WWdN: In Exile

UPS shipping fail - updated (see end of post)

I shipped two boxes of books to Phoenix on Wednesday, to arrive here by 1030 this morning. I paid extra for this, like you do. As 11am rolled around and my books still weren't here, I got a little nervous, so I checked online to see where my packages were. It turns out UPS fucked up and "incorrectly routed" them, so they won't be delivered until Tuesday afternoon.

I'm sure the more astute observers among us have realized why this is a problem.

I called UPS, talked to everyone I could, explained over and over again that I need these packages today, that people are counting on me having them today, and I got the same answer from them all: there's nothing we can do, and we're very sorry.

Yes, I'm sure UPS is very sorry. What I want to know is how a business that does one fucking thing only manages to fuck that one thing up, and has no backup plan to ensure that they correct their mistake at their earliest opportunity, instead of four fucking days later.

There's a small chance that my packages will successfully complete the treacherous 2 hour journey from California and arrive today, so I can get them tomorrow. Unfortunately, UPS doesn't have the ability to flag a shipment, so that when it's scanned in upon arrival here in Phoenix, the facility can find out that this is an extremely important shipment that needs to get to its destination right fucking now because we fucked up guys. I have to keep checking with UPS, and just hoping and wishing and clapping for Tinkerbell so my packages arrive today, and UPS does the fucking thing I paid them to do and delivers them by tomorrow.

I haven't felt this angry and helpless since I got felt up by the TSA at LAX.

If you're coming to the Phoenix Comicon and hoped to leave with one of my books, I want you to know how sorry I am. I have 20 Complete Works DVDs, some Guild Season 4 DVDs, and a bunch of pictures, but no actual books. If this changes, I'll update this post, as well as Twitter.

UPDATED 5.29: A friend of mine knows someone at UPS Corporate, and offered to make a call on my behalf. It's a long story, worthy of its own post when I'm not so exhausted from a weekend at a con, but the short version is that several people went to the shipping center in Phoenix, went way above and beyond what I ever expected, and worked like hell to find my packages. Late Saturday night, they were delivered, and I was able to get a fair amount of books into customers' hands today.

I haven't been able to read all these comments (I was at a con) but I understand that a lot of people reached out to UPS on my behalf, including my friend. Thank you for helping me get a huge corporation's attention, and thank you to all the UPS employees who worked so hard to correct this mistake.

More later in the week, when I have some time (I'm doing an audiobook Monday to Friday, so it may be a few days.)

regarding deadline panic

I have a lot to do before I leave for Phoenix tomorrow. I have to prepare my setlist for my show (this includes building a slideshow, which I've never done before. I'm terrified I'm going to screw it up, so of course I waited until the last minute to do it, because the stress of not knowing how to do it properly goes oh-so-well with the stress of not having enough time to get it done).

I have to finish making my DVDs. I have to pack up all my books and drop them off to be shipped (which I should have done on Monday, but didn't, because ... well, I don't know exactly why, to be honest. I just didn't, and now it's Wednesday and I get to pay too much to ship them 2-day air. Yay.)

I'm also way past a writing deadline on this project that seemed like a good idea when I said yes, but has become a fucking albatross about my neck.

So I realized, just now, that my brain has activated OMG DEADLINE SURVIVAL mode. This means that I listen to Pink Floyd and The Beatles on repeat, tune out the rest of the world (except when I'm doing stupid things to amuse myself and stay sane online) and just sort of plow through things more-or-less on autopilot.

It's interesting to me that the deadline panic feels the same, and comes from the same place, whether I need to get something out of my head and onto the page, or whether I need to get a lot of somethings out of my house and shipped to a con.

My 2011 Phoenix Comicon Schedule

This weekend, I will be at the Phoenix Comicon. I think this is my third or fourth year attending, so I've been able to watch the con expand (the vendor's area this year could hold the entire con the first year I attended) without losing its soul, or all the things that make it awesome.

