WWdN: In Exile

phoenix trip report, part 3

(Concluded from part two)

When I was done a few minutes later, I walked back to the hotel -- which was only about 100 yards away -- and stopped into the hospitality suite for some pretzels and water. Normally, I'd grab a beer and unwind after a show, but I'm having sinus surgery next week, and I've been on doctor's orders to have absolutely no alcohol, pain relievers, vitamins, or fun for the last two weeks, so I'd have to unwind the old fashioned way: geeking out with my fellow nerds about various geek things.

Or so I thought. When I walked into the hospitality suite, they were playing Rock Band. Oh yeah.

I played a few songs, and left when I realized I was at that point where I'd either stop, or keep playing for another four hours. Since it was already after ten, I'd gotten little sleep the night before, and I had a big day ahead of me on Sunday, I chose responsibly and went upstairs to bed.

It was pouring rain when I woke up on Sunday, but that didn't keep anyone away as far as I could tell. By the time I was in my seat at 10, the vendor's room was already filling up with people, and lines were beginning to form at my table by 10:30.

Sundays are always slower than Saturdays, though, so I got a chance to visit with the indie publishers and artists around me. As I talked with them -- mostly with Daniel from Steam Crow -- I realized how much I've changed since I started blogging.

In Just A Geek, I recalled a trip to San Diego ComiCon in 2001:

ComiCon was nothing like I had expected, and the truth is, it was a horrible experience. I went there expecting to sell hundreds of autographed pictures to hundreds of adoring fans, but hardly anyone was interested. I sat in a cavernous and undecorated area far away from the main convention floor, surrounded by people who were definitely on the downside of their careers.

While talking with Daniel, I noted that we were talking about publishing costs and marketing strategies. We were talking about about building our respective brands, and how much more fun and rewarding it was to do this stuff on our own, rather than the so-called "traditional" (I call it "old") way of doing things.

"Just a few years ago," I said, "I rarely came to conventions as a guest, because I felt like I was trying to hold on to whatever fading celebrity I once had. I didn't do it because I wanted to be famous again. I did it because, at the time, it was all I could do, which was so much worse. But now, when I go to cons, I feel good about it. I look forward to it, because I feel like I can share the Star Trek thing with people who love it, but I'm really here as an indie publisher, just like you."

I thought for a second and added, "You know what it's like? It's like -- "

"Don't say 'rising from the ashes' while you're in Phoenix! Don't say 'rising from the ashes' while you're in Phoenix!" My brain screamed at me.

"It's sort of like rising from the ashes for me, in a way, which is a pretty lame thing to say since I'm in Phoenix."

"Do you even listen to me anymore? That's it," my brain said. "I'm out of here."

"I am so lame" I said. Daniel and his wife assured me that I was not, but we all know better, don't we?

Shortly after that, the con was over. I packed up my stuff, thanked everyone who brought me out for the show -- especially Matt, who runs the thing -- and got a ride to the airport.

One annoying game of Airport Madness! and a pretty bumpy flight later, my wife picked me up from the airport.

"How was your trip?" She asked me, when I got in the car.

"It was awesome," I said.

"Did you have fun? Did you get your geek on?"

"Yeah, I totally did," I said. "I can't wait for next year."

I leaned over and kissed her.

"I'm happy to be home, though," I said.

"Yeah, I missed my husband," she said.

I still love it when she calls me "her husband."

"I love that I'm your husband," I said.

"Stop it."

"Sorry. I do."

"I like that a whole lot." She said.

"Yeah, it's pretty awesome."

She pulled out into traffic, and we drove home as the rain began to fall.

the loneliest number

I have a sticker on my car that says, "There is no place like 127.0.0.1"

I get to explain it to a lot of people, and I'm usually rewarded with a blank look, followed by a pitying look, followed by parents holding on tightly to their children as they move away slowly at first, then quickly, never turning their backs on me.

Such is the life of a geek among normals.

My pal R. Stevens, creator of the always-awesome Diesel Sweeties comic, has a new T-shirt with a different take on the 127.0.0.1 joke that hit a little close to 127.0.0.1 for me:

There will be 10 kinds of people in the world: those who get this shirt, and those who don't.

(Okay, that was taking it just a little to far, I will admit.)

is there life on mars?

It would appear that I found my motivation, which has been MIA since the end of last year.

The key was answering some questions for an interview I'd agreed to do several weeks ago, but never finished because I was doing other stuff. I knew it had to be done, though, so part of my brain was constantly working on it, while other parts of my brain checked in on its progress, and bugged me to give it the attention it deserved.

