Wil Wheaton's Blog, page 102

in which i am the luckiest man in the ‘verse

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Photo by Pixie, clothing by Clockwork Couture.

Seventeen years ago tonight, I met the girl of my dreams. A few years later, I tricked her into marrying me.

Happy New Year. I hope you get to spend it with someone you love.

Congratulations, #Tabletop!

My show, Tabletop, was included in Giga Om’s The Best Of Web Video 2012, one of only four program(me)s singled out by Liz Shannon Miller:

Tabletop

Part of the Geek and Sundry YouTube network (along with Felicia Day’s Flog and the whimsicalWritten by a Kid), Tabletop was one of this year’s case models for the concept that web video audiences are ready for longer content.

The Wil Wheaton-hosted series sat geek celebs like Alex Albrecht, Morgan Webb, Jane Espenson, Amber Benson and Ryan Higa to play a wide range of dice, card and board games, consistently reaching six-figure viewcounts (impressive for a half-hour long show). But what I find especially cool abut Tabletop is the gaming community that’s come out of it, showcased primarily via the Tumblr blog Seen on Tabletop, where viewers are encouraged to submit their experiences playing the games featured on the show.

The last new episode of Tabletop was posted November 1st, but “Seen on Tabletop” is still updating regularly: Right now, it’s flooded with posts featuring the post-Christmas gaming adventures of its fans.

I’m so proud of Tabletop, and so grateful to everyone who has helped make it a success. As a rule, I don’t care about being included in lists or winning awards — I believe the work is what’s important and that the work should just speak for itself — but this is different, because we’re on a very short list with My Drunk Kitchen and Daily Grace, two of the funniest and most entertaining shows I’ve ever seen anywhere.

And I really love that she singled out the Tumblr community I created, which is only awesome because my fellow gamers keep submitting their pictures and stories to it.

The most important thing for us at Geek and Sundry is to make Tabletop an entertaining show that’s worth your time to watch, so we work very, very hard to hit that goal. But my ulterior motives are twofold:

1) Make more gamers by showing anyone who watches the show how much fun it is to play tabletop games, thus inspiring them to get together with friends and family to play.

2) Give gamers something to show their non-gaming partners, friends, or family to help them understand why we love games as much as we do, hopefully leading those partners/friends/family to number 1).

The community that’s been built at As Seen On Tabletop has ended up being a very big part of serving my ulterior motives, and I’m very grateful to everyone who’s submitted pictures and stories to it.

Tabletop comes back with new episodes starting on January 3, and we should know for sure if we get a season two very shortly after. Fingers crossed!

the quietest and most constant of friends

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.” -  Charles William Eliot

“Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they’ll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back.” 

― John Green, An Abundance of Katherines

In late 2000 or early 2001, a friend of mine gave me a book. It wasn’t a special occasion, like a birthday, and it wasn’t meant to mark something important, like the closing of a show or a graduation; it was simply a gift.

“This was written by a friend of mine, and I think you’ll really like it,” she said. It was a fairly large book, soft-covered. “It’s weird. There are tons of footnotes, and footnotes of footnotes, and sometimes you have to turn the book upside down to read it.” She opened it and showed me.

I took it from her, thanked her for it, and a few days later opened it up to read it. It didn’t grab me right away, and all I can remember now is being intimidated by the size of it. I set it aside, guiltily, and went on with my life. I kept it, though, through a number of moves and new houses, and always gave it a place of prominence on my bookshelf, so I wouldn’t forget about it.

“I’ll read it someday,” I would tell myself, but I never did.

Over the years, when my friends who had read it saw it on my shelf, they’d excitedly ask me if I’d read it yet. They always wanted to talk about it, and seemed disappointed when I told them I hadn’t gotten to it, yet. It became something of a white whale in my library, and I always seemed to find other things to read, excuses to avoid opening it. I’d waited so long, I thought, what could it hurt to wait a little bit longer?

