Liberating

You know what's liberating? Putting the webcam on the lavalamp, then standing behind it in my underwear.
posted by wil wheaton.

Free Dimitry

I'm working on some other stuff right now, but I just saw this webpage. I've followed Dimitry's story for awhile, and I think everyone should be pretty pissed off about what's being done to this guy.
posted by wil wheaton.

Procrastination

Look at me! I'm a cowboy! Howdy, howdy, howdy!

Anyone remember that from The Far Side? It was one of my favorites when I was in school.

Well, kids, it's too damn hot today to do anything but stay inside, and since my house is such a complete and utter disaster, I'm putting off cleaning it up, and bringing the old Burrito Blog up to date. I'm going to go in reverse order, starting with last night's excursion for Anne's birthday, yesterday afternoons Improv show, and yesterday morning's meeting with Roger. Then I'll give up the promised stories from the Tahoe trip.

I really need to get a digital camera, so I can include cool picture links in these stories, don't you think?

Before I get started, I want to clarify something, so you can understand a little something about your Sweet Uncle Willie:

I hate, and I mean hate places like "the mall" or these big shopping/dining/consumption oriented places, like The Bock At Orange, and The Irvine Spectrum. I'd MUCH rather go to a little community-oriented street fair or shopping district, and give my money to and spend time around real people, rather than big corporate behemoths.

But Anne's friend Michelle lives near Irvine, and there is this one cool place there, so I sucked it up, and met them, and our friend Stephanie (who introduced me to and Anne) for dinner, and entertainment.

Dinner, or When The Waiter Came, I said "eww! Look! The waiter came!"

The plan was to meet Anne and the girls at The Cheesecake Factory, but I guess the wait there was 45-70 minutes. 45-70 minutes?! does anyone really want to wait that long for a seat in a restaurant? Sure, at Hooters I can understand that, but at The Cheesecake Factory?

I guess the girls all felt the same way, so they went to some place called "Champps Americana", which is sort of a sportsbar/micro-brewery/I'm-having-a-mid-life-crisis-and-I-want-to-eat-at-a-place-like-the-ones-I-went-to-in-college place.

So we get seated, and we're ordering, and, right in the middle of Anne giving her order, the waiter cuts her off, points towards me, and says, "Hey! The kid from Stand By Me!"...Now, whenever that happens, I don't quite know what to say. Should I jump up and shout "Traaiiiiinnnn!" or tell him a story, or what? I never know how to handle that...I don't want to say, "Yes! You are correct, sir! Now please treat me differently the entire course of our meal, for I am from movies!". So there's this tiny, uncomfortable pause, and my friend Stephanie follows the waiter's pointing finger, over my shoulder and says, "You know, I think that is Corey Feldman, right over there!" And we all laughed, and it was okay.

So we're waiting for our dinner to come, and waiting, and waiting, and getting hungrier and hungrier, and this runner finally comes by with some food. He sets Steph's ribs down in front of her, and as he's leaning over, he dumps a huge, Ron Jeremy-sized load of alfredo juice all down the shoulder and back of my cool fairview t-shirt! Suddenly, he realizes two things: The food is not ours, it goes to the table next to us, and he just spooged pasta sauce all over my back. So what does he do? He picks up the ribs, says NOTHING about my back! Nothing at all! Not even, "sorry" or "who's your daddy, wesley?"

So this is a huge mess down my back, and it takes two napkins to wipe it all off...and Stephanie says, "The lest he could have done is bought you dinner before he came on your back." And my wife says, "Yeah, now you are totally his bitch."

I realize that some of you are having your image of sweet little Gordie and uber-square Wesley completely shattered right now, but I think it's best that you get to know the real me sooner than later, that way it won't hurt so badly when we break up.

Okay, back to the story: FINALLY, our food comes, and it is brought to us by the manager. So I see this guy in a tie coming over, and I think, "Sweet! This turkey burger is on the house!"