If I think of my brain as a computer (and what geek doesn't, really?) it was like my CPU was maxed out and my machine load was in the double digits, because of this process. Once I closed down everything else and let it finish, performance returned to normal.

With my CPU back to normal, a ton of creative ideas started popping up, so to shake off the cobwebs and stretch the muscles that haven't moved very much in over a month, I wrote a new ficlet. It got the job done for me, creatively, and it would be okay on its own, but became worthy of mentioning on my blog when two other ficlet writers did sequels. Mine is called A Godawful Small Affair:

“I want to move to Mars, and open up a bar,” Gregor said.

Matti inhaled deeply, and let a cloud of pale blue smoke surround his head.

“What would you call it?” Matti said.

“Moonage Daydream.” Gregor said.

Check it out, and be sure to read both sequels. I think they're great, and illustrate exactly why Ficlets is  such a great place to take creative risks: I didn't much care about these characters when I wrote mine, but after reading the sequels and seeing my rough sketches develop some shading and depth, I want to know what happens next. I may even write it myself, once I get my "real" work done.

phoenix trip report, part 2

(Continued from part one)

I read Hammered when I got back to my room until I couldn't keep my eyes open any more, and had one of those awesome nights where I woke up every hour because I was afraid I'd oversleep.

In fact, I was so afraid of oversleeping, I set an alarm and a wakeup call on my cell phone, set an alarm on my clock radio, and ordered up a wakeup call from the hotel, all one minute apart. Then I woke up a few seconds before the first one went off, and laughed at how absurd it was as my hotel room turned into a clock shop for the next five minutes.

I finished Hammered while I ate breakfast (review forthcoming), then made my way back into the vendor's room, about 30 minutes before it opened, so I could scout around, and maybe trade some shiny gold rocks for various geek items.

I made all of my Save vs Shiny! checks, until I rolled a 1 when I saw Flesh Eating Ghouls from Outer Space, a DVD that looked like a classic B horror movie, done entirely with puppets. (I still haven't had time to watch it, but it looks totally awesome and awesome. Also, awesome.)

I walked around the indie artists area -- where my table was set up -- before I sat down as the doors opened for the day.

I was sitting at a table next to Felix Silva, who played Cousin It on the Addam's Family, and Twiki on Buck Rogers. Next to him was Walter Koenig, and next to Walter was Tim Russ. On the other side of me to my right was Steam Crow productions, a local indie company owned by Daniel Davis, who I would spend a lot of time talking with over the weekend. His wife and awesome kid were there with him, and they entertained me with their awesomeness for the whole show. Also, awesome.

For the next few hours, I met tons of WWdN readers, comic fans, Star Trek fans, fellow geeks, and tons and tons of teenagers who were seriously into their anime cosplay, mainly from Naruto and Inuyasha.

The day was a blur of friendly faces, signing autographs and books, shaking hands, posing for pictures, mutual geeking at scientists (there were lots of scientists there, mostly astronomers, who listened patiently to me while I slimed them with my slobbering geekiness) and my constant excitement and wonder that so many people knew about my books and wanted to pick them up.

This went on for a few hours. Then, during a lull in the day around lunchtime, Walter walked over to my end of the table after posing for a picture with some fans and looked at my books.

"I hear you're a writer now," he said, looking at Happiest Days, "What do you write?"

I told him.

"What's this one about?"

I told him, then I showed him the Manga.

"Check it out," I said, opening it to one page, "I totally blew up Leonard!"

He grinned, and I pointed to Dancing Barefoot.

"There's a story in here about the first time I met Bill, and what an ass he was to me," I said.

Walter laughed and said, "Who hasn't he been an ass to?"

I laughed with him. I suspect that if WFS had been there, he probably would have laughed with us . . . before ordering us off the bridge.

"If you're interested, and if you think you'd have time to read it," I said, "I'd love for you to have a copy of Happiest Days."

Walter smiled at me, surprised. "Really?"

"It would mean a lot to me," I said.

"I'd like to buy it from you," he said.

We danced for a minute, me trying to give it to him, and him trying to pay me for it. It was an exquisite tango, and I won't reveal the victor, because it's not that important. What is important to me, though, is that Walter has a copy of my book, which I hope he reads, because there's this story in it about conventions that I think he can appreciate on a different level than most readers.

After Walter and I talked, I grabbed my camera and checked out the rest of the con. After ten minutes or so, it hit me: this con was exactly like the cons I went to when I was a kid. This con, like PAX, reminded me what cons could and should be. There were families, couples young and old, and hundreds of teenagers everywhere, all having a great time being geeks. And that's the thing I love about cons: it's not just accepted, it's encouraged, and it's where I feel home.