A few months ago, while I was browsing r/nosleep, I came across r/Slender_Man. I was immediately drawn into the world of Marble Hornets and various other ARGs. I downloaded the Slender Man Mythos and lost myself in that wonderfully creepy and genuinely scary world for hours and then days and then weeks.

Eventually, I exhausted all of the Slender Man material I had, and went looking for something equally spooky and unique. I kept seeing people talk about this book, called House of Leaves, and I realized that I owned that very book. In fact, it had been sitting on my bookshelf since my friend Maureen gave it to me over a decade ago.

So a few nights ago, I opened it up and began reading. It didn’t grab me right away, but I stayed with it long enough to get interested enough to keep reading. Then, right around page 40, I think, it hooked me and hasn’t let go.

I was up late last night, reading all of The Whalestoe Letters, and only stopped when I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. When I woke up this morning, I skipped my usual hour or so at the computer with my coffee and instead spent two hours in the living room, reading my book.

Anne and I went to breakfast, and on the way there I told her all about it. The thing that sort of surprised me, and the reason I sat down just now to write this post, was the revelation that it wasn’t even the story or the way it is told that is so satisfying to me. Instead, it’s the ritualized act of holding an actual book — hundreds of bound pages — in my hands while I sit on the couch or in a chair and give myself over to the words printed inside. And House of Leaves is a rare book that absolutely must be read this way. It will not translate to an eReader, and I’m actually quite grateful for that.

I love my eBooks. I love the convenience of having a book sync across all of my various devices, always at my fingertips wherever I am and whenever I need it (unless I’m on an airplane; a stupid and pointless rule that really needs to be changed). I love the instant gratification that comes with buying a book and reading it within minutes after hearing about it, without ever leaving the chair I was already sitting in. As an author who exists primarily on the Internet, I’ve made a very good living due in no small part to eBooks.

And yet.

And yet there is a romance and a power and a beauty and a permanence and a sense of reality that actual printed books have, which also does not translate to electronic format for me.

I haven’t read nearly as many books this year as I wanted to, partially because I’ve been very busy, partially because I discovered Minecraft, partially because I spend more time creating than I do consuming … but I have to admit it’s all mostly because an eReader sitting on a nightstand doesn’t say “pick me up and read me” the same way a book does … which is exactly what this book next to me is saying right now.

Christmas time is here…

We did our big Christmas thing last night, with a huge feast, the traditional live tweeting of A Christmas Story, and the joy of being with the people you love most (which is always a good thing, but seems especially joyful this time of year.)

The kids (who are actually adults, but will always be “the kids” to me) woke me up at 10 this morning, and I was grateful for the extra sleep. It turns out that, even when your kids are adults, you still find yourself awake after midnight wrapping presents on the floor with your wife. Holiday tradition and all that, you see.

While I drank my coffe, the dogs and cats got gifts from Santa in their stockings (yes, we’re those people) and accepted them in the usual manner: disinterest from the cats, and excitement measured in megatons from the dogs. After the dogs retreated to their particular spots with their new chew toys, we opened our gifts to and from each other. If you look really hard, you can see the greatest thing in the world that Anne got me.

While my kids opened their gifts, I replayed nearly two decades of Christmas mornings together.  I remembered their joy and excitement when they got a bike or a basketball or the new Harry Potter thing. I remembered being so exhausted from staying up most of the night to assemble something I could hardly see straight, but being so happy when Ryan or Nolan exploded with joy upon opening it. There were bikes and rollerblades and skateboards and basketball hoops and remote controlled cars, and even though all of those things are long gone, the memories we built together on every Christmas Eve and Christmas Day — the joy of being with the people we love — endure.

I’m so grateful to be with my family today, and so proud of the young men Anne and I raised. All I wanted for Christmas was to be with my family, and Santa delivered. Big time.

“From Aunt Clara”

I opened a Christmas present that was “from Aunt Clara” and this is what was inside:

My wife just gets me.

