WWdN is moving to a new server, and it looks like the textads database didn't get moved with the rest of the site.
I was gonna put up The Moose, but it looks like my shell access has been temporraily suspended, too.
So until that gets taken care of, my site will be nice and hosed, and readers will have to get their internet pr0n fix elsewhere.
People ask me all the time if I'll link their site, or if I'll link a site they think is cool, or something like that.
Some other people occasionally send me 10 bucks or so to offset the costs of keeping the website up and running.
So I figured, whynot marry the two?
Texads are now available on WWdN. I get about 500,000 unique visitors a month, and this test ad I've been running has done almost 900 pageviews in less than 45 minutes.
So it's just 10 bucks / 2500 impressions. If you're interested, head on over to my site and set your phasers to buy.
Heh. I like talking about setting phasers to do things. I once said to a waiter, "Set your phasers to 'refill!'"
He looked at me like I was crazy.
Speaking of crazy people, when I was in San Diego, the majority of people in our hotel on Thursday night were ultra-fundie xtian people, with their judgemental t-shirts and big ass crosses on chains.
Anne and I got into the elevator (i started to type 'enterprise. wtf is that about?). A girl rushed into the elevator, and I said, "where are you going," as I pushed the button for the 6th floor.
"Six," she said.
"Oh! Six!" I said, "That's the floor that's sweeping the nation!"
"Damn, Wheaton, you are a funny motherfucker," I thought.
She put her hand on her hip, and proudly displayed her "Not perfect, just saved" T-shirt, and said, "Exactly what is that supposed to mean?!"
"Uhh . . . it means that it's where all the cool kids are staying?" I said.
"Oh. Okay," she said.
Anne and I shared an unspoken "WTF?!" as the elevator stopped on our floor.
I'm not perfect or saved, baby. So suck it.
On Thursday, I'll be at the OSCon up in Portland. I'll be mostly running around, getting my geek on, but I'm also dong a couple of organized book signing events.
At both events, they're letting me read from Dancing Barefoot, and I'll be signing copies when I'm finished. So if any of my fellow Slashdotters are out at OSCon, drop by and say "hello, world! \n"
Very exciting moment for me tonight: I updated my geekcode.
I even updated it using the geekcode generator, installed using fink on my iBook, running in an X11 terminal window.
Then I got it into my Red Hat machine using the iBook's webserver.
w00t!
Here it is:
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GPA d-- s+: a C+++ UL+++ P+>+++ L+++ E--- W+++ N+ o+ K+++ w--
O---- M+ V-- PS++(+++) PE Y++ PGP++>+++ t++@$ 5++ X+ R+ tv- b++ DI+ D++
G++ e h---- r+++ y+++
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
Decode it here, if you rate G- or below.
Yes!!
This morning, UPS arrived with a shipment of 366 copies of Dancing Barefoot from my printer! I nearly cried when I opened the first box, and saw "By Wil Wheaton" right on the cover.
My wife took pictures, which I'm debating putting up, because I have major bed head.
I feel so good, and so excited about this. I started packing orders right away, and we completed 100 before I had to leave for a meeting.
My meeting was for a TV show pilot that seems REALLY cool. The meeting went very well, and I'm excited as hell to work with them. I hope it all works out.
And here's the crazy thing: the producers, who are very professional and CLEARLY know what they're doing, contacted me because of my website.
Okay, I have to go to the post office now. *hop*
I had this entry about being upset. Well, it was just a bunch of stupid whining, that I probably should have just kept to myself.
So I deleted it.
I wrote about being upset because of some ACs. Well, that's bullshit, and I need to own up to it. This feeling of being upset . . . it has nothing to do with ACs. And focusing on that crap just takes away from the positive comments and joy of being published. That's stupid on my part.
My being upset has everything to do with being dragged back into a very frustrating, expensive, never-ending nightmare that won't go away, and continues to derail my life. This morning, we thought it would be over, but some very upsetting things happened to me that I can't go into. What I could go into was this stupid AC trolling, which would normally roll right off of me. So I took some useless crap way too seriously.