He sets our food down, apologizes for the wait, and leaves!! He doesn't even acknowledge the stain down my back! Now, maybe he didn't know....I can't imagine this conversation:

Runner: Uh, sir? I just came on the back of Tv's Wil Wheaton
Manager: Good job, Darryl! I always hated Wesley Crusher anyway!

But you know what I really think? I think the huge, corporate, "sportsbar/micro-brewery/I'm-having-a-mid-life-crisis-and-I-want-to-eat-at-a-place-like-the-ones-I-went-to-in-college place" doesn't care about your Uncle Willie, and you know why? Because he isn't the target audience. He wasn't wearing penny loafers without socks and corduroy shorts. He didn't have a ponytail, and he wasn't drinking Smirnoff Ice when the Zima ran out!!

Oh well. The food wasn't too bad, and the waitstaff did come and sing "Happy Birthday" to my wife...and our waiter was pretty cool...he could keep up with our sarcasm and jokes and stuff...Oh, and there were lots of interesting people to watch while we ate...which reminds me, and get out a pencil and write this down, people: Just because they make a babydoll t-shirt that says "sexy" in rhinestone across the chest in a size 18 doesn't mean anyone should wear it! Because, damn, man, dimples, okay? Okay.

Is anyone still with me?

The next place we went was actually really really cool:

Sing Sing With A Swing

"Sing Sing" is a cool piano bar, where 2 guys sit at facing pianos and sing popular tunes and stuff. It is really rowdy, kinda raunchy, and super fun. They play all sorts of songs, from blink 182 to elvis to freebird (because skynard isn't really a band anyway, they're just that one song, and 'sweet home alabama', right? Oh! interesting fact about skynard: their high school guidence counsellor told them that they'd never make it as a rock band. His name? Leonard Skynard. No shit. And the guy who started FedEx? He presented the idea as a thesis in college, and he professor gave him a terrible grade, because "this will never work." So let that be a lesson to you. Don't let anyone tell you what you can't do. Unless it's me, and I'm telling you to stop wearing those damn babydoll t-shirts, okay? Okay.)

So there is much singing, much dancing, and a very eclectic crowd, which is rare in cookie-cutter Orange County. And they take requests, so we request "Jesse's Girl" and "Don't Stop Believin'"...and they played them, and the whole place went CRAZY! It was really cool. If you can find a Sing-Sing near you, check it out.

Okay, I'm posting this, so I can work on the Improvathon story, and the meeting with Roger story, before I get into the Tahoe saga.

I am spending entirely too much time on this weblong and website thing. I really need to get a life. Or a job. Or a ride to the arcade.

posted by wil wheaton.

A/S/L

I wonder if anyone wants to bug me in realtime?
If you do, try ICQ 126829884.

Or AOL IM tvswilwheaton.

You know what's super lame?
Besides my website, jackass.

I had an ICQ number under 100,000. But I can't remember what it was, and I can't remember what the password was anyway.

Dammit.
posted by wil wheaton.

Bendependent

Ben is a really, really cool guy.
He's also a really great artist, and has a great sense of humor.

He draws all the heads for Killoggs, and he does really funny animations, too.

You must see this right now.
posted by wil wheaton.

Lefty

I'm left-handed, and it's really influenced the way I live my life.
See, I pride myself on living outside of the mainstream. I don't want to be part of the teeming masses.

I must be different.
I must be anti-.

But being left handed has sort of...uh...shaded...that desire a little bit. I realized that this morning, as I was responding to Email about my PDA, which is a Palm, rather than a Visor.

I've got a Palm, but it's looking more and more like the cool kids have a handspring. See, I got a Palm because I am left handed. Let me explain: being a lefty, once a year, as a child, I'd walk into the sporting goods store, and walk past aisle after aisle of right-handed gloves on my way to the half of a shelf of left-handed gloves. And I would pick over the dusty gloves that I didn't pick last year. Or the year before.