I am quick to point out that conventions reflect the personalities of their organizers. If a promoter wants to get as much of your money as possible, then a con's going to feel that way, no matter who the guests are or what the programming is. If a promoter wants to make sure everyone has a really good time, gets the most for their money, and can't wait to come back next year, then you'll feel that, too.  After about four hours at my first Phoenix Comicon, I knew that I was going to like whoever promoted it (Matt, with whom I've become pretty good friends), because the show was awesome. Same thing with FedCon, same thing with PAX, same thing with Emerald City.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to going to Phoenix this year, and if you're coming out to the show, I hope you'll say hello to me so I can thank you for reading my blog.

Last year, I committed to far too many panels and things, so this year my schedule is a lot easier for me (and hopefully, I won't succumb to major conSARS when I get home due to exhaustion like last time.)

Here's my schedule this year:

Friday 7:30pm - Storytime With Wil. Come join me as I perform some of my favorite stories for you. I'm bringing some unreleased bits from Memories of the Future, Volume 2 that I can't wait to share, and there will be a particularly dramatic performance of The Last Unicorn (Pegasus Kitten).

Saturday 4:30-5:30 - Jaime Paglia's Eureka. Season 4.5 of Eureka is right around the corner, and you'll finally get to know my character, Doctor Isaac Parrish, as the season unfolds. Jaime and I are here to tell you what we can, and answer your questions about this awesome show.

The rest of the con, I'll be signing books and pictures and other cool things in the vendor's hall. I will have copies of MEMORIES OF THE FUTURE VOLUME ONE, The special expanded edition of THE HAPPIEST DAYS OF OUR LIVES, THE DAY AFTER AND OTHER STORIES, and SUNKEN TREASURE. I will also have a bunch of 8x10s from my various shows and characters. As always, there is no charge for an autograph if you bring me your own thing to sign.

Oh! Oh! Oh! If you missed this on Twitter or Tumblr: Joel Watson and I made this T-shirt. We love it so much, I'm bringing a small number prints to the con that I will sign and number.

I know, right? I love it.

Finally, because it was such a hit at Emerald City Comicon, I'm bringing a set of The Complete Works of Me, Wil Wheaton (being an incomplete collection of the audio, video, and textual works of me, Wil Wheaton).

If you're wondering what that is, and can't be bothered to follow that link (and who can, really? We're all very busy these days), here's a little cut-n-paste that I did just for you:

A bunch of my friends who are musicians release their entire catalogs on a USB drive (Paul and Storm, and Jonathan Coulton are two who you probably know), which lets people get a whole bunch of stuff on something that's small enough to fit in their pocket, and has the added bonus of being a nifty USB drive that can be used for TOTALLY DIFFERENT THINGS once the files are copied off of it. I know, right?! Isn't the future amazing?!

I have a bunch of work that's in multiple formats, including text, audio, and video, so I thought I'd collect as much of it as I could and offer my own USB drive thingy at cons, w00tstocks, and maybe as a big old honkin' zipfile at Lulu or something later this year.

I'm not sure anyone wants this sort of thing, though, so I haven't invested in the number of USB drives I'd need to purchase to make it cost-effective. I'm testing the waters at ECCC with an extremely limited number of DVDs containing something I'm calling The Complete Works of Me, Wil Wheaton (being an incomplete collection of the audio, video, and textual works of me, Wil Wheaton).

It's pretty much what it sounds like. Here's the README I created, which will make people who write and rely on actual README files twitch a little bit:

Congratulations, dear sir or madam! You are now in possession of a truly remarkable collection, guaranteed to restore even the most ill-humoured man, woman, or child to gaiety and mirth.

Included in this delightful volume are three separate collections. They are as follows:

Text: For the gentleman or lady who wishes to escape the hum drum modern world, we offer these portals to the past … and the future! These turgid tales of mirth and marauder can be read off an automatic teletype device, or given to a reputable printer for conversion to portable paper format.

Audio: Voices and music appear, as if drawn by magic from the aether itself, or perhaps from a more sinister locale beyond! A warning to the faint of heart or soft of spirit: some of these recordings are of a most uncouth and ribald nature! Let the listener beware!

Video: Pictures that appear to magically move, transporting the viewer to locations mundane and fantastical. 

The buyer is cautioned that these files are for personal use, and unless expressly and explicitly noted, are not to be reproduced for commercial or personal gain.