When I got home, and saw that this review of my book was on Slashdot, I got excited. I wanted to hear what my fellow geeks thought . . . and because I was already beaten down and on the verge of tears, all I could see was the negative.
Yeah, I know that people are going to slag me (or their impression of me, at least.) I can get over it, usually.
Just not today. This bullshit that I can't describe as fully as I'd like to has smothered me and my wife since 3 weeks to the day after our wedding. Today, we thought it would finally be over. Instead, we found out that it will drag on indefinately.
You ever get pissed, or overreact, and then later on apologize to your buddy who happened to be there when you snapped?
Well . . . I'm sorry about that.
A few days ago, I sent the corrected proof of my first book (which is really my second, but I'm releasing them out of order) Dancing Barefoot back to my printer. This means that I'll have a final proof in a couple of days, and the book should be ready for sale somewhere around the second week of May. More details, including where you can get it, when I actually have copies to ship.
Here's the copy that goes on the back cover:
"There are five stories, spanning 30 years, between these covers. Some of them are funny, one is pretty damn sentimental, but they are all true. I wrote them shortly after my 30th birthday, as I looked to my past in an attempt to understand my present, and not fear my future."
-Wil WheatonHouses in Motion - Memories fill the emptiness left within a childhood home, and saying goodbye brings them to life.
Ready Or Not Here I Come - A game of hide-n-seek with the kids works as a time machine, taking Wil on a tour of the hiding and seeking of years gone by.
Inferno - Two 15-year-olds pass in the night leaving behind pleasant memories and a perfumed Car Wars Deluxe Edition Box Set.
We Close Our Eyes - A few beautiful moments spent dancing in the rain.
The Saga of SpongeBob VegasPants - A story of love, hate, laughter and the acceptance of all things Trek.
Some product details:
Size: 8.5x5.5
Length: 106 pages.
ISBN: 0-9741160-0-9
Price: USD 12.95
Each story is illustrated by Ben Claasen III, who did the "Klingon Convention Trauma" and "Wil Has A Posse" images in the Cafe Press store.
More observant or longtime readers of WWdN will recognize the titles as some blog entries, and wonder why they would want to buy the book.
This is a good question, and here's my good answer: Because!
Kidding.
There are several reasons that I think you'd want this, even if you've already read the stories in the blog: it's illustrated, and they are AWESOME! The stories have all been rewritten, and fleshed out. Working with an editor, and getting feedback from many people has made the stories richer and more evocative. I've matured as a writer since I first penned them, and it shows.
But the biggest reason to get it is this: The Saga of SpongeBob Vega$ Pants is finally concluded! The story that I kept promising to finish has been totally rewritten (I think it's AWESOME now), and includes a retelling of the very first time I met WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER on the set of Star Trek V.
Initially, I wasn't that excited about this book. I just thought of it as something to fill the space between now and when Just A Geek is finished. I thought that maybe it could help generate interest in JAG too . . . but I've become very proud of it all on its own.
It is my first effort. I wish you would like it.
I made this post a few days ago where I asked a question about the Iraq conflict.
It was a legitimate question (which a few folks were kind enough to answer in great detail), and it gets modded down to -1 as a "troll".
Grr.
Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
Boing Boing pointed me to this 1974 review of the "new" Dungeons and Dragons game.
Some highlights: D&D was subtitled "Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargams Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures."
The reviewer concludes, "In general, the concept and imagination involved is stunning. However, much more work, refinement, and especially regulation and simplification is necessary before the game is managable."
Because I so enjoy sharing the brilliant emails I get, I present to you:
"How Sad."