I had a Mac way back in the day (it was a 128), and I would go to the software store, and walk past aisle after aisle of PC software, past "Doom" and "SimEverything" on my way to the Mac shelf on the back, where I would look excitedly at "MacDraw" and "MacPaint". So when it was time to buy a PDA, I went in and said "I want the most widely used one."

It's the only time I've been willing and eager to be part of the masses.

But I think I want to be one of the cool kids, now. Or at least pretend that I am.

Wesley is Dead, Long Live Wesley!

Indie sent me a really entertaining email while I was /away, and she mentioned to me that she started the "Wesley doesn't suck" thread on this message board. Indie sounds really cool, and her website is cool too. And I'm not just saying that because she said "Wesley Crusher was sexy".

So there.
posted by wil wheaton.

Mini Vans

Slorge makes my point about minivans:

On minivans, the thing minivans have going for them...is that they look like shuttle craft from Star Trek! Especially now with the TV/vcr combo's, Onstar systems, radar detectors, cel phones, etc., You've practically got a bridge on that ship.

Great. Just ^%@#*ing great. So I drove over 18 hours in a $%!ing shuttlecraft. I do not have the words to express how mortified I am
posted by wil wheaton.

Home At Last

Hey gang. I'm back home from my wife's birthday trip to Tahoe.

Holy crap, we had so much fun. If many of you were noticing that, in the last few days, you haven't been having any fun, it's our fault. We were having, to quote my step-son, "all the fun!"

There's too much to put up now, because, even though I've been in the car for nine hours, I'm getting ready to have a meeting with Roger Avary about The Rules Of Attraction. Hopefully, when I return tonight, I'll be able to tell you all about our trip, including:

The Rafting Trip

Swimming To The Pontoon

The Bear

And I'll be able to slip in some really good news, somthing along the lines of "I got a cool part in the movie!"

So be good, and Uncle Willie will tell you a story when he gets back.

And a big "thanks!" (That'll be really funny once you see Lifegame) to the 7 of my beloved friends who sent me email while I was gone.

-Wil
posted by wil wheaton.

Return of the Funny

I've been reading the blog, and I've noticed a distinctive lack of humor, since dad went into the hospital...well, I've been thinking that it's time to get back on the horse, and give up the funny. So today I give to you, the story of Iron Chef and the Mullet.

My wife works in a salon. She does haircuts, special occasion hairdos (she had hairstyles at the Grammys this year- cool!), manicures, pedicures, sensual massage...okay, not sensual massage, but the rest of the stuff is true. She gets to see all kinds of interesting people, like the guy who came in, and tried to get my wife to wax his chest and back, or the woman who fainted.

My favorite, of all the people she's told me about, is Iron Chef.

You guys know Iron Chef, right? it's the most amazing show on the Food Network. It's sort of like Julia Child meets WWF, and it's all in Japanese. They have these two chefs "battle" in kitchen stadium, to make the best dish, using a theme ingredient (tofu, octopus, gamera). They then present their meals to judges, who tell them things like, "I thought I wouldn't like this, because it was too angry, but one it got into my mouth, it turned me happy!" and "I think he was trying to make me shiver, but this made me think of a disrespectful runner."

One of the judges is always a Japanese teenage girl, who is usually an actress or singer, and she is always a complete dipshit. She just giggles and says the most inane things, ever.

Well, there's this young Japanese girl who comes into my wife's salon, and Anne calls her "Iron Chef" because she is super quiet, very timid, and giggles like the girl on Iron Chef. Anne says that she's really nice, and always tips well, but she's exactly like the Iron Chef stereotype.

So now you know Iron Chef. Notw it's time to in troduce you to The Mullet.

A few weeks ago, Anne came to see the final show of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Sunday Show".(A show so acclaimed, Lara Mansell came all the way from the East Coast, where she is a happily living in New Hampshire, to see it. Really)

After the show, Anne comes running up to me backstage and she says, "Holy shit, you're never giong to believe what happened at work today! I cut my first mullet!"