I spent the rest of the afternoon the way I spent the morning, including a rather exciting moment when I unexpectedly sold out of Just A Geek, and headed back up to my room around 6 so I could eat dinner, and prepare for my show that was suddenly just two hours away.

While I read blue light special to the pile of pillows on my bed, I had to stop for a minute and acknowledge how lucky I am.

"Here I am in Phoenix," I thought, "preparing to read a story from my third successful book, after having another awesome day at another awesome convention. This is fun. This is awesome. This is a good life."

I finished blue light special, then did Justice, cracking myself up way more than I should publicly admit, because it makes me feel like a dick to say so. But it's really funny, and I'm really proud of it! When I was touring with Just a Geek, I always looked forward to performing The Trade, because it was so fun to do, and I feel the same way about Justice, now. I love blue light special, and it can appeal to people who don't even watch Star Trek or know any of my other work, so it's a great piece of material to perform, but Justice is just plain fun to do.

"Just don't say 'fucking'," I told myself. "Replace it with 'screwing,' because it's funnier that way."

(Of course, when I was performing it, I said "fucking." Sorry about that, people who don't like it when I say "fucking," when I could instead say "screwing" or "care bears.")

I went downstairs and saw that, fifteen minutes before I was scheduled to start, there was already a line around the corner and down the hall to get into my show.

"I used to get nervous, right about now," I thought, "but I'm excited. Yeah, I'm really excited!"

I couldn't wait to get out on stage. I felt good.

The panel before mine emptied out, and I walked into the room. It wasn't that big, probably held about 100 or 120 people or so, about the size of ACME, and if it filled up, it would feel like more -- perfect for comedy.

I walked through a doorway at the edge of the stage, and waited in a hallway behind the room. I reminded myself what I wanted to say when I started, before I started reading, and then I just . . . relaxed for a minute. It was pretty awesome to not feel nervous and terrified, like I did before my PAX keynote, and pretty much every other time I've been on stage since I started doing stuff like this again so many years ago.

I heard my introduction, and walked out on stage.

The room was about 80% full, with a few people standing in the back.

"This is going to be fun," I thought, and it was. For the next hour, I had a great time, entertaining a great audience who was with me the whole time, even when they pretended to turn on me during Justice.

At the end of my performance, most of the audience went to hear Tim Russ get his rock and roll on, and I sat down at a table in the hallway to trade books for shiny gold rocks. This is when I had my most emotional moment of the con.

A young girl, probably no older than 10 or 12, wanted to buy a copy of Happiest Days. I didn't think she'd like it as much as the Manga, so I asked her if she wanted to have that, instead.

"It's in the vendor's room down the hall," I said, "so let me send someone to go pick it up for you --"

"This isn't for me," she said, "this is for my stepdad. He'll really like it."

I almost started to cry. For the first time since I've been raising Ryan and Nolan, I've recently been made to feel the step in stepdad, and it hurts more than anything.

"I'm a stepdad," I said to her, taking a deep breath to steady myself, "and I think it's the greatest thing in the world that you want to do something kind for him."

I blinked back tears as I signed it.

"Here ya go," I said, "You're both very lucky."

I know I signed other books that night, but after that, nothing stands out.

phoenix trip report, part 1

The flight into Phoenix was smoother than I'd anticipated. Los Angeles was having Apocalypse Weather, with snow and hail and a tornado, so I was expecting a pretty bumpy trip through the friendly skies, but once we left Burbank, it wasn't bad at all.

This isn't to imply that the flight was entirely comfortable, mind you. The dude next to me was a leaner, and I spent most of the flight getting to know the bulkhead. Thanks to noise canceling headphones and Hammered, though, I spent much of the trip alone with Jenny Casey, who makes for a nice traveling companion, though I suspect she'd deny that if you asked her.

I was met at the airport by a very friendly volunteer, who spent the next forty minutes helping me find my luggage, which the awesome ground crew at the airport had sent to two different -- and wrong -- carousels. Whoops.

A short drive later, I arrived at the con hotel, which I would soon learn was also hosting the Midlife Crisis Mullet Convention. Well, that's not what it was called, but that's who was attending. Seriously.

Friday night was a low-key preview night, so I figured I'd take my books and stuff over to the convention center, which was helpfully located just 100 yards from the hotel, get set up for the weekend, and check out the other vendors.