From:swiftparrot@sbcglobal.net
To:wil@wilwheaton.net
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2003 20:50:16 -0600
You prefer to have the Iraqi people continue their brutal lives under 'the
butcher' Saddam. It makes you a lot smaller than I thought you were. You are
actually in favor of a brutal dictator over the lives of the people he
brutalizes. You support the ongoing torture and murderous subjugation of the
Iraqi people. You are against offering the people of Iraq freedom and free
markets.Although it is well documented that the 911 terrorists trained in Iraq in
big jets on the ground using small knives to overcome the jet's crew, you
choose not to believe that there is any link between Saddam and terrorist.
It is certainly your right to choose to be blind. Saddam gives money to
martyr's families and openly supports Hamas. (Are you also anti-Semitic?) So
called 'Palestinians' could have had a state of their own any time in the
last 30 years. They choose not to have it. They do not want a state. They
simply want all Jews to die. They want the Jews thrown off the continent and
will be satisfied with nothing less. Ever. Do you also support the
Palestinians hatred of the Jews as strongly as you support Saddam's hatred
of all things American? You must agree that the US is the great Satan. After
all, you are rich. You are the devil incarnate to Saddam and those who
support like him.Do you pretend to worship God the way you pretend to be 'for peace'? After
all, the peace you want is the ongoing brutalization of the Iraqi people by
the Butcher of Baghdad. And you are clearly FOR that. It is interesting that
a person who is a recipient of the best the US has to offer anyone is so
totally against anyone else having the same opportunities.You may well be anti-war but the only peace you are 'for' is the peace of
death for any Iraqi who dissents from Saddam's wishes. You are 'for' the
peace of death for thousands of Iraqis, by starvation, every year your
sanctions continue. And if you are also not against sanctions and not
against attacking Iraq then you obviously support Saddam's attack of Kuwait
and Iran and the deaths by gassing of the Kurds. You are 'for' the many war
crimes Saddam has committed and you do not wish to see him punished...How do you sleep at night?
Sincerely Baffled by your anti-Samaritanism and un-Christian attitudes.
PS> You truly hate the Iraqis a great deal to wish such an existence upon them. May god have mercy on you.
I have an audition to play a robot in the upcoming Fox picture I, Robot. I have read that the script isn't an actual adaptation of Asimov's book, nor is it the brilliant script Harlan Ellison wrote so long ago.
However, the sides that I have for my call on Thursday are straight out of I, Robot. In the scene, a detective questions a robot who was caught fleeing the scene of his master's death. Sound familiar?
Who knows. Hollywood has a way of trashing the greatest ideas, especially in big budget films. But I'm excited anyway. I get to pretend that I'm a robot, and nobody will call the cops.
Back in summer, Travis Oates and I quit our jobs hosting "Arena" on G4.
Since then, I have been overwhelmed with emails from people, wanting to know why we quit.
It's a long story, but here's a very short version:
The producer I was working with was, in my opinion, an amateur. Horribly unprofessional, he treated me and my partner with shocking contempt and disrespect.
For months before I finally left, the producers of the show treated my co-host, Travis Oates, like he had never worked on a show in his life. Travis has created and executive produced several shows. He is currently writing a book, and has won several awards for his work. Travis deserved their respect, but they never gave it to him.
Travis was very active on the Arena message boards, and when we suddenly dropped CounterStrike from our show, the fans asked him why. Travis asked te producer what he should tell them. The producer told Travis that Valve had decided not to sign a waiver, which would protect the network from a lawsuit if some stupid kid decided to shoot up his school and blame it on CS. Travis relayed this information to the fans, and someone from Valve read it. Apparently this made the person from Valve very unhappy, and this person complained to G4. The brass at the network was furious, and blew up at Travis about it. The producer, who had explicitly told Travis what to say, never spoke up on Travis' behalf. He sat back, and let Travis get blamed for just following the producer's instructions. As a matter of fact, the producer had the nerve to send Travis an e-mail, where he blasted Travis for speaking without permission.