It turns out that this middle-aged guy with longish hair comes into the salon, and asks him for a haircut. Anne takes him as a client, and, as he is describing how he wants his hair cut, it becomes clear to Anne that he wants a mullet. So she gives him a mullet.

The next day, this guy who is one of her regular clients comes in, and, while she's cutting his hair, somehow the mullet comes up. Anne tells him that she cut her first mullet yesterday, and they talk a little bit longer, and it turns out that The Mullet is married to Iron Chef!!! And he says, "They're my freaky neighbors!"

It's a small world, gang. You never know when your neighbor is going to get a mail order bride and a mullet. So be careful out there, for the love of god.

Vacation

I know this is going to upset you, but somehow I know you'll find a way to struggle through... your Uncle Willie is heading out of town for a week, and won't have net access.

Okay, okay, stop your cryin', or I'll give you something to cry about!

It's Mrs. Uncle Willie's birthday, and we're heading up to fabulous Lake Tahoe with the kids and the dog. Sounds great, right?
Hold on a sec...we're going up there in ...a minivan.

That's right. A mini-van. We had to rent a bigger car, so we could fit all our crap and the Ferris' crate...and rather than get something sort of cool like a lame SUV, we got a mini-van. I'm driving for 8 hours in a minivan.

I am so lame.

Let's talk about minivans for a second, shall we? Is there another mode of transportation, not regularly used by the Amish, that is more lame? When I see a minivan, I think, "That person's just given up. they've reached their goal in life of having the 3.5 kids, the dog and the coveted PTA membership."

There's nothing more sad to me than seeing some dude, who you can tell used to be cool, or some woman, who was probably a hottie at one time, behind the wheel of a Ford Aerostar, the bumper covered with a protective layer of "my kid was the student of the month" bumper stickers, the windows smeared with greasy little kid handprints, and the sad, mournful sound of "Radio Disney" blaring out of the open windows.

The mini-van that we got is the Dodge Caravan. It's the one with the easily removable seats. Last night, Anne and I were moving the seats out, and it was much easier than I thought it would be, and I caught myself thinking "This is kinda cool"....suddenly, and without warning, I screamed "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" My wife looked at me, terror in her eyes, and asked what was wrong.
"I thought, for a millisecond, that there was something cool about this van."
My wife walked around the minivan, came close to me, and punched me full in the mouth.
"Don't ever think something like that again."
"Thank you."

So I won't be able to update the site, obviously, and all that stuff that I wanted to do before I left town, like get the new site up and running, and opening the store and all that won't happen until I get home.

But! Have no fear! I have a cool site for you to check out until I get back. It's called "Killoggs". It's a very cool blogging site, created by the amazing bendependent and loren

Have a great weekend and week, and play nice. Don't make me turn this minivan around, because I'll do it.

posted by wil wheaton.

Comments!

Hey kids. I am working really hard on getting the new site up, but it's a lot harder than I thought.
Just part of being lame, I guess. But have no fear! I'm off the the book store to get a new HTML book. Hopefully, one which will actually help, rather than confuse.

Failing that, I'm gonna bite the bullet and resort to using frontpage.

Relax, Mae Ling...

But here is some cool news! I think I've gotten it set up so anyone can comment on my ramblings here.

Have fun, kids.

Wil
posted by wil wheaton.

Screenshots

You must go here. Right now.
posted by wil wheaton.

Auditions

Tuesday was my step-son's 12th birthday.

It was also the first time in 3 months that I'd had an audition. (Apparently, a bunch of jackass producers, working for vertically integrated, multi-national media conglomerates were afraid that the writer's guild and the screen actor's guild may want to stop work, so that we can all make a living wage, so they didn't "green light" any new projects. Go figure.

So, things have been tough the past few months. Money has been tight, and I've been super bored. If I hadn't had my kick ass sketch comedy show to look forward to, I probably would have ended up on the sidewalk in front of the Viper Room.

Just kidding. Jeeze, lighten up.