All files are copyright 2010-2011 Wil Wheaton. Some files are released under Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share-Alike license. For more information, please visit creativecommons.org

There are three different directories, described thusly:

Audio

This directory contains the following:

Audiobooks:

Just A Geek

This is an audio performance of my first book Just A Geek. It is the super-bonus-holy-crap-is-it-really-nine-hours-long version because my friend David and I ended up including a lot of asides and what I called “audio footnotes”. You could think of it as the Director’s Extended Cut That Runs in Parallel With The Regular Cut, if you like.

The Happiest Days of Our Lives

I was so happy with Just A Geek, David and I got together again to do this one. It’s similar to Just A Geek, but David added in some nice interstitial music between each chapter. You know, for kids.

Podcasts:

Memories of the Futurecast Episodes 1-13

In the weeks leading up to the release of Memories of the Future Volume One, I started a promotional podcast. Each week, I read an excerpt from the book, and added some of my own comments. I’m especially proud of this podcast, and if you enjoy it, you’ll certainly enjoy Memories of the Future, which is in the text directory. All the shownotes and links are at http://memoriesofthefuturecast.com

Radio Free Burrito Episodes 0-4 and 9-31. 

Let me save you some searching: I never did an episode 2, and for some reason skipped straight to episode 3. I’m not sure exactly why, that’s just how we did things back in those days.

I left out Episodes 5-8 because the really, really suck. If you are determined to hear them, they are online. After Episode 9, though, the show starts to come together as I get comfortable and have more and more fun each time.

In addition to almost all the RFBs, I included Lakeside Shadow as a stand alone track, and Radio Free Burrito’s Mixtape (Volume One).

All files are .mp3, except for RFB episode 9, which is an enhanced podcast that apparently only plays on Apple devices. Sorry about that; I was young and foolish then (I feel old and foolish now). Just for shits and giggles, another short original tune I made, JazzyJazzJazz is also included. Don’t ever say I never gave you something for shits and giggles, kids.

All the shownotes and other neat-o things can be found at: http://radiofreeburrito.com

W00tstock from Los Angeles

This is an audience recording of the third w00tstock we did, at Largo. I think it’s hilarious and awesome, and I hope it inspires you to come see us to w00tstock in person whenever we come to a town near you. More information about w00tstock is at http://www.w00tstock.net

The Criminal Minds Production Diary

In July 2008, I worked on Criminal Minds, in episode 404, titled Paradise. I played serial killer and all around Very Bad Man Floyd Hansen. I keep a diary during production, which was printed in Sunken Treasure. I recorded it as a standalone audio thingy, with my usual asides and additional comments.

Video

Moments With Wil

One day I got it into my head that it would be amusing to make these little 30 second videos where I did something stupid, and then thanked the viewer for “spending this moment with me.” The problem was, they just didn’t work on their own, and I ended up showing the 15 I made to a few friends, before forgetting about them.

When we were putting together w00tstock, and the decision was made to include some short silly films, I knew that Moments With Wil had finally found a home. This is the first time all of them have been collected into one place and viewed by anyone who doesn’t also live in my house.

Stupid Cellphone Videos

While working on Eureka in 2010, I had one of those days where I was called in early, but ended up not working for almost seven hours. Sure, it was nice to earn a paycheck for sitting around and playing Plants Versus Zombies all day on my iPad, but I eventually got bored … and these stupid cellphone videos were born. It’s basically the Moments With Wil concept, without the fancy-smanchy titles and credits. As of this collection, there are 14 of them.

Text (which I wanted to call Text-eo, but didn't, because I'm apparently a chicken)

This directory contains nearly all of my writing, with the notable exception of Just A Geek and Dancing Barefoot, to which I sadly do not own the electronic rights. The Happiest Days of Our Lives is also absent, because a decent electronic version simply does not exist at the moment.

HOWEVER! What is here is pretty swell:

The directory HUNTER contains three different formats of my short tale Hunter (see how that works?), which is a short sci-fi story, set in a dark and desperate world. 

I have also included several chapbooks. They are:

Sunken Treasure - Wil Wheaton’s Hot Cocoa Box Sampler. 

This is just what it sounds like: a sample collection of all the different types of writing I do. I often suggest this book to people who are unfamiliar with my work, as it gives them a chance to find out if they’re going to like my work, and if they do, where they’d like to go next.

