WIL WHEATON dot NET

50,000 Monkeys at 50,000 Typewriters Can't Be Wrong

Read more..

busy busy busy

“Busy, busy, busy” – what a Bokononist whispers whenever he thinks about how complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is.

I’ve traveled over 10,000 miles in the last two weeks, which sounds like a lot, but to be honest I mostly sat in a seat while it happened so it isn’t that impressive.

If you follow me on social media, which I’ve told you not to do, you know that I have been doing some campaigning for Hillary Clinton, part of operation Do Whatever It Takes To Prevent The Worst Human Being Ever To Run For Public Office Yes That Includes Joe Arpaio And David Duke From Being Elected.

I have so much to say about that, but I feel like I can’t do it in less than an hour, and we’re past the point where anyone is going to change their mind so it’s not really worth the time and effort, and I really want to get to work on today’s writing, so I’ll just say this: there are hundreds of reasons to vote against Donald Trump, but I have some very good reasons to vote for Secretary Clinton. Everyone has their primary reason, from equal pay for women, to family leave, to college debt relief, to electing a massively qualified woman, to simply keeping Donald Trump out of the White House. My primary reasons are The Supreme Court, and Hillary and Tim Kaine’s support for mental health care. As most of you know, I live with chronic depression and generalized anxiety disorder. I suffered for at least ten years longer than I should have, because I was ashamed and embarrassed about it, and I felt like it was something I should just get over. I felt weak, and I was afraid that getting medication would change who I was at a fundamental level. But when I heard people who I respected, who were successful and amazing, talk about how they lived with their own mental illness, it gave me the courage to seek help for myself.

It’s a really big deal that people in positions of power and influence, like Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine, talk about removing the stigma associated with mental illness that prevents people from seeking help. It’s a really big deal that she has made mental health treatment and access to affordable mental health medication a part of her plan for her presidency. It’s a really big deal that they look at people like us who live with mental illness and say, “We see you. You matter. We’re going to do what we can to help you help yourself.”

screen-shot-2016-10-28-at-10-37-06-am

So I could go on and on, but l’ll wrap up with this: you all know that I was a massive supporter of Bernie Sanders in the primary. I’m proud of what we did to help him, and I still believe in his mission and his revolution. I can’t vote for him, but because Hillary listened to Bernie and to people like me who voted for him, I can vote for nearly all of the policies he promised to fight for. And if Democrats take a majority in the Senate, he’ll be in charge of the Budget Committee which is a really big fucking deal to borrow a phrase from Joe Biden.

Also, what scalzi said.

Anyway, I’m home now, and working really hard to finish a short supernatural horror story before Halloween, so I can get back into the short story that turned into a novella that is creeping up on becoming a novel.

 

 

28 October, 2016 Wil 21 Comments
Read more..

in a pub, in portree

Anne, in Portree
Anne, in Portree

I can not believe that I have managed to trick this amazing woman into staying married to me for seventeen years.

14 October, 2016 Wil 47 Comments
Read more..

We have returned to Castle Wheaton. Here’s a story about a different castle.

screen-shot-2016-10-12-at-9-14-38-amDriving on the left side of the road was nerve wracking as hell. The roads in Scotland seem to be much more narrow than the roads I’m used to, and Anne kept telling me that I was veering close to the left shoulder, almost letting the wheels go off the road.

It took me nearly two full days of driving, but I did get used to it, and I even figured out the proper way to navigate a roundabout, which was not the victory it may sound like, because it was the final roundabout I used before we returned the rental car.

Scotland was the most beautiful place I’ve been that wasn’t in the South Pacific. The highlands were just breathtaking, and for some reason we got perfectly clear skies and sunshine the whole time we were there. The thing I wasn’t prepared for at all, though, was how dark it got at night. There weren’t any streetlights. Now, Americans, let me be clear: I don’t mean that there weren’t a lot of streetlights, or that the streetlights were dim. I mean that there were literally zero streetlights. When we drove back to the house we were staying in after dinner in Portree one night, I could only see as far as my car’s headlights, which wasn’t even 30 feet, before the darkness swallowed up the light.

