Wil Wheaton's Blog, page 130

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.

FedCon Day 4

I don't drink at cons. I mean, I'll have a beer or maybe a glass of wine with dinner, but I don't go out drinking the way young people go out drinking, even though I usually see people I love and it would be a lot of fun to go out to a pub for some pints. I figure that I'm already pushing my body past its regular limits just by talking for hours at a time, and I don't see a lot of benefit in taxing it further with the introduction of excessive amounts of wonderful, wonderful booze. Besides, I have a responsiblity to be fresh and 100% present when I'm meeting fans and performing, and I take that responsibility very seriously.

So last night, I went to a special FedCon reception for everyone who was appearing here. It was a great time, and I enjoyed the conversation and company (along with two drinks) over about four hours. When I realized how late it was, I said my goodnights, and went back to my room. I suppose it was about 1am.

I got ready for bed, and looked at my laptop ... its wallpaper is the Aperture Science loading screen from Portal 2. "Oh, I'll just play one or two levels before bed..." I thought.

The next thing I knew, it was 3am. "Oh shit. Okay, it's not the worst thing in the world. I don't have to do anything until 1pm tomorrow, so surely I can get my 8 hours of sleep and I'll be ready to go."

I logged off (by the way, GLaDOS really holds a grudge, doesn't she?) and jumped into bed. My mind replayed the level I'm currently stuck on -- the hallmark of a truly great game -- and I guess I drifted off to sleep after about 15 or 20 minutes.

The next thing I knew, Stephan was knocking on my door. It was 12:45pm.

I jumped out of bed in a mostly-awake panic, and flew to the door. "I overslept," I said. "I'll be ready in 10 minutes."

I showered as fast as I ever have, and put myself together in 12 minutes.

"I guess I'll have to add 'don't play video games late at night' to the list of things I don't do at cons," I thought with a tired grin.

I woke up in the lift on my way to the stage, and any residual cobwebs were thrown off by the reception the audience gave Marina and me when we walked out on stage.

For the next hour, she and I told stories about working together, answered questions from the crowd, and had a really, really good time. I loved every second of it, and I couldn't help but remember how nervous and anxious I felt years ago when I spoke at The Galaxy Ball. Man, what a long, strange trip it's been since then.

Now I'm relaxing with a cup of coffee and Matthew Sweet on the CBGB I Heart Radio station while I write this up. I'm going to head down to the vendor's room to get a birthday present for a friend, eat some lunch, and then relax until the closing ceremonies tonight. I'm looking forward to going home to my wife and our pets, but I can tell that I'm going to miss being here.

FedCon has been amazing for me. I've had a wonderful time, and I hope I am invited back again.

FedCon Day 3

I spent most of the morning signing autographs and taking pictures with fans here at FedCon. I got some lovely gifts, including a cake that was made to look just like a The Wesley Crushers bowling shirt. I don't usually accept food at cons, but this was so amazing, I couldn't say no. I took pictures that I'll put onto my Flickr when I get back home.

When I was finished, Robbie McNeill and I went with Stephan to the old city here in Dusseldorf. We walked along the Rhine, ate lunch in a wonderful Lebanese restaurant (it was awesome to eat until I was full, instead of eating until I just wasn't hungry #firstworldproblems), and wandered around looking at the old buildings. If I ever get to come back to this con, I'm totally going to spend an extra day here, just so I can tour the countryside a little bit so I can see and feel Germany; the couple of hours we had just scratched the surface, and now I really want to see more.

The hotel is right next to the airport, so I figured we should take the tram back. I mean, how hard could it be to get to the airport?

Not very hard at all, it turns out. We rode the subway to the main central train station, and then took a train straight to the airport. While we stood on the platform waiting for our train to arrive, I looked down the track, and saw five or six other tracks all winding off between houses and buildings, electrical wires strung over them all. A train arrived just as another one was pulling out of the station, and I said to Robbie, "This is what Germany looks like in my imagination."

He said, "We do shows on Chuck where he goes around the world, and I wish I'd brought my camera with me to capture this. It would be a perfect background if we ever send Chuck to Germany."