So the first call is at 11:15 am, to be a regular on this WB show called "The Young Person's Guide To Being A Rockstar". It's to play a gay drummer. (Why does everyone think I'm gay?). The second call is at 4:45 pm, for a movie called "waiting...", that is just about the funniest ^%$#ing script I've read in over a year.

So, I'm completely excited, but I'm torn, too, since I have way too much free time right now, and I would like to work. (You know, actors are the only people who are unhappy when they're not working. Unlike most "normal" people, who can't wait for a break from work...) The only problem was, Tuesday was Ryan's birthday, and I was really torn about what to do. I need to work, and I really like both of these projects, but I really wanted to be part of Ryan's 12th birthday party, which was a trip to the beach with some of his friends.

So I went over and over it, and made the tough choice to take the auditions, and see Ryan that evening.
Well, on my way to the first audition, I got a call from my agent, and she told me that the afternoon session was cancelled! So I went from my first audition (Where I kicked ass, thank you very much- I'm told that I'm "in the mix" which is hollywoodspeak for "we're considering you") to the beach. I must have been quite the vision in my jeans, skechers and black socks, walking down the sand.

Long story short, it was awesome. We skim boarded, played football and wiffleball, and barbecued hot dogs in the parking lot, which was majorly against the beach parking lot rules (yes! breakin' the law! breakin' the law!).

When we got back, I had email waiting for me from my friend Roger Avary. Roger is one of the coolest people on earth, and a fucking rad writer and director. (yes, that's right, I have a potty mouth. Deal.) Roger won an Academy Award for writing "Pulp Fiction", and is pretty much responsible for everything good the Tarantino has ever taken credit for. Roger also wrote and directed my absolute favorite movie that I've ever worked on, Mr. Stitch. So to get back to my point: I emailed Roger, because he's doing a new movie, and I asked him if I could be in it, because he is the most fun director EVER, and always makes good movies. So he emails me back, and tells me, "of course" and sends me the script (which ^%$@*ing ROCKS, by the way) and we're hooking up this week.

So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

That's all for right now, kids. I'm going back to work on the new, improved, easy-to-remember website!

How about some email for your uncle willy?
posted by wil wheaton.

Conventions

Okay, some of you aren't Star Trek fans, and you guys must think Star Trek Cons are uber-geek-fests. Well, you're right.

But they're cool, too, believe it or not. I think it's super cool that there's a place for any subculture, be it hackers, soap opera nuts, gamers, drama geeks, or whatever to hang out. Not that I'm in a huge rush to run out and buy a space suit, you understand...

Well, I do some conventions from time to time. It's really fun to have an audience to entertain, and most of the audience is really cool. Of course, some people just aren't going to be happy with me, no matter what, but what are you gonna do?

Well, I recently did this convention in Waturbury, CT. It was the first convention I'd done in close to 7 years, and I was REALLY nervous about not sucking. I even did something I never do: I did it sober.

Just kidding. I just wanted to see if you were still with me. Anyway, I did something that I never do: I prepared a little list of "stuff I want to talk about", so if I lost the audience I knew that I had a place to pick them back up...but it turned out that I didn't need it, because they liked me! They really liked me!

Okay, enough of this stupid preamble...here is the point of this post: I found a review of my appearence on USENet, and it made me feel really good about myself. So I wanted to share it with all of you:

From: Shammie (shamtrek@aol.comharemgrl)
Subject: The best part of the Con
Newsgroups: alt.tv.star-trek.next-gen
Date: 2001-03-04 08:24:54 PST

By far the most stand-out, entertaining, enjoyable section of the entire event
that I attended yesterday at http://www.sfedora.com/waterbur.htm
I am not makiing this up, I am not trolling, I am not kidding:
Wil Wheaton!!! OMG, he RULES as a speaker/guest!

Before he even got on stage, the director of the event introduced him and
actually warned us, as if we were little children, now please be polite and
remember that this is Wil's first con appearance in 8 years because of bad
experiences of people not separating him from the Wesley Crusher character.
(Later on we found out that 8 years ago, he was not only booed on stage, but he
actually had death threats!!)

