I heart script kiddies

“Hey, Wil! Where’s your burrito?” was the subject of an Email I got today…well, my burrito was haxxored.
But thanks to the efforts of the greatest webhosts, EVER, Josh and Loren, I think we’re back on track, now. Josh spent the day on a plane, got home, and helped get the servers back together. Loren spent his entire day off getting the servers back up, and restoring all the sites.
I think now is as good a time as any to give a little history on how this lame site came about…
Last year, at comic-con, I met this really cool guy named Ben. Ben is an artist, and had drawn some of the coolest little comic books I have ever seen.
Fast forward to about 2 months before comic-con. I am spending quite a bit of time playing Diablo 2, and surfing the net. One Saturday, while my wife is out of town, I decide to spend the entire day at the computer, and you know what that means…no, not that…I decided to spend the day making a website.
I have wanted a presence on the web for a long time, but I just never got around to it. I was offered, many times, the help of professional designers, but I wanted to do the whole thing myself, for better or for worse. I didn’t want this to be just another lame celebrity website. I wanted to have a website that looked more like one of your friend’s sites, and less like some Big Hollywood Jackass. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I need to back up to that Saturday.
I went to Yahoo! Geocities, and made that “tvswilwheaton” account. Yes, I did that because I thought it was a very cheesy name, and kind of silly, and plain old “wil wheaton” was taken. I had absolutely no idea how to write/*.phpL, I knew nothing of tables, CSS, or anything, so I used the Yahoo! Pagebuilder, to do a sort of WYSIWYG page design. Oh, it was lame alright. Mucho lame. But I did it to see if I could, and to see if anyone even cared.
So, speed ahead to this year’s Comic-con. I made some really silly flyers that had the address of my website on them, and passed them out to anyone who came to see me.
TANGENT: I *LOVE* comics. I have over 5000 of them, much to my wife’s chagrin. I love comic-con, too, because it’s just so magnificently geeky, and good things always happen to me there. Here’s how it works: I can go, and sign autographs for people, sell a few things, and pay for the trip. Now, here is a warning to all current and future (and past) celebrities: The Autograph Area is where careers go to die. It can be really cool, and it can be really sad. Just know why you’re there…it’s like they say about poker: if you don’t know who the sucker at the table is, it’s you. Dig?
So it’s the Saturday of comic-con. I have talked my friend Kevin (who isn’t an actor, he’s just graduated Art-freaking-Center with HONORS as an illustrator…yet he has, through all sorts of crazy circumstances, mostly involving me, gotten TONS of work. You’d totally recognize him if you saw him) into coming with me for the day. We’re planning on me signing from 11 until 5, having some dinner, checking out the guests, and heading home.
Well, we get there at 11, and at 2, when we’re planning on taking a little lunch break, they give us the boot, to make room for someone else. Since our train doesn’t leave for like 8 hours, we head downstairs, to see what we can see.
A few hours later, as we’re getting ready to leave, I see Ben. I know it’s him, because of his unmistakable, ever-present hat. Ben is with some people, one of whom is Loren. I am really excited to see Ben, because I really, really liked his comics last year, and I wanted to see some new ones…problem was, he hadn’t made any, yet. But I gave him the address for my lame website, and asked him to take a look.
A few days later, I got an email from Ben, saying that he liked my site, because the content was cool, but the design was lame (which I’d known all along, mind you, so just get off my back, monkey!). He suggested that I check out this site called Killoggs, that he started with some of his friends. He said that I should write stuff there, because I’d fit in. Shortly after that, I got an Email from Loren. He said that he did hosting, and if I wanted hosting for a website, they’d help me out.
So I thought about it:
“I’ve always wanted to have a presence on the web…but they all hate me in internet land…but having a presence on the web is cool…but they’ll all laugh at me….I’ve got to concentrate…concentrate…concentrate…..I’ve got to concentrate…concentrate….concentrate…Hello? Hello? Hello? Echo! Echo! Echo! Now batting….Manny Mota…Mota…Mota….”
I had registered wilwheaton.net some time ago, just so nobody else could get it and make it into a something stupid, and I was just sitting on it…so, with Loren’s help, I got in touch with this girl Ashley, who had helped me park the domain when I’d registered it.
This story gets cool, I promise. And if it doesn’t get cool, I’ll add some stuff to it, to MAKE it cool, dammit.
Loren and Ashley helped me move the domain from it’s parking space, over to logjamming, where it lives today.
Now, I spent nearly 10 hours a day, over the next 6 weeks, learning/*.phpL, figuring out Dreamweaver, and getting things going…because I really was happy with the content that I had, I mean, it’s just me, you know? But I didn’t like the look, at ALL. It sucked balls. I mean, holy dogshit, did it suck balls.
While I was working out the look and feel, and the design of the site, I became a member over at Killoggs, and began participating in their discussions, and even wrote what I think is a pretty funny first post.
Somehow, during this time, I asked Loren about keeping an online journal. I don’t even remember how it came up, which is too bad, because I bet it’s a cool story. Maybe I’ll make something up when I’m older. I remember telling Loren that I was thinking about making an Open Diary, and he mentioned to me that there were these two things that I may want to look at: Blogger, and Greymatter. Since I was running the lame old site at Geocities, I wasn’t allowed CGI access, so I used Blogger. But I wanted more. I wanted comments, and I wanted direct links…in short, I wanted something cool like Underachievers or Killoggs. So Loren told me that I wanted Greymatter.
I gotta stop for a second here and say something about Loren: He is one of the coolest guys who I’ve never really met. I mean, he has held my lame hand every step of the way as I made this site. He answered all my stupid newbie, RTFM questions, and never was impatient, or condescending, or anything. He was really, really helpful, and I have come to think of him as sort of a friend of mine. I can totally understand how people become friends over IM and stuff, because that’s the only way we talk. Loren could call me, and I wouldn’t know his voice from Adam (mostly because Adam doesn’t call too much anymore, since I told his mom to stop hitting on me).
So, if you enjoy reading this weblog, you should take a second out of your day, and shout a big “Thanks” skyward, and direct it towards him, because I never would have known about this without him. And if you have a lot of money, you should give him some. Like have logjamming host you, or something. Because they’re cool. So there.
End of Tangent.
So, during this 6 weeks of/*.phpL learning, I am a little bitch. I am whining to Ashley, Mae Ling, Ben, Loren, and Josh, and they’re all being really supportive, and cool.
Then, one day, it hits me: the design I want. 6 weeks, to the day, after I launched the lame, old site, Anne goes away for the weekend. I put Underworld Live in my CD player, fire up Dreamweaver, and get to work. I work all through the night, and, by morning, I have the design I want. I sleep for a few hours, get up, and populate the site with the content that I want, which should explain all the spelling errors and broken links when I launched.
I get everything going, it’s all working out okay, but the only thing not working is Email…for some reason, I can get it, but I can’t respond. So I set up a .forward to my old yahoo address, but that’s just not very cool, you know? So I ask Loren and Josh if they can do anything, and Loren totally hooks me up. He figures out what is wrong, and makes it go.
Then, today, the site goes boom, and these two guys do everything they possibly can to make it work again. Which is cool, because I just look for things…things to make me go.
I guess the whole point of this little history is to stand up, and say that I couldn’t have done this without the help of these people, who hardly even know me. And I wanted to publicly say thank you, and give them what the kids call “hellamadprops”.
Hella.
Hella.
Hella.