Games Matter

This is a collection of gaming-related essays and stories. It was prepared for GenCon in 2010. I’m really proud of this little book, and I plan to give it a wider release in 2011, with some additional material, including my two keynotes to PAX and PAX East.

Memories of The Future Volume One

Part memoir, part episode guide, part behind-the-scenes, all told from the perspective of a guy who is looking though his high school yearbook, facepalming and declaring “I can’t believe I thought that was cool.”

Volume One covers the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation from Farpoint to Datalore. Volume Two, which goes from Angel One to The Neutral Zone will be released in 2011.

The Day After and Other Stories

A short collection of short fiction, originally released as a chapbook at PAX in 2009. In order to get over my fear of writing and publishing short (and eventually longer) fiction, I released it as a print book in December 2010 for just 10 days, then released it as an eBook in January 2011. It is presented here in PDF and pub formats.

140 - The Stupid Twitter Book

I had this idea to make a short, small book, like the little Tao and Zen books you see in card stores and car washes. It would contain 140 of my stupid little Twitter things that made me laugh. I spent the better part of a day putting it all together, and then realized that Lulu, where I do most of my self-publishing, was going to charge something like $60 per copy, because it was a full color printing process for some strange reason. I didn’t think it was worth $60 (or anything more than $5, really) so I shelved the project. It’s not the same to read it as an eBook, but it’s still funny, and I think it’s kind of cool. For the moment, you’re one of 31 people in the world to see it, which includes the 10 people who bought this DVD at Emerald City Comic Con and my wife.

 

on the delivery of technobabble

I was in three scenes yesterday, one of which contained a massive amount of technobabble.

For those who don't know what that is: on a sci-fi show, technobabble is what we call pseudoscientific dialog like "I'll have to run a level four diagnostic on the antimatter inversion matrix to be sure." It's pretty much the worst dialog an actor can have to deliver on a show, because it's rarely connected to anything in reality, and if we're talking about the inertial dampeners in a scene, we're pretty much infodumping to the audience, instead of doing something interesting with our characters.

...or so I thought until yesterday.

The thing about technobabble is that it isn't usually connected to reality. By that, I mean that though it does follow the logical rules of the show's universe, and references things the fans know about, for most actors, it's like being asked to perform in a foreign language that you barely understand (if you understand it at all.)

The other thing about technobabble is that the character delivering it is supposed to be an expert on the subject, and should have a point of view about it that stays alive through the whole scene. For example, maybe Doctor Hoobajoo is the leading expert in the galaxy on ion resonance within the subspace induction processor core, so when Doctor Hoobajoo talks about that subject, she's an expert. You can't ask her a single question about the subspace induction processor core that she can't answer. But for the actor playing Doctor Hoobajoo, she has to deliver a bunch of dialog based on something that doesn't even exist as if she's been studying it her whole life.

This is a tremendous challenge for the actor, because, unlike normal dialog that comes from an emotional place, technobabble comes from memories that don't exist. While the actor who plays Doctor Hoobajoo can draw on the emotional memory of being betrayed, or being afraid, or being in love to inform a scene, she can't draw on the memory of studying and mastering the twin fields of ion resonance and subspace induction. As an actor, it's easy to fall into the trap of delivering technobabble by rote, and for a lot of us, it's the only way we can remember those lines at all.

But sometimes, a scene is emotionally important, and is filled with technobabble. That's just the reality of working in science fiction. So when Doctor Hoobajoo is trapped in the power conduit with Commander Framitz, her former lover from her first deployment who left her for an android, and can only save them from certain depolarizaion by repairing a malfunction in the subspace induction processor core, the actor has a lot of work to do. Not only does the actor have to be an expert who can solve the problem and save their lives, she has to be emotionally connected to the scene and the history between the two characters. Oh, and she has to remember that the stakes in this case are pretty high. And she has to do this over and over again for several hours, during the master shot, the VFX shots, and all the coverage.

Boy, writing those three paragraphs just exhausted me. I'll be back in a little bit.