While I was stacking some books on the table and excitedly looking at a comics booth down the aisle, a couple of people came over to my table. They wanted to buy The Collected Works of Me, Wil Wheaton.

"Really?" I said, "That's cool!"

We traded shiny gold rocks for dead trees, and I continued to unpack. I placed some photos on the table: River and me in Stand by Me, right after I shot the gun behind the Blue Point Diner, Gray Spacesuit Wesley, Elvis Stamp Wesley, and Just A Geek Cover me.

"Awesome," I thought. "I'm all set up for tomorrow."

I grabbed my backpack and prepared to go shopping. Then I stopped, because more people had arrived.

We talked for a few minutes about geek things, and a little line formed behind them. Then the line got a little longer, and before I knew it, I'd been signing pictures and books for three hours. I never got to go check out the rest of the vendor's area, because security kicked me out when they closed the room down for the night, just a few minutes after I signed my last autograph.

"Well, that was pretty cool and unexpected," I thought as I headed back to my room. "I think this is going to be a great weekend."

not that my endorsement means much of anything, but . . .

audio from my performance at phoenix comicon

My performance on Saturday night in Phoenix went very, very well. I performed to a fantastic audience who filled up the room and made me feel cooler than I actually am.

I performed Blue Light Special, from Happiest Days of Our Lives, and I read my review of Justice from TV Squad. I didn't have the means to record the show myself, but the guys from Pulp Gamer did, and they've posted the mp3 on their site.

It's about an hour, and the second half contains some NSFW language. If you listen carefully, you can hear me turn off my Helio Ocean in the beginning, and turn it back on again at the end. Yeah, someday in the future I'll remember to turn that off before I go on stage. I also made a reference to The Trade, from Just A Geek, near the beginning. If you'd like to listen to a recording I made of that story during a show in 2005, it's here.

And now, an mp3 link that will make the googles happy: Wil Wheaton performs from Happiest Days of Our Lives at Phoenix Comicon 2008.

Update: We killed the server pretty fast, so here's a local mirror in case it goes down again. If you make your own mirror or torrent, let me know and I'll add it. Thanks!

Download PG-Special_080128.mp3 (41.1 MB 128K MP3)

Patrick G put a copy on Rapidshare. Thanks, Patrick!

Michael S seeded a torrent file at the pirate bay. Thanks, Michael!

Here's another torrent at mininova from Eric. Thanks, Eric!

Is anyone interested in WWdN merchandise?

Before I put in the time and effort to make some new WWdN merchandise for the WWdN CafePress store, I'm looking for a show of hands: is anyone interested in some WWdN gear, like T-shirts and stuff?

I don't have the time or desire to run a store myself, or take the risk of buying a lot of stock ahead of time. I would not be doing this for shiny gold rocks as much as I'd be doing it for the fun and to increase the chances that I'd be out in the world doing my thing one day, and see someone wearing a WWdN T-shirt, and to "spread the virus" as Jonathan Coulton says.

Stats tell me that about 200K people are reading my blog (man, that's a lot and is so very weird) so if about 100 or so of you guys chime in, I think it would be enough to make it worth the time and expense of paying a designer to put something together.

I'm a huge fan of American Apparel, so I'm thinking about moving to Spreadshirt if I do this. Obviously, I'm not going to bother if there isn't enough interest, though. I am supposed to be writing, after all.

audio greetings from mount needaplotpoint

With Vozme, you can turn any chunk of English text into an MP3 file by clicking one button. It's far from perfect, and isn't as clear as using the "speak" thing on my Mac (Oh, Vicki, tell me that you love me!) but it gets the job done quickly and easily, especially if you're supposed to be working and really want to be screwing off instead.

I just amused myself by converting a bit of my forthcoming Angel One review for TV Squad into a weird robotic voice.

Enjoy: Download mp3_angel_one.mp3 (136KB mp3 file)

(Vozme was found via Lifehacker)

three hours of MTV from 1983

Phoenix Comicon reminded me of the cons I went to when I was a kid, and reminded me of what cons could be -- and should be -- when they're run by people who care more about creating a good time for fans, than figuring out ways to separate fans from their money.

I'll have a full trip report later today, but until then, I have found something HAWESOME to pass the time, or at least listen to in the background while you work. Three hours of MTV, recorded on VHS in 1983, including wonderfully cheedy commercials. I've been listening to part one for about thirty minutes, and the nostalgia is starting to overwhelm me.

Part one:

Part two:

Generation X! Rejoice, while the damn kids today wonder why MTV is actually playing music videos.

(from Appelogen via boingboing)