m glad I knew it was coming, because the explosions and resulting collapse of said hotel would have scared me almost as much as standing in front of the con on Monday morning.
More tomorrow. My dogs want to take a walk.

A friend of mine called me yesterday, worried, because I haven’t updated my blog in almost a week.
“Well, I’m glad you waited a whole week to call me,” I said, “because if I were dead, I’d be getting pretty stinky right now.”
“That makes no sense at all,” he said.
“I don’t have to make sense!”I said, “I’m beautiful, Lois!”
“Well, you’re still able to quote Family Guy,” he said, “so I’m going to assume you’re just busy.”
And he was right. I’ve been too busy to sit down and write about anything . . . and most of what’s going on in my life right now is either: a) too personal to blog about b) Totally Top Secret And I Can’t Talk About It or c) it’s so goddamned boring, it’s not worth the effort to talk about how boring it is.
One of the very few things that I can talk about that doesn’t fit the above criteria is Mac World!
The press release already went out, so I didn’t get a chance to scoop it, but the Really Big News is that I’ve been invited to speak at MacWorld in San Francisco in January.
I have been a Mac user since the very early days of the Mac 128. I wrote my first stories on that machine, and I still have the printouts from the dot-matrix printer I used way back then. I’ve been to several MacWorld expos, and I can’t believe that I actually get to be a part of the show.
Until now, the largest audience I’ve ever addressed was close to five thousand people at the Royal Albert Hall in London, but the audience I will at MacWorld will probably be the largest I’ve ever been in front of in my life. I hear that they’re expecting somewhere between five and six thousand people in the room, plus I think there will be some sort of simulcast online (and I’ll release my presentation under Creative Commons again,) so I could theoretically reach ten thousand people. I’m used to addressing an average crowd of about 150 people, and I get a little anxious when the crowd approaches 500 . . . but thousands?
Eep.
I should feel too nervous to even move . . . but my nerves are totally overwhelmed by excitement, because I didn’t get this invitation because I Used To Be Wesley On Star Trek, or anything like that. I got this invitation to speak because one of the MacWorld organizers saw me perform Just A Geek at Gnomedex!! It feels like I earned the opportunity, and I’m going to give the performance of my life when I’m there.
Remember when I wrote that I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be in my life right now? How I’m content, but not complacent? It’s because of things like this. I don’t feel like I need to run away from the stuff I used to do (or the person I used to be) anymore. I feel like I spent the first thirty years of my life building this complicated foundation, and now I’m living in a wonderful house atop it.
I’m off to prepare my presentation for ApacheCon on Monday in Las Vegas. Have a great weekend, everyone.

A few weeks ago, the evil geniuses at goats.com started a story called “a dish best served delicious (or, invoking godwins law)“. In the story, I play an important part in the untimely death of the Pork-o-tron 5000.
The story is related by Toothgnip and I make my first appearance here.
The whole story arc is really fantastic, and it’s worth your time to start at the beginning and read it all the way through . . . in fact, it’s the perfect way to spend some time on a Saturday afternoon. So grab yourself a beer, or a scotch, or a cup of tea, or a hooker, and check it out.

Anne and I took the kids to see The Incredibles this afternoon.
Holy.
Crap.
What an amazing movie! It is a brilliant example of why story is so very important. The animation is phenomenal — particularly the simulated hair and water motion — but without the amazing story, talented voice performers, and stellar direction, it would all be for nothing.
I predict that this movie will utterly destroy all previous box office records for Pixar films, and may even make a run at some top-grossing live action movies.
Yes, it is that good.
When we walked out of the theatre, there were some quotes from classic films embedded into the ground, and I saw one that captured something I wanted to share with my wife.
“Hey,” I said, right after we passed it, “You had me at ‘hello.'”
She looked back at me, and smiled. “I know! There are great movie quotes all over the ground here!”
“No,” I said. “You had me at ‘hello.'”
“Right,” she said. “And there’s ‘Here’s looking at you, kid,’ and there is ‘May The Force be with you,’ and there is —”
“No,” I said, and turned her to face me. “You,” I poked her in the stomach, “had me,” I poked my own stomach, “at ‘hello.'”
“Oh.” She paused for a second and blushed, “I like that a whole bunch.”
“Well,” I said, “You did.”
I love it this. Even though we’ve been together for almost a decade, I can still make her blush.

The first performance of What’s My Line? at ACME last night was an unqualified success!
Everything clicked perfectly: the panel was hilarious and played brilliantly together, the host was charming and funny, the guests were truly interesting and talented, and the set looked AMAZING.
Upon reflection, it was one of the best shows I’ve ever done. In fact, it was so good, I can’t remember a single thing about it.
No, I wasn’t drunk, I was just so focused on performing from moment to moment, I wasn’t able to stop and “watch” myself, like I can when a show sucks. All I know is that I had as much fun as I’ve ever had in a show, and when I was finished, I met several Industry people, who all told me how pleasantly surprised they were to discover that I was funny.
This one guy said to me, “I had no idea you were so funny! Why aren’t you on a sitcom?”
Before I could answer, he said, “I mean, I really didn’t think you were funny.”
“You’re in good company,” I said, “with just about the entire entertainment industry.”
Another woman told me that she loved the show, and will come back every week for the entire run.
“There’s a fine line between ‘devoted fan of the show’ and ‘stalker,’ you know,” I said.
She totally topped me: “Well, I’m not going to be ignored, Wil!”
I laughed again . . . but it was about 70% nervous.
I also found out that a lot of people read my website, and a lot of other people believe the totally fake bio I wrote about being a hobo.
I told this one guy that I didn’t think anyone could possibly believe that, but apparently they do.
“Do you think I should change it?” I asked.
“No way,” he said. “It’s hilarious.”
“Oh.” I said. “Thanks!”
We had a very full house, which is uncommon and pretty surprising for the first performance of a show, especially on a Wednesday, but they were totally with us from the very beginning, and that contributed to the success in a BIG way. So if you came out last night, thank you!!
I’m absolutely loving my life as a writer, but the show last night, and a couple of really wonderful auditions recently have reminded me how much I enjoy being on stage, and performing for a live audience.
This is the beginning of about five months of amazing shows at ACME, and I’m luckily to be part of two of them. I don’t say this about everything that I do, (actually, I hardly ever say this about anything that I do) but it’s totally worth coming out to see What’s My Line? at ACME.