Continue reading… →

12 October, 2016 Wil 67 Comments
Read more..

Hello from Birmingham

British Industrial Town from the train.
British Industrial Town from the train.

No, not the one in Alabama. The one in England.

We took 8 hours of trains yesterday, from Scotland, to get here for Destination Star Trek, the only Trek convention I’m appearing at this year.

It was an amazing and beautiful ride, and it made me wish that America had a train system that was even half as useful and relevant to where people actually travel as the British Rail System is (I don’t know if it’s supposed to be capitalized, but it earned it, so there.)

We are now in a hotel, and I said to Anne this morning that it feels anticlimactic to be here. After several days in the Scottish Highlands, sleeping in cottages, and driving down tiny sheep roads to get from place to place, it just feels … plain. It’s nothing against the hotel or anything, but if you have an opportunity to travel, even though hotels are familiar and predictable, I highly recommend giving the alternative a try.

Scottish countryside, from the train.
Scottish countryside, from the train.

I’m going to miss Scotland. In fact, I already miss Scotland. It was so beautiful, and it was such a wonderful experience for me, I feel like I recovered a lot of HP and Mana that I didn’t know had been depleted. I’ll have more pictures to share and more words to write about it once I’ve properly processed and reflected upon the time we spent there.

7 October, 2016 Wil 39 Comments

Hello from Scotland

Anne and I have spent two days in the HIghlands, and we love it here. We will return someday, when we can spend more time and do more things.

I took about 5000000000000 pictures, but the Internet is slow and wonky where I am, so I can’t upload them at full resolution. Here’s a few of them, resized:

This castle is very old.
This castle is very old.

This is Urquhart Castle, which is on the shore of Loch Ness. That ruined tower has been ruined longer than my country has existed.

loch-ness

That’s Loch Ness, as seen through an ancient window in the castle.

Thery're very good castles, Brad.
They’re very good castles, Brad.

This is Eilean Donan, which is famous for being in many movies including Highlander. I’d list the others, but there can be only one.

We didn’t go into this one, but we did have tea in their little restaurant and it was awesome.

sheep-sheep sheep

There really are sheep everywhere in the Highlands, and no matter how much I try to befriend them, they aren’t having it. I’m kind of glad they always run away when I get about 30 feet from them, though, because there aren’t many things in the world as funny as watching sheep run, with their stupid little legs.

My incredibly small sample size of about a dozen people indicates that everyone here is incredibly kind, and they don’t make fun of my accent.

5 October, 2016 Wil 53 Comments

Posts navigation

← Previous 1 … 81 82 83 … 772 Next →

It's Storytime with Wil Wheaton


Every Wednesday, Wil narrates a new short fiction story. Available right here, or wherever you get your podcasts. Also available at Patreon.

Wil Wheaton’s Audiobooks

Still Just A Geek is available wherever you get your audiobooks.

My books Dancing Barefoot, The Happiest Days of Our Lives, and Dead Trees Give No Shelter, are all available, performed by me. You can listen to them for free, or download them, at wilwheaton.bandcamp.com.

Wil Wheaton’s Books

My New York Times bestselling memoir, Still Just A Geek is available wherever you get your books.


Visit Wil Wheaton Books dot Com for free stories, eBooks, and lots of other stuff I’ve created, including The Day After and Other Stories, and Hunter: A short, pay-what-you-want sci-fi story.

  • About
  • Books
  • Tumblr
  • Bluesky
  • Radio Free Burrito

Categories

Archives

 

  • Instagram
  • Facebook

Member of The Internet Defense League

Creative Commons License
WIL WHEATON dot NET by Wil Wheaton is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://wilwheaton.net.

Search my blog

Powered by WordPress | theme SG Double