Okay, some coffee and steel cut oats seem to have revitalized me, so I can get to my point now, about what I realized yesterday:

I had a scene that was almost entirely technobabble. It sets up a lot of the action for the episode, tells the audience what's at stake, and gets them excited enough to sit through commercials for MegaSomething versus Giant Other Thing to find out what happens next. I drove the scene. Everyone else was reacting to me and the information I gave them, and I think I had one line in two pages that wasn't technobabble. It was challenging, and I knew from experience that I was going to have trouble remembering the jargon, so I did a lot of extra homework to make sure I was totally prepared. 

As I did my preparation, I realized that while the technobabble is just a dump of information, it's information that Doctor Parrish has an opinion about. The function of the scene is to get the action going and give the audience some important information, but that doesn't mean it has to be an infodump. The way Doctor Parrish feels about the other characters affects the way he talks with them regardless of the words. It affects who he chooses to give certain bits of information to, and it affects how he delivers the information. So I found ways to be emotionally connected to the scene and the characters, while caring about the information I was giving them, so it wasn't an infodump. A scene that could have been tedious and boring became a scene that was a lot of fun to perform.

Still, it was really hard to remember all the technobabble I had, and at one point, when I blanked on a line, my Star Trek skills automatically sprung to life, went into failsafe mode, and made me say "blah blah emit blah pulse blah blah blah." (The fun of technobabble is that a lot of the words are interchangeable. The frustration of technobabble is that we can't paraphrase or use any of the interchangeable words, because a subspace matrix is different from a subspace array.)

It honestly could have been boring and exhausting to spend much of a day delivering technobabble, but when I realized that I could keep it interesting by endowing the technobabble with emotional resonance, the whole thing came to life in a surprising and unexpected way. It was like I'd detected anomalies in the starboard neutrino emitter, and instead of adjusting the warp plasma induction subroutine to compensate for multiadaptive fluctuations, like you'd usually do, I thought about it, and equalized the portable phase transmission with a self-sealing warp core transmuter.

I know, right? I bet you never thought to do it that way. Well, I did, and it worked.

here there be dungeons and dragons

Enter the Dragon from Roshan Murthy on Vimeo.

This is a delightful, short documentary about people who play D&D and other RPGs. If you've ever wondered why we play, or if you've ever attempted to explain to someone why we play, I think you'll enjoy it.

on the learning of lines and the telling of the story

Scene 15 is a little over three pages of intense dialog, some important character beats, and a fair amount of technobabble. We were supposed to shoot it tomorrow, but it was moved to this afternoon, so my plan to learn it tonight was pushed up by almost 24 hours.

People always want to know how actors learn lines, and there isn't one correct answer, because we all do it in different ways: some of us learn by reading the script over and over again, some of us learn by performing the entire scene aloud by ourselves, some of us write the scene down, and some of us run lines with another person until we have the dialog in our heads.

I learn my lines by understanding the scene, deciding what each line (or dramatic beat) is about, and then trying different things with my lines until I find the choice that makes the most sense. For example, last week we had a scene where I kept blanking on one of my lines. After a couple of takes I realized that I couldn't remember the line because I was doing the wrong thing with it, and that was making my brain short out. I can't tell you the actual line, but I can tell you that the acting choice -- which was wrong -- was Make An Offer. When I realized that Make An Offer was wrong, and Look For Permission was right, the scene came together, and we were done in two more takes.

I also have to understand what's at stake in each scene. I need to know exactly what my character wants and needs, so I can make choices for him to get there. As I said on Twitter recently, I realized that Doctor Parrish's favorite thing in the world is "I told you so." Evil Wil Wheaton's favorite thing in the world is, "Ha! Gotcha, Sheldon Cooper." Cha0s' favorite thing in the world is, "I know something you don't know, and never will know, because I am so much smarter than you." Knowing these things gives me a place to begin in every script, just like "Don't Be A Dick" gives me a place to begin every day in my real life.

But back to today's work. I learned today's scene by breaking down the entire thing into beats, and then placed those beats within the context of the rest of the episode (In Eureka, something fantastic usually happens in the first few pages, and the bulk of the show -- and the fun in each episode -- is spent figuring it out and fixing it) so I know what the stakes are.

Some of the things Doctor Parrish is doing today:

• Share scientific insight.
• Correct them. Again.
• Accuse him.
• Solve the Problem. Easily. (Jesus they're idiots.)
• Ha! I told you so.