Fire. Water. Burn.

Guess what? I was reviewed by Lockergnome!!
I must say, of all the stuff that’s happened since I opened this little thing, this is quite possibly the coolest thing, yet!
Check it out:

Wil Wheaton
http://www.wilwheaton.net/
{Stand by him} He was the scrawny writer in “Stand By Me,” and then he became Wesley Crusher of the Starship Enterprise. If you mention the name “Wil Wheaton” to anyone in my generation, they’ll know exactly who you’re talking about. But what has this actor been up to lately? You can find out at his official Web site — written, designed, and maintained by Wil (himself). And ya wanna know what makes it cool? He isn’t afraid to kick back and let his hair down. He’s actually a pretty funny guy. Just goes to show you that who you see on screen isn’t always who that person is in real life. Dude, he always seemed so mellow… walking along those railroad tracks.

This just rules, and I am a happy, happy guy today.
Also, I saw this:

Net Buzz for 08/31/01
Police catch Sacramento slaying suspect in mom’s backyard … Where’s that recovery again? Dow drops below 10,000 … Arrogance, in-fighting doomed Industry Standard … Salon tells a rambling two-part circus story … Smoking Gun

Nimrod’s Son

Couple of cool things:
Got this Email a few days ago:

Congratulations! You are the recipient of five and a half out of four Sutherlands from
our gratuitously indignant reviewing duo at Blog You! Blog You! Blog You!,
a consumer’s guide to weblogs.
To see how you stacked up, feel free to visit:
http://www.blogyou.com

In the review, both the guys were really cool. They were very complimentary, and they both lamented the lack of graphics on the site. So I was thinking about it, and I really don’t plan to add a lot of graphics to the site, because I just don’t like graphics. I think they slow down the site, and that’s lame. I also don’t plan on adding lots of “gallery” pictures, because there are other sites out there that are great fansites, and I would just be ripping them off, and stealing their traffic, which is also lame. But I wrote an email back, and I read it to Anne, and she thought it was cool, so I’m gonna print it here:

Hey,
You guys…this is so freaking cool! I LOVE that I rated on your site. Is it a typo that I got 5 and a half out of four? Or is that something you cats do to fuck with lamers like me?
About the lack of graphics: I made a conscious decision to abstain from over loading the site with graphics. I hate graphics that are only there to dress something up, and that’s the only reason I’d do more graphics. I put all my energy into the really spartan design, so the content would stand out, and not get lost amongst the noise. And I (there I go, starting a sentence with a conjunction again) *was* going to put up a gallery, but why bother? There are way better sites out there, and I’d just be ripping them off. Once I get IDS configured, I’ll have someplace to put my personal pictures, but that’s prolly a week or two off.
Look at it this way: you’ve got two restaurants to choose from. One, Chez Jackass, is a snooty place, where the food is okay, but they REALLY dress up the plate, all nice and pretty…lots of herbs that you won’t eat, and lots of silverware that you won’t use. Oh, and they overcharge you, make you wait three hours to be seated, water down the drinks, and fuck up your order. Twice. But boy, didn’t that plate look nice?
Then there’s Joes. Joes is a restaurant on the skankiest street downtown. It has one neon sign, and the “E” is on the fritz. There’s a jukebox, but it only plays 45s, and “Wooly Bully” skips. But Joe cooks really good food, and he cooks it himself. He’d never dream of hiring another cook, because any other cook wouldn’t make it his way. You never leave there feeling hungry, and you can still get a shot of Jack for 2.50. Because that’s the way Joe remembers it, and that’s the way it’s going to be in his joint, dig?
Well, when it comes to websites, I eat at Joes.
Thanks again for the review. It was really, really cool.
Wil