Well, there was no need for this warning whatsoever, because from the moment
this vivacious, hilarious, charismatic, 28-year-old cutie bounded on stage, he
had us in the palm of his hand!! I cannot begin to describe how absolutely
captured every single one of us was, we were laughing every other minute and he
was so engaging even when he wasn't being funny!! I am now a huge Wil Wheaton
fan and so are 300 other Trekkers that were there. We gave him a loud standing
ovation.

OK, just a few things that he talked about, but I can't possibly begin to
capture the wonderful energy that exuded from him. Well, after he left TNG, he
left acting and moved to Kansas. "Not a good idea" he says. He said going from
LA, a 24-hour-a-day city to Topeka was like moving to a 78-minute city. He was
in the computer industry. "I am a geek. I'm extremely proud of that fact."
Well, then he left the computer business and went to drama school. He is
married about a year now with 2 step-kids (children of his wife), back in
entertainment, performing "sketch comedy" with a group. He is HiLARious.

He left Star Trek on what he thought were good terms, but he found out later
that apparently that wasn't the case. When he mentioned Rick Berman's name, he
stuck his finger down his throat in a gag-me gesture. He said it is very
unlikely that he'll be involved in any Star Trek ever again. He was not
satisfied with how they wrote him out, though. Said he wished he had gone out
in some shuttlecraft explosion. [pause] "Because it would have ensured my
return." LOL!

He talked about an Outer Limits ep that he did where he plays a bad guy and
drops a doomsday bomb on the world and destroys all of humanity. He said that
he thought that really balanced out all the times that Wesley saved the ship.
"So get off my back, huh?" We all cracked up big time.

He said he would have LOVED to have had a cameo in Galaxy Quest as a crazed fan
being right in the face of the kid telling him how much he hated him on the
show! ROFL! Man we laughed for several minutes.

Then he said, ooh, they should have had me back as the Traveler so I could go
to DS9 and make it interesting. hahaha we laughed, but some fan in a wheelchair
said hey for some of us who can't get out, DS9 was very comforting, or some
mumbo jumbo like that. Wil mumbles (so we can all hear him). "Note to self - no
more jokes about DS9, could get ugly."

When asked about all the negative letters etc against Wesley, he told us quite
frankly that it hurt a lot and he took it personally. He said he made the
mistake of trying to reason with people and get them to understand. He said
people would blame him, a 14-year-old, for some of his lines and actions,
instead of going to the writers. One time, he had some really pompous-sounding,
major technobabble stuff he had to say, and he actually called up TPTB asking
them please, PLEASE don't make me say that. I can only imagine the torment the
poor kid must have had to endure. :-((((( It just really struck me.

He talked about River Phoenix and what a junkie he was and got on a small soap
box about how any one of the people surrounding him could have saved him by
getting him go into rehab, but that they are all such ass-kissers in Hollywood
and *everything* but everything is about money.

Then he felt bad that he brought us all down, so he closed by telling us of his
fondest memory on TNG. They were all on the bridge shooting a scene where they
are getting bonked by the Borg. They were preparing to do the biggest "shake"
they had ever done, they were calling it an "eleven." Picard was supposed to
fall down. Wil was like No he's the captain, he can't fall down! And Stewart
didn't like it either. Anyway, the director yelled action and everyone started
shaking, Frakes falls out of his seat, Wil crashes into his console, Spiner is
jerking around, etc. Stewart apparently decides to have some fun and totally
spazzes out, crashing into everything, falling down, getting back up, crashing
into something else, spinning around, crashing into yet something else, falling
again, getting back up, etc etc, until finally he crashes into a wall that
falls down! Suddenly everyone is hushed because they all know it's gonna be at
least a four thousand dollar delay. So Wil quickly improvises with "Captain, we
have a hull breach!"
"AND I SAVED THE DAY," announces Wil with his arms up in a victory post.
ROFLMAO. That was the end of his talk and we all jumped up to give him a
standing O.

posted by wil wheaton.