It's easy, while doing television, to just learn the lines and rely on instinct and experience with the character you've been playing for a long time to bring it all together. We never have enough time, and some of us are working 12 hours a day, five days a week, so there are times when we're just so burned out and exhausted, we simply don't have the energy to really dig in and do more than that. While there are some great actors who can do that and deliver brilliant performances, I'm not one of them. I don't want to miss any beats. I don't want to miss any nuances because I'm relying on instinct instead of complete understanding of the scene. For example, the beat I mentioned above, where I share scientific insight, was originally Share a good idea, but while I was playing with the scene last night and again this morning, I realized that it was more specific, and stronger, and more interesting to share scientific insight. Maybe the difference between the two choices is too subtle to matter in the final cut, but it's a significant difference to me, so I made the change.

I guess I work a little harder than I have to, partially because I feel it's my responsibility as an actor to rise to the demands of the material and tell the story as fully as I can, but mostly because it's fun to break down a scene and find the strongest obvious and non-obvious choices that will tell the story the way it deserves to be told. The moments I live for -- the moments I love -- as an actor are the moments in rehearsal or during a take when I discover something about the character or the scene that wasn't aware of until the exact moment I found it ... just like real life, which is what we're aiming to recreate whenever we make up a story, even a story that's all about nano[REDACTED] and hyper[SPOILER] [SPOILER].

to boldly go where no clown sweater has gone before

Greetings from Vancouver, where the local hockey club is still in the playoffs, and the sky above our heads is the color of television, tuned to a dead channel (in 1980).

I am having a wonderful time on Eureka, keeping notes in my notebook so that I can write about the experience of making these episodes when they finally air, sometime just before the heat death of the universe.

My brother told me that the Endeavour crew made their own Star Trek poster, which is probably the most bad ass space shuttle poster ever.

He also told me that he felt like I should be there with them, on account of me being in Star Trek, so he made me this:

I win at having the best brother in the world.

Various things I want you to know

A few things before I forget:

1. Memories of the Future Volume 1 is available for your Kindle. It's also at Kindle.uk, and Kindle.de. It's temporarily out of the iBooks store, but I'll get that fixed in a few days. Hey, if you liked it, would you leave a review?

2. Yes, I'm working on Memories of the Future Volume 2 RIGHT NOW.

3. I don't know when Volume 2 will be out. I will likely have a preview of at least one episode from Volume 2 with me for my performance at Phoenix Comic Con.

4. I will be at Phoenix Comic Con in just a couple weeks. I'm doing a Eureka thing, and I'm doing a special STORYTIME WITH WIL WHEATON performance thing. I'm really excited about it. More on that later.

5. It was my great pleasure to perform John Scalzi's Fuzzy Nation for Audible. (Here's a sample! Yay!) It's recently been released, and is getting great reviews (both the book and my performance.) At Whatever, you can hear some of it, as well as the OMG AMAZING power ballad by Paul and Storm that John commissioned to celebrate the release of the book.

6. 100.3 The Sound is my new favorite radio station in Los Angeles, because it reminds me of the glory days of KMET. It delighted me to hear a drop on the air the other night that explicitly referenced the Mighty Met. I believe that you can tune in online, and suggest that you do, provided you enjoy that sort of thing.

7. Fear Itself is not disappointing me, even a little bit. In fact, I kind of love it. Same with Invincible Iron Man and Thor. The next time I see Fraction, I have to kiss him. It's going to be weird.

8. For some reason, I never really publicized my Tumblr. Well, here it is. I put shit there all the time that amuses and enrages me. So now you know.

9. I have decided that this list needs to go to eleven, because it's one more.

10. Logan Bonner introduced me to a really fun iOS game calle DungeonRaid. Because Logan decided to destroy my life by telling me about this game, I have decided to destroy yours. Pay it forward.

11. My belt, which has served me well for many years (holding up not only my pants, but many onions) finally cracked and broke in twain while I was at Legoland last week with some friends to see the Star Wars miniland stuff (more on that later, also too and like such as). I was thwarted in all my attempts to find a replacement belt, until I remembered yesterday that I have Fawkes' wardrobe in my closet, and Fawkes owns a pretty sweet belt. So I got it out, and for the near future, I'll be wearing Fawkes' belt. I say this as a warning to any gas tanks who think they're going to go ahead and tell me when to fill them.

we are all going to reseda...