I hear that Alan Thicke has a weblog, too. So I went to check it out, and it becomes obvious after about three paragraphs that it is so not real. But I don’t really care, because it’s extremely funny. Check out “About me“…not only does the guy seem cool, based on his tastes and all, but I really like the design of this site.
I don’t know Alan Thicke, at all, beyond playing on a celebrity hockey team with him a couple of times.
I remember that Alan Thicke was pretty cool, and I seem to recall him having a good sense of humor… I hope that he doesn’t pull a complete dickhead move and force this guy to shut down the site, because that would suck.
Alex Trebek? Funny you should ask about him. He was on the team too, and he was a major league asshole.
Big time.
Which reminds me of something: My roommate in college was Chris Hardwick, of eMpTyVee’s Singled Out and Trashed fame, as well as the show Guys Like Us. Chris is also in Jane White is Sick and Twisted, which is why I am in Jane White is Sick and Twisted. Chris is a very, very funny comedian, and has better press people than I do, apparently, because not only has he gotten to be on Politically Incorrect, he’s also been on Celebrity Jeopardy!
If you’re like me, you’d really like to run up to Alex Trebek, and slap him on his know-it-all bitch face, right? (well, there goes any chance I have of making Celebrity Jeopardy. Dammit.) So Chris is on the show, and Trebek asks him to introduce himself, and Chris does, and says that he is the host of Singled Out, and suggests that Trebek and he trade guests and audiences…the joke being that the Jeopardy guests and audience and the Singled Out guests and audience are totally different. Trebek doesn’t get it. At all. So there is this tiny uncomfortable pause, and Chris says, “You’ve never seen my show, have you?” And Trebek just says, “No.” Then, without pause, “Let’s meet our next contestant…”
Later in the show, Chris is asked a question, and he gets it wrong, and Trebek looks at his little cards, and gives one of those condescending, Canadian accented, “No, I’m sorry, the correct answer is, of course, ‘Henry Arthur Payne’…Henry…Arthur…Payne.”
Chris looks at him, doesn’t miss a beat, and says, “Hey, you know, on my show, I have all the answers, too, dude!”
Trebek has no comeback.
I’ll take “Anal Bum Cover” for 200, Trebek.