The train ride back was pretty cool, and I kind of wish it had lasted twice as long as it did, because just as I was starting to get that feeling that I was really in another country, we pulled into the station.

We all parted ways once we got back to the hotel, and I took a nap before meeting Kate Hewlett and her friend for dinner, which was -- I am not making this up -- a tofu hot dog covered with some kind of weird relish and crispy onions. I don't say this lightly: it changed my life in many unexpected ways. In fact, I think I'm going to have another one for lunch today.

Before I forget: the Cosplay here is phenomenal. I've seen a Wampa that was easly 2.5 meters tall, a couple dressed as Major Asshole and Dark Helmet, a Storm Trooper who I'm pretty sure was with his son, who was dressed as a miniature Scout Trooper.

The coolest thing, though, was a group a women dressed as Cat Nurses from Doctor Who. I looked for The Face of Boe, but he was nowhere to be found.

FedCon day two

I slept late, and woke to the room service guy knocking on my door. I vaguely recall signing the order receipt before falling back into bed for another hour, when my growling stomach finally won the battle between it and my tired brain.

I'd like to believe that my stomach told my brain, "Look, brain, when there's food in me, it gives you and the rest of this stupid body energy, and then none of us will be so damn tired. Christ, why couldn't I have been put into an athlete, instead of ... whatever the hell this old thing is."

Man, my stomach is a jerk, isn't it? It knows that I need it, though ... it's always one step ahead!

I had a coffee, too many croissants (the non-meat options for breakfast are rather limited here, and feature lots of bread), and the most delicious bowl of birchermuesli I've had since yesterday morning. Seriously, where has this been all my life?! If I can't get this stuff back in Los Angeles, I will register a complaint.

I wrote a blog, took a shower, and got down to my autograph session right on time. On my way, I passed Nicole De Boer, who looks so much like my friend Lynn, I keep doing double takes and wondering why the hell Lynn is here, and if she's here, why aren't we hanging out? (I told this to Nicole yesterday, before I realized it made me sound: a)crazy and b)like a bit of a creep. Whoops. It's a good thing she's really awesome, and we can speak the secret language of Star Trek actors.)

For the next four hours, I signed pictures of Wesley in his various sexytime and bullet-proof hair forms, a few Criminal Minds pictures, and more Big Bang Theory images of Evil Wil Wheaton than anything else. I also noticed something here that I've never seen at any other cons: Many people made truly awesome collages in photoshop or gimp, and printed them out on photo paper for me to sign.

In every signing, it's inevitable that most of the day will blur. It's just a fact of doing something that's repetitive, especially in an environment where I know that I can't stop and chat like I usually do, on account of the huge lines of people who are waiting.

Nevertheless, something is as clear in my mind as if it just happened. A man brought me a photo of the German poster for Stand By Me. "You are the only one left who hasn't signed this," he said.

I looked at it, and saw that Corey, Jerry ... and River had signed it.

The world stopped for a moment, and everything went silent. I looked at River's signature, knowing that he couldn't have been older than 23 when he signed it, and that it was likely the same age as one of my sons when he did.

Again, I thought about a life cut down too soon, an avoidable tragedy that has now hit me in the stomach twice in just a short period of time. I wondered how all the 25th anniversary mania is affecting River's family, and if this is stirring up feelings in them that are less painful when undisturbed.

"This is affecting you," a woman said, softly.

I looked up after I don't know how long and said, "Yes." I rubbed my thumb across River's name, and held a deliberate moment of silence for him. Putting my name next to his felt ... strange but also good.

As the day went on, I started to feel really weak and woozy. I think a few days of eating mostly bread-based food is pissing off my body, and I felt almost like I was going to crash. I got some juice and a granola bar into me, with some gummy bears on stand by just in case, but was able to pull myself back together in time for the photo session later in the day.

I think I took about 100 photos with a bunch of different people, but it all went by in such a blur, I could have imagined the whole thing. Everyone was, again, incredibly kind and friendly, which seems to be a theme here at Fedcon.

After my photo shoot was over, I wandered the vendor's room. I bought cufflinks that look like a Dalek and a Tardis, and a Tardis pin for my bag of holding. I told Stephan, who is taking care of me, that Anne would be very pleased for me to return him without a dozen new T-shirts. He laughed and said his girlfriend feels the same way about his T-shirt collection.