The Wheatons Have The Phone Box

 

Happy Christmas, everybody. We hope you’re spending it with people you love.

Wil and Anne

Dogshaming Seamus

I’m going to have to make a category for this, if my dogs keep this up.

regarding instagram’s new TOS

So Instagram is now going to use photos taken by its users in advertising, and they may or may not disclose to viewers when the advertising is happening.

I have no idea how this will actually work, and I’m once again glad that I don’t use Instagram … but I know a lot of people who do, and many of those people are celebrities to some degree.

Here’s what I’m wondering: if Kaley Cuoco uses Instagram to share a photo of her and Melissa Rauch doing something silly, does that mean that Instagram can take that photo and use it to advertise for something silly without compensating them for what becomes a use of their likeness for commercial purposes? I can see that being a pretty serious shitstorm if it happens. I’m not a big enough celebrity for it to personally affect me, but I know a lot of people who are. If someone Instagrams a photo of Seth Green walking through an Urban Outfitters, does that mean Urban Outfitters can take that image and use it to create an implied endorsement by Seth? What if the picture is taken by a complete stranger? Who gets final say in how the image is used? The subject, the photographer, or Instagram?

This sort of dovetails with similar concern I have about the automatic opt-in nature of much of our digital life: if I’m in someone’s address book, and they use an app that grants the developer full, unfettered access to their address book, I’ve now had my information given without my consultation or consent to a developer who I know nothing about, and I never even knew it was happening.

Just as we have a “do not track” option for our webbrowsing habits, we’re going to need to have something similar for other aspects of our increasingly-digital lives: from contact information to our location to moving and still images of ourselves. Because it’s no longer enough for me to be careful with my opt-ins and online sharing; now I have to ensure that every single person around me is careful and respectful of my privacy wishes, as well.

The Nightmare Before Doctor Who Christmas Special

It was a long time ago, longer now than it seems, when Amelia Pond met a man in her dreams.

And the story that you are about to be told about Doctors and Daleks

is centuries old.

Now, you’ve probably wondered where the good Doctor comes from. If you haven’t, I’d say, it’s time you’ve begun!

For there was a Time War and and many were lost

and no one quite knows just exactly the cost.

But The Doctor is now the last of his kind

and when he was forced to leave Gallifrey behind

with a ride in his TARDIS across time and space

he met dear old Sandy Claws, face to bony face.

Today’s #Tabletop Hangout

Last week, I had a meeting at Geek and Sundry to discuss several geek and sundry things, some of them related to my show Tabletop. We all thought it would be fun and awesome to do a live Google Hangout Q&A thingy for all the people who love the show and are sadface that there won’t be new episodes until January. We were pretty excited to have a whole hell of a lot of fun tonight.

In light of Friday’s mass murder in Connecticut, though, it just felt wrong to me, and I thought we should postpone it for a week or more. I discussed it with some of my cow orkers at G&S, and we decided that we’d do whatever I decided. Unable to make a decision I felt good about on my own, I went for a walk with Anne, and asked her opinion and advice.

“Gaming is a family activity, and people watch Tabletop with their kids,” she said, echoing something Tabz at G&S had said to me earlier in the day, “it seems like giving anyone who wants a break from the sadness and horror we’re all feeling an hour to talk and think about things we love and the people we love is a good thing.”

I’ve said before that Anne is the brains in our relationship. She’s also the heart and soul.

After 9/11, we canceled our shows at ACME because none of us felt like we could be funny. I’m feeling similar emotions now… but I don’t have to be funny or perform. I just have to not suck, and I can do that. I can still provide an hour for us to talk about games, about the production of the show, and maybe share some stories about how gaming is important to my family.

So that’s what I’m going to do. For an hour tonight, from 6pm Pacific time, I’ll be taking your questions about Tabletop and gaming. @GeekAndSundry will have all the details you need to know so you can watch and submit your questions.