The Beach

Yesterday we went to the Beach with the kids, for Nolan’s birthday. His birthday was a few weeks ago, but we went yesterday because the little guy broke his arm, and it would have sucked just a little bit, I think, to take him to the beach with his friends while he was in a cast.
Something cool about Nolan: Every year, when it’s his birthday, while we’re driving around in the car, he rolls down the window, and shouts “It’s m’ birthday!” And he is just so joyful, and so happy, I just love that. He’s done that as long as I’ve known him, which is since he’s 4.
So it was rad. I love the beach. It’s one of the few reasons living in LA doesn’t completely suck; on any given day, I can ski in the morning, and surf in the afternoon, which I never do, but it’s nice to have the option, anyway.
You know what I did at the beach? I peed in the ocean. I just wanted to get that out of the way, because it’s something that everyone does, and I just HATE it when people act like they don’t. Like girls who insist that they don’t fart. Give me a break.
So we’re at the beach, and Anne tells me that she wants to take a quick nap while the kids are playing down by the water, and would I go play with them, so she can snooze. I think that’s a grand idea, because Anne’s been up since I don’t know, on almost no sleep, so she can make sure Nolan has a great birthday trip…making sandwiches, cupcakes, packing up the cars, etc…
After much adjusting of the beach umbrella, Anne sleeps, and I go down to the water to play with the kids.
All of the kids brought boogie boards to the beach, and one of Nolan’s friends had never done it before, and asked me to teach him.
Now,being a step-father, I have a certain role that I have to play, a certain place where I need to stay, out of respect to Ryan and Nolan’s father. There are certain things that I don’t do, because they’d rather learn to surf, and play baseball, and soccer, and all that stuff, from their dad. And I dig that, and I don’t want to make them feel bad, because it’s not about me, it’s about them…but it still makes me just the teeniest bit sad. So, because of that, I’ve never been able to teach them that stuff…but I was able to teach Nolan’s friend, and that felt really good. It was really, really cool, putting him on waves, and watching him race back into the water to start all over again. I was proud of him, and wondered if my dad ever felt like that about me, when I did stuff as a kid.
Well, while I was teaching Nolan’s friend, and thinking about my dad, there was another dad, this guy who was probably 40…nice beer gut, sunburnt spotty skin, streaked with not-quite-rubbed-in sunblock, trying to teach his 4, maybe 5 year-old daughter and son to play in the waves. Thing is, the kids were really not into it. They were crying, and really afraid, and really didn’t want to be there, and the father, this pile of shit, he would do this: “Well, I guess you’re too afraid to swim. That’s too bad. Let’s go home.” And he’d start walking up the beach.
Now, more than anything in the world, kids want to please their parents (at least until they’re 12), so these kids would stop him, beg him to come back and try again, even though it was clear to me, and to anyone, really, that they were scared shitless, and any parent who gives a shit about their kids, who was in tune with their kids, would know that. But this guy was determined to have his kids play in the waves, so he used the time-tested “Manipulation Technique”. Yeah, that’s a great way to parent: manipulate your kids so they do what you want. Maybe you can make sure that they’re afraid of you, too, and never question your actions, because that makes them grow up to be healthy adults.
Guess what, folks? Kids learn EVERYTHING from their parents, even things the parents don’t think they’re teaching them. So when you manipulate your kids, this happens: Manipulated kids grow up to be manipulative adults, who become manipulative parents, who have manipulative kids.
Break the cycle, people. Just because your parents were fucked up doesn’t mean you have to be, and you certanly don’t have to do it to your kids.
Sorry. /rant
While I was at the beach, watching surfers, watching my stepkids boogie board, watching this example of why there should be a parenting test mess up his kids, I started thinking about my own dad.
My dad is a great surfer. One of the best. He talks about going and surfing monster waves, and doesn’t even stop to consider that he’s over 50, and has a family that would sort of miss him just a bit if he decided to go pull a Mark Foo. He’s 53, and he surfs a 10′ long board at least once a week. And my parents do not live near the beach. They live over an hour away. Matter of fact, the whole reason my dad almost died is because he was on a surfing trip to Indonesia, and stubbed his toe on a boat anchor, and the resulting blood infection is what made him so sick. But he’s better now…I keep forgetting to mention that. Sorry.
But here’s the thing: I’ve never learned to surf from my dad. I was too much of a sissy bitch when I was a kid, and another summer has gone by where I haven’t asked him to teach me.
After about an hour of playing in the water, I was hungry, and the kids were ready to get out, too. So I turn up to face the beach, and I see the hottest girl I have ever seen, out of the corner of my eye, walking into the water. I mean, damn. She was amazing.
Okay, before you women get all pissed at me, here is something you have to know about men: We look at pretty girls. It doesn’t mean we’re unfaithful to our wives and girlfriends, and it doesn’t mean we don’t love you. I can’t speak for all men, but I know that I don’t compare, either, which is something you girls like to do, according to all my female friends.
But here’s the thing: It’s okay. It’s genetic. It’s in our hard wiring. It’s not even the OS. It’s an undocumented feature of the hardware. I’m not talking about “checking out” and “leering” that’s all your particular man’s OS. I’m talking about glancing, and involuntarily glancing back, and thinking “Woah!”So just relax.
Back to the story: I’m turning around, and I see the hottest of the hot babes, walking down the beach, out of the corner of my eye. And when I turn to get another look, I see that it was my wife. *smile* I love it when that happens.
Happy Birthday, Nolan.

Digging for fire

Today, we took the kids to the beach.
I was gonna write about that, but I’ve been trying to catch up on Emails, instead.
I wanna say something about Emails: I read them all, each one. And I send out that silly autoreply, which has, so far, only pissed off three people. So I’m not doing too badly there, eh? The problem is, I’m so damn sensitive, I felt really bad, that some peoples may not have gotten the joke, and I’ve been kicking it into overdrive to get at least a small personal response out there. So if you’ve emailed me, and you haven’t heard back, please accept my apologies, and this Shiwala!
While I’ve been catching up on Emails (it’s 230 AM on Saturday, and I’ve just finished the bulk of the Emails, up to Wednesday), I’ve been flipping back and forth on Satellite (no evil cable empire for me, dammit) between “House of Yes” and some super cheesy erotic thriller on Cinemax. Because I think it’s important to have something to aspire to, and something to be afraid of, in your career.
I leave it to you to pick which is which.