While I rode the elevator up to my floor, I looked out at the lobby. It was filled with people in all sorts of beautiful costumes, in groups of 3 and 4, or in large parties of 10 or more. Everyone spoke to each other with animated arm movements, people posed for and took pictures with and of each other, and everyone seemed to be having a great time getting their geek on.

"I'm looking at a con in Germany," I thought, "but I could really be anywhere in the world, even my own town, and I'd be looking at essentially the same thing. This is how enormous and inclusive our culture is."

I walked down the hallway and into my room, feeling lucky and proud to be part of this.

 

FedCon day one

The plan was to sleep for as close to 12 hours as possible, to reset my brain for local time. My brain, as usual, had plans of its own. I woke up after about four hours, and before I fully realized what was happening, I'd solved a fairly major story problem on this project I've been stalled on for months.

I got out of bed, wrote down everything I could, hoped it would make sense to me when I woke up for real, and went back to sleep. About 8 hours later, I woke up and felt great. It was just after 9am local time. I hopped out of bed, and while I made my coffee, I checked my notes from the middle of the night. They all made sense, and now it's just a matter of time before HOUSE OF CARDS is written.

My first day at FedCon was a lot of fun. We did a press conference in the morning, which was pretty much everyone who was not named Richard Dean Anderson listen to Richard Dean Anderson take questions about Stargate, which is incredibly popular here. I sat next to RDA, which is what I figured out his friends call him, and I was quite impressed with his humor and intellect.

After the press conference, I ate lunch with Marina Sirtis, Kates Vernon and Hewlett, and Paul McGillon. I caught Marina up on the last ten years or so, and made new friends. It was awesome.

I had a break after lunch, so I came back to my hotel room and did some writing and Redditing before going back downstairs for my first photo session. The photo sessions are a little unsatisfying to me, because I always want to talk to everyone, but can't because the line just has to keep moving. I did my best to share at least a few words with everyone, though, and I think the fans I took pictures with all had a good time. At one point, the photographer was saying something in German over and over again to a girl who was posing with me. She said to me, softly, "I don't understand what he wants me to do!" She had a Scottish accent. I resisted the urge to say "Come along, Pond," and just shrugged. "Neither do I," I said. One of the photographer's assistants heard us and said to him, "English!" Everyone laughed, and he told her that he was trying to get her to tilt her chin down, so her glasses didn't reflect the flash.

When my photo session was over, I did my first Q&A in the main ballroom. It was more heavily-attended than I expected, considering that it was 9pm on a Thursday night, and I guess there were about a thousand people who were just awesome. I got a standing ovation when I came out! I told them that Anne asked me if I was going to learn German before I came here. I said that I wasn't going to try, because I didn't think I'd learn enough to be useful, and it would take valuable time away from playing Portal 2. I said that it wasn't that important, though, because we'd all be conversing in the universal language of nerds this weekend. For the rest of the hour, that's what we did. I had a great time, even though I was way out of my comfort zone just answering questions instead of performing something from one of my books. I haven't done that at a Trek con in over ten years, and I didn't know if I'd be able to not suck, but it was like riding a bike, and I left the stage feeling like I'd entertained everyone there, and made it worth their time to see me. 

When I was all done, I went to the bar downstairs with Garret Wang and got a local Alt Bier, which is a darkish beer that's not as hoppy as what I usually drink, but is the local specialty. While Garret and I traded "We worked on Star Trek" stories, a DJ played incredibly loud American rock music. It was delightfully surreal to hear about two hundred Germans singing along in accented English with KISS, while colored lights flashed along the walls and ceiling.

I fell asleep listening the the FAX compilation on my iPad, and had dreams that I was a super hero who could fly.

No, really. 

 

In which Wil goes to Germany (updated)

The following was written about ten hours ago, on another continent. I thought I'd published it before I left, but it turns out I saved it as a draft, instead. Good times.

I'm sitting in the lounge at LAX, waiting to board my flight to Heathrow. Sometime tomorrow afternoon, I'll end up in Germany, do my best to adjust to jet lag, and then spend the weekend at FedCon.

