Wil Wheaton's Blog, page 170

from the vault: the excellence incident

This was originally written years ago, when I was still finding my personal narrative voice, and still enjoyed the beefy goodness of a slaughtered bovine creature with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. I've cleaned it up and meddled with it a tiny bit, because I can't resist meddling with things.

Many moons ago, my wife and I found ourselves at a Black Angus restaurant.

I'd like to welcome back those of you who just picked yourselves up off the floor. I don't know what we were thinking, either.

when memes collide, we all win

Years from now, our kids are going to ask us about the Wolf Shirt and Keyboard Cat memes and wonder why in the world we cared about them so much. When that day comes, some of us will reach into our dressers, pull out this shirt, and tell our children, "We needed them, so we could have this."

RIP Freddy Snowpants

My brother had one of the coolest cats in the world. We called him Freddy Snowpants, because he had furry fat hind legs that looked like he was wearing snowpants when he walked. One of my favorite things to do was stand behind him and make the "zip zip zip" noise, which always resulted in much mirth and laughter.

Jeremy just e-mailed me that Freddy's cancer finally was too much for him, and they had to put him down today.

This picture tells you everything you need to know about him, why I loved hi

let's go to the moon

When I was a kid, I read this cool book from National Geographic called Let's Go To The Moon. It was, as you may have figured out, all about the Apollo program, but mostly focused on Apollo 11.

I already liked science fiction and astronomy (well, the little-kid-without-a-telescope version of astronomy, which was mostly limited to finding constellations and planets, but we all have to start somewhere) so I spent a lot of time with that book, imagining what it would be like to fly to the moon, walk

the great retweeting madness of 2009

Read in reverse order for maximum silliness and WTFosity.

Maybe it's just me, but this was the hardest I've laughed in a long time. Thanks, Gabe.

"...tactical terrain for building utilizable dioramas"

Gabe:

The box of Dwarven Forge
stuff I ordered showed up yesterday, and when Kara saw it she told me
it looked like a dollhouse for boys. I laughed and explained that it
was actually tactical terrain for building utilizable dioramas.

This afternoon as I was placing the
tiny mugs of ale in the tavern I had built, my mind drifted back to her
words from yesterday. I shook my head to clear the thought. Come on,
this is clearly not a dollhouse. I chuckled softly to myself as I
placed the miniature

in which we combine wil wheaton, books, and beer. (mmmm ... beer.)

Last year, I went to the Stone Brewing World Bistro and Gardens for an event they call Book and a Beer. It's pretty much what it sounds like: I read from my book while people drank beer. Then I signed my books while I drank beer. Then I ate dinner and had some more beer. Then we drove around looking for another seafood restaurant. Then we went fishing.

I had a lot of fun, filled a lot of growlers with Arrogant Bastard, Double dry-hopped IPA, Barleywine, and some other stuff I'm told I really enjo

GOODREADS: thanks for reading my books!

Note: From time to time, I'll write posts here at Goodreads that are not on my blog. When I write one of these posts, I'll put GOODREADS in the title (until I come up with something cooler to let you know that it's original, local content).

While trying to update my own currently-reading bookshelf a few minutes ago, I stumbled into my author profile and saw that a lot of people have one or more of my books on their currently-reading shelf. An even greater number of people have them on their to-read shelf.

It was very cool to see a tangible reminder that the stuff I spend so much time working on doesn't just go out into some vortex; people actually decide to take some of their limited free time, and spend it (indirectly) with me.

If you're one of those people, I just wanted to take a moment and say thank you. I hope that my work is worth the time you invest reading it, and I hope to continue to earn your time and attention in the future.

the clockwork century

A few months ago, I got an ARC of my friend Cherie's forthcoming Steampunk book, Boneshaker. I've raved about it all over the place, so allow me to just sum up without repeating myself too much: it's awesome. I loved everything about it, and I can't wait for it to come out so the rest of the world can read it an understand why I loved it as much as I did. (See an early version of the cover here.)

Boneshaker is one of four stories that are all set in this cool steampunk alternate history world tha

to properly commemorate the anniversary of patrick stewart's birth (or: happy birthday, old baldy)

There are two ways that I can commemorate Patrick Stewart's birthday, today.

The first:

And the second, which comes in two parts. The first part should illustrate how awesome Patrick is, and why I like him so much. The second part should remove any lingering doubt.

This is from Chapter Seven of Just A Geek, which is titled A Sort of Homecoming. It recalls a convention appearance I did with Patrick, Jonathan and Brent in 2001. Wow, 2001 ... was I really just 29 when I wrote this? I guess I was