This came into my mind recently:

When viewed from the sky, the sprawling neighborhoods that make Los Angeles are a series of small grids, linked by freeways and divided by boulevards into larger grids. When you fly into Los Angeles at night, it's like looking at a circuit board, traffic flowing along the freeways in streaks and dots of white and red, and along boulevards lined by the amber glow of streetlights. Bits and bytes of data move from node to node with the type of inefficiency that can only be born of bureaucratic planning that spans decades.

Also, this:

The Magic is everywhere, and everyone can see it, but nobody can actually see it for what it is. They talk about it like it's something wonderful: the Hollywood sign, the Ferris wheel at Santa Monica Pier, the shiny towering buildings in Downtown and Century City that turn into pillars of fire every day in the setting sun.

But some of us know what it really is. We can smell it, we can feel it, we can hear it like the droning of a far-off diesel locomotive. The Magic, fueled by the dreams that die here and stay trapped in the basin like smog, hides this city's true face.

The most concentrated Magic is in Hollywood, where the most powerful Dream Magic has been crushed underfoot and ground into the streets themselves to make them sparkle, a trap to lure in ever more dreamers, to feed the Beast that lurks just beyond their perception.

A big part of living in LA is hating living in LA, and talking about hating living in LA. That's not without reason: it's expensive, it's overpopulated, it has the worst transportation infrastructure in the fucking world, and it often feels like most of the people you meet here came from somewhere else on their way to Something Better, so nobody cares about making LA suck less.

But a city that can inspire me to see it as a Gibsoneqsue TechnoRetroCyberFutureSprawl in one moment and then as a living, scheming, hungry ancient Beast in the next can't be all that bad.

...or maybe it just wants me to believe that.

this post is titled Laika for some reason

When I started my blog almost ten years ago, I made a dedicated effort to write something new every day. I figured that it was good practice for me as a level zero writer, and I also knew that the only way to keep readers engaged was by providing new content all the time.

As the years rolled by, I had to force myself to take breaks, even when I was writing multiple weekly and monthly columns, because I had fallen in love with writing, and I really enjoyed interacting with readers in comments.

But as the years rolled by, I changed. My family changed. My work changed. The world changed, man. You've changed! You used to be cool! What happened to you?

Um. Sorry.

A lot of things changed, and so did the way I wrote about them. The biggest change for me was watching my kids grow up and move out on their own. As they became teenagers and then young adults, I felt less and less comfortable writing about them. It felt okay when they were little, and I was writing about becoming a dad and the experiences I had raising them, but as they got older and made friends who read about them on my blog, I began to feel like it was an invasion of their privacy to write about them. And also, honestly, teenagers can be total dicks to their parents, impossible to deal with, and their existence is, as far as I am concerned, conclusive proof that we never master time travel. Because if we did, I'm pretty sure all parents would travel back in time and make sure they never hooked up at the Enchantment Under The Sea dance.

My career changed, too. Namely: I had one again. Writing about the struggle to find work was more comfortable and interesting to me than writing about how great it is to have the work. It's also damn hard to write about things I work on when they don't make it to the audience for a year or more, and we now live in an era when studios and networks explicitly forbid us from blogging, flickring, twittering and otherwise talking about our work. I'm lucky that the shows I work on are mostly willing to leave me to my own judgment, but I still play it safe rather than risk spoiling something through my own carelessness.

The world changed. The way we communicate online changed. Where I once had a blog, I now have a Twitter and a Tumblr and a podcast and a YouTube and Reddit and Flickr and and and and and like and such as. What used to turn into a 1500 word post on my blog is now a link on Tumblr, a picture on Twitter, and then nothing at all on my blog, because I've lost the need to write about it.

I'm not sure what happens next. I still love to write, though, and I still love interacting with readers. I still love telling stories. I've been writing more and more fiction, because I don't feel weird writing about people and places I've made up, but I stopped writing regular columns because I began to get really sick of the sound of my own voice.

I used to write every day, and I looked forward to it. I kept my eyes and my ears and my soul open because I never knew when something was going to crash into my life that would make a good story. I'd like to find a way to get back to that, but I think things have changed so much, it's not really possible to change them back again.