I'm super excited to talk about Star Trek, read from Memories of the Future, talk about Eureka, and get my geek on with European fans for the first time since Anne and I went to London in 1996.

I'm not taking a cell with me, because it costs something like a million zillion eurobucks to do anything with it, so Anne and I will be out of instant concoct for the first time since we've known each other. That's going to be weird, but I understand that primitive people during the 20th century did that all the time, so I'm embracing the novelty. Until I get to my hotel room, connect my laptop to the Internet, and talk to her online.

I will be mostly Internet silent while in Germany, which will be weird for me, but I will make every effort to deploy the obligatory I AM IN YOU messages when I reach my various destinations.

Have a good week and weekend, everyone.

This was written more recently:

I'm sitting in a lounge at Heathrow, waiting to make my connection to Germany. Our flight here was pushed by a massive tailwind that got us here something like 40 minutes early, but also gave us the worst turbulence I've ever experienced. I hardly slept at all, so I feel a little blurry. My body thinks it's about 5am, and even though I keep showing it my watch, it isn't buying it.

I'm glad I have a day to adjust, so I'm not doing my Zombie Wil Wheaton impression all weekend.

And I may as well update this post again now, thusly:

I'm in my hotel room in Germany. The window is open, and I can hear the occasional European siren do the Doppler effect on one of the streets outside. I know it's silly, but it's one of those things that's romantic to us Yanks.

My flight to Germany was nice, and I got all stupid and giddy when we flew over London and I could pick out landmarks. I tried really hard to stay awake so I could see France (having seen London, I need to see France, and then someone's Underpants), but I didn't even make it to the Channel. The flight attendant woke me up about 15 minutes before we landed, so I missed the whole thing. Oh well, there's always the trip back on Monday.

I'm super excited for FedCon. The hotel is full of people who are also excited to be here, and the staff I've met totally have their shit together, which is pretty important to me.

My schedule is on the FedCon website, but here are some important things:

> I'm doing a Q&A Thursday night at 9pm.

> I'm doing a Q&A with Marina Sirtis on Sunday at 1pm.

There are also signings every day, and some photo sessions, too.

Okay, I think that's it. I'm hoping that if I make myself stay awake for a few more hours, I'll be able to sleep until something close to a normal time tomorrow morning, and I won't be too exhausted to see at least some of Dusseldorf while I'm here. I mean, it would pretty much suck to come all the way to Germany and not see any of it.

In which Wil goes to Germany

The following was written about ten hours ago, on another continent. I thought I'd published it before I left, but it turns out I saved it as a draft, instead. Good times.

I'm sitting in the lounge at LAX, waiting to board my flight to Heathrow. Sometime tomorrow afternoon, I'll end up in Germany, do my best to adjust to jet lag, and then spend the weekend at FedCon.

I'm super excited to talk about Star Trek, read from Memories of the Future, talk about Eureka, and get my geek on with European fans for the first time since Anne and I went to London in 1996.

I'm not taking a cell with me, because it costs something like a million zillion eurobucks to do anything with it, so Anne and I will be out of instant concoct for the first time since we've known each other. That's going to be weird, but I understand that primitive people during the 20th century did that all the time, so I'm embracing the novelty. Until I get to my hotel room, connect my laptop to the Internet, and talk to her online.

I will be mostly Internet silent while in Germany, which will be weird for me, but I will make every effort to deploy the obligatory I AM IN YOU messages when I reach my various destinations.

Have a good week and weekend, everyone.

This was written more recently:

I'm sitting in a lounge at Heathrow, waiting to make my connection to Germany. Our flight here was pushed by a massive tailwind that got us here something like 40 minutes early, but also gave us the worst turbulence I've ever experienced. I hardly slept at all, so I feel a little blurry. My body thinks it's about 5am, and even though I keep showing it my watch, it isn't buying it.

I'm glad I have a day to adjust, so I'm not doing my Zombie Wil Wheaton impression all weekend.

I really, really, REALLY hate DRM. Especially when it screws honest people.

I'm sure that many of you know that I hate DRM so much, it makes me want to punch babies. I have promised that I will never knowingly infect anything you buy from me with DRM.