When we suddenly dropped DOA3 from Arena, the fans wanted to know why. Again, Travis asked the producer what to tell them. The producer told Travis that we'd cut the game from Arena because an executive at Comcast, G4's parent company, was "personally offended by Dead Or Alive 3," so it had been pulled not only from Arena, but from the entire network as well. Travis conveyed this information to the fans, via the message board, and when the G4 executives read it, they freaked out more intensely than the Valve people had. Travis was threatened with termination, and again the producer sat back and said nothing. He did fire off another terse, official-sounding e-mail to cover his ass. This producer's treatment of Travis, and the network's complicity, was strike one.
When Microsoft and G4 teamed up to have the HALO National Finals on Arena, our producer treated the players like they were scum. As early as our first production meeting, he was talking about them like they were an annoyance, and lucky to even be on the show. My efforts to make sure that the players, who had come from all over the country to play the game and were competing for major prizes, were treated well, were met with constant resistance from everyone except one executive at G4. The HALO finals should have been one hour long (44 minutes of show, with the balance being commercials), but the network refused. They insisted that it be cut down to 23 minutes, and it ended up looking like crap. It was the HALO freaking National Finals, and it looked like something on UHF. It was boring and stiff. I asked the editor why it was so bad. He told me that he'd cut together an hour-long version, and it was funny and exciting. The network refused, and the producer couldn't be bothered to fight with them to make the show better. I realized that the producer was lazy, and that as long as he was involved, the show wouldn't ever grow into something that I'd be proud of. This was strike two.
Because this producer was rude, arrogant, and treated the players badly, the reputation of the show was quickly soiled within gaming circles, and it was hard to recruit new players for the show. Players who did show up were often made to wait around for hours while the producers tried to get their act together, and when they grew restless, they were reminded how lucky they were to even be there, and get some free pizza.
Because he wasn't doing his job, the producer often could not get two teams of eight players together every other week to play our games. When he found that there weren't enough players for the games, he grabbed people people who worked for G4 to play against the "champion" teams. They'd sometimes have players from the "champion" teams join the "challenger" team. Not surprisingly, the players on the "challenger" team who were from the "champion" team did not often play their best, ensuring that their real, champion team would win.
I didn't know about this practice until our 13th episode. When I found out, I expressed to the producer that I was very concerned. I felt that it was dishonest, and I was upset that he'd lied to me and to our audience about the validity of the games on Arena. I told him that it put me in an awkward position, because I wouldn't go along with lying to the audience.
In addition to being arrogant and unprofessional, this producer was also very dishonest, He didn't care that the show was essentially faked, and when I asked him how we would explain to the audience that the challenging team had players from G4 on it, he instructed me to "make something up" to justify the situation.
I felt that my integrity was on the line. I refused, and after numerous attempts to reach a compromise with him, I finally talked to his boss about it.
His boss claimed to know nothing about the faking of the game play rounds, and was very upset that the producer wasn't securing new players for each episode. He told me that he couldn't believe that the producer was unable to find four players in a span of two weeks, and told me that he'd speak with the producer, and get back to me.
About 30 minutes later, my producer called me. I told him that I was glad to hear from him (he'd been avoiding me for days) and asked him what we were going to do about the episode.
His response was to scream at me, call me names, and tell me that I was "a fucking bullshit asshole" for going over his head and complaining to his boss.
I told him that I understood why he was upset, and suggested that calling me names wasn't the most professional way to deal with this situation. I reminded him that we wouldn't be in this position if he'd gotten the players like he was supposed to.
His response was to continue screaming at me.
Now, I've been an actor for 23 years. I've worked in all levels of the industry, with all sorts of people, and I have never, never been screamed at that way. Nobody has ever treated me with such open disdain and disrespect, and I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
I tried to calm him down, and told him again that we needed to talk about the show. I told him that lying to the audience was a real problem.
He responded, "No, Wil. The real problem is you, you fucking asshole! You had no right to go over my fucking head and talk to my fucking boss! This is complete BULLSHIT, Wil, this is -- "
Something in me snapped, and I blew up. If I'd been face to face with him, it would have taken several people to pull me off him. I told him to shut the fuck up, and be a professional.I told him that in my entire career, nobody had ever spoken to me the way he did. I told him that this was his problem, because he didn't do his job . . .