So you'll probably be as surprised as I am to learn that Lulu put Memories of the Future, Volume 1 into the iBook store and into my Lulu shop (yay! awesome! Memories in a native eReader format!) but put that horrible, intrusive, disgusting, annoying, stupid Adobe DRM bullshit into the files.

I've heard from a non-zero number of readers who legally purchased MotFv1, and were (rightly) furious that they had to install some bullshit software they didn't want, just so they could read something that they paid for.

For example:

Adobe Digital Editions doesn't run on Linux and Lulu, like most companies who sell digital content (*cough* audible *cough*), doesn't care.
For Linux users like me there are three options:
a) Find a Windows machine or Mac at work or with friends, then install
ADE there (thereby also using one of my six devices I'm allowed to read
on for someone else's computer)
b) Spend hours getting it to work in wine on my Linux machine
c) Bittorrent it.

I think it's pretty obvious which one is the least work. If I'm inclined
to buy another ebook I'm much more likely to bittorrent it and the
donate on the author's web page than buying over Lulu.

I completely agree with this email, and others like it. This is the sort of thing that drives honest people to piracy, because the pirates are providing a better end user experience for them than the legal alternatives.

I tried to revise the file so that there is no DRM, but I can't do that without uploading an entirely new file. I tried to download the file Lulu made (which, other than the DRM bullshit is really nice and well-formatted; I would totally use their conversion service again in the future, if I was given the option to do it without DRM) so I can convert it to a non-DRM'd version and re-upload it, but it keeps telling me that there's an error with the file -- yeah, no shit, that "error" is what I'm trying to eliminate! -- and since I'm leaving for FedCon in just a few hours, I don't have the time to keep banging my head against the wall trying to fix it.

So: I want readers and potential readers to know that I'm aware of this problem, it is not my fault, and I'm doing everything I can to fix it ... it's just going to be a week or so until I can.

The silver lining in all of this is that I was able to do a really neat .mobi conversion that I uploaded to the KDP store yesterday. If everything goes according to plan, you should be able to buy Memories of the Future, Volume 1 for your Kindle by the weekend.

Help me help Safecast help people in Japan

This morning, my friend Sean Bonner e-mailed me this:

As you may or may not know I've spent the vast majority of the last month either in Tokyo or working with people in Japan on project I helped start called Safecast. Actually we just changed the name to Safecast, until last week it was called RDTN. We realized that the only information on radiation levels was coming from groups we couldn't really trust, and decided we could do something better. Safecast has a goal of distributing geiger counters to people in Japan and creating an open data sensor network so anyone can access the information we gather with these devices. We're also collecting data ourselves - if you have a few moments and want to read this post it's a great example of what we're doing right this second.

http://blog.safecast.org/2011/04/24/first-safecast/

If you don't have a few moments I'll sum it up for you - we drove up to Fukushima and took readings at schools that are in the "safe" zone. At one of those schools we measured over 50 µSv/hr outside on a playground. To put that in perspective outside today in Los Angeles I measured 0.072 µSv/hr. We also gave some counters to volunteers in the area who will take readings and report back to us, and measured over 5000 different points during the trip. We hope to do this on a regular basis.

Anyway, what I'm asking for your help with is this:

http://blog.safecast.org/2011/04/25/fundraising/

We have a kickstarter and are more than halfway to our goal, but only have 11 days left to hit that mark. While donations are helpful, what we really need is awareness. We need more people to know about what we're doing, we need more people to know they can help.

I've known Sean for almost 12 years, and even though he does amazing things all the time, he never sends out e-mails like this. This is something Sean cares deeply about, and I want to help him however I can, starting with my blog, my Twitter, and my Tumblr.

I keep hearing from people that I have all this influence, people listen to me, I have lots of Twitter followers and blog readers blah blah blah. I think it's way overestimated … but I'd love to get this project funded and find out that I actually do have a voice that occasionally rises above the background noise.

If you are comfortable with it, please help me give this a signal boost and tell your friends,  tell Reddit, tell your eccentric millionaire uncle who likes to fund projects ... you get the idea.

Thank you.