And he hung up. It was the last time I ever spoke with him.
I called Travis, my co-host and very good friend, and told him that I wanted him to know what had happened, because I was calling the network to quit when I hung up with him.
Travis calmed me down, and somehow talked me into sticking around for the episode, which was called "Team UMM vs. Team Leftovers." I finally agreed that I would do the episode, but I would tell the audience that the other team didn't show up to play against UMM, so we pulled together whoever was hanging around at the time, and called them "Leftovers."
Yeah, it wasn't true, but it was as close as I was going to get. In retrospect, I should have quit right then, but I felt a loyalty to Travis and the show's fans. I decided to shoot this "leftovers" episode, and deal with the problems when we were done. Of everything that happened, this is the only choice I regret.
When we shot the episode, the producer skulked around like a child, and there were countless mysterious "technical" problems that we'd never had before. Travis and I were forced to stop and start over and over again, and it became clear to us after an hour or so that the producer was fucking with us.
We finished the episode, and I spent the following week working on the script for the next show. When I went to pick up my paycheck that week, I saw that my pay had been inexplicably cut by over 2/3. I knew that the producer had done this, and when I called my bosses at the network to get to the bottom of it, nobody would give me a straight answer. In subsequent meetings with the network heads, I was informed that my pay would remain insultingly low for at least the next two years, and there was no plan to increase the budget on my show. G4 had no intention of removing this producer who had driven me and Travis away from the network, or any of the other producers who were driving good talent away.
Strike Three. G4 is out.
There is a culture of dishonesty and hubris at G4 that would make an ambulance-chasing lawyer cringe, and I couldn't be part of it. I understand that the blame for my quitting has been placed on another producer, who was fired just before I quit. This is not true. It has also come to my attention that the very producer who treated us so badly has been telling people that he had me fired. For anyone keeping score at home, it is entirely because of this producer, and his outrageous treatment of both me and Travis that I quit.
Despite all of this, there are a couple of good people who work there: mostly writers, who are doing the very best they can in an incredibly hostile environment. One person in particular, Brian Malley, was one of the hardest working people I've ever been around in 20 years of acting. Arena could not have functioned without him. The guys who actually work in the studio where we taped were all great, as well. It's truly unfortunate that the entire show was headed up by such a jerk.
I haven't seen the new hosts, but I understand that the audience hates them pretty uniformly. I would say to give them a chance. I'm sure they're doing the best they can with their material . . . but I fear that they are going to ride this sinking ship all the way down.
. . . and then, from time to time, something comes through that makes me laugh so hard my sides hurt.
From: "Willie WheatonisaLoser"
Date: Mon Dec 9, 2002 21:28:38 US/Pacific
To: wil@wilwheaton.net
Subject: Unbelievable.WiL,
cOmE oN nOw, YoU cAn'T bE sErIoUs. YoUr WeBsiTe Is ThE bIgGeSt JoKe, I mEaN wHaT's WiTh ThE dIaRy TyPe EnTrIeS aNd ThE wAcK hOmEmAdE tShIrTs? StAnD bY mE iS a GrEaT mOvIe, AnD tHeRe Is WhErE yOu PeAkEd. YoUr CuRrEnT pRoJeCtS aRe A jOkE, i MeAn ThE hOoTeRs StOrY hAd Me CrAcKiNg Up. YeA yOu "UsEd To Be An AcToR" bEcAuSe WhAt YoU'rE dOiN' nOw IsN't AcTiNg, It'S wIsHiNg ThAt YoU cOuLd Be AnY gOoD aT iT. i MeAn It'S nOt LiKe YoU hAvEn'T bEeN dIsCoVeReD, iT's JuSt ThAt No OnE wAnTs YoU iN tHeIr MoViEs BeCaUsE yOu ArE lAaAaAaAaAaAmE!!!!
Life is a healthy respect for mother nature laced with greed.
