Wil Wheaton's Blog, page 35

kamaKiri

It was a warm, wet, summer evening when the mantids attacked, without warning or provocation. We huddled together on rain-soaked streets, listened to the distant artillery, and waited…

I made a thing! I’m currently working on other things that will join it, to form an electronic music EP, which will be released at some point in the mysterious future.

 

 

Tabletop Season 4: Star Realms

Do you like deck building games? How about games that can fit in your pocket? HOW ABOUT BOTH OF THOSE THINGS AT THE SAME TIME?!

Yes, of course you do, because you’re not a real person, but in fact a representation I invented so I can address this post to someone who has said YES three times since it started.

So, imaginary person (and perhaps real people who are also listening at the moment), you’re going to love this week’s Tabletop. It’s Star Realms, and I play against delightful human and Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour player Melissa DeTora.

 

Did you know that I wrote and narrated a supernatural horror story? I DID, and it’s only five bucks!

 

TV Crimes 13: The Day My Kid Went Punk

It’s time for a new TV Crimes podcast! This after school special made Mikey and me so angry, he had to spend nearly a full day editing out all our swears.In this episode you can enjoy:

Candidates for the worst parents in the history of television!
Punk rock music composed by someone who knows nothing about punk rock!
Judgy Boomer Parents Who Think Everything Is About Them™!
A delightful haircut!
A contest with REAL PRIZES!
And much much more!

Episode 13 The Day My Kid Went Punk

If you like our silly podcast, please rate and review us on the podcasting app thingy of your choice. We think we have something here that could grow into a really cool show, but we can only do that if enough people listen, and your ratings and reviews can make that difference for us.

apparently, retrowave is a thing, and it’s pretty awesome

I came across this album on Reddit yesterday, and it’s magnificent. Atlas, from FM-84, is the lush, synth-heavy soundtrack to every 1980s movie where a lone cop takes down the cocaine kingpin who murdered his family. Or maybe it’s that summer at the shore where you stay out all night, fall in love, and never see her again because that’s how it works when you’re 15. Whatever it means to you, I think you’ll love this, especially if you’re Gen X.

 

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dead trees give no shelter – audiobook

If you enjoy listening to me read you a story, and you enjoy the stories I write, I have something that may be relevant to your interests…

It’s one hour and forty minutes long, and is available for five bucks at my bandcamp thingy with no DRM because DRM sucks.

 

 

and there’s a million things i haven’t done

art matters.

I wrote a supernatural horror story

Last year, a couple of weeks before Halloween, I had this idea to write a short, supernatural horror story. At the time, I was deep in the first draft of the short story that became a novella that really wants to be a novel (which has since been titled “All We Ever Wanted Was Everything”), so switching tracks to work on something different was intended to be a quick detour that would give me something to release for Halloween. WELP. That short story ended up being about 14000 words, which I guess is called a Novelette. Novelette sounds less cool than both short story and novella, but I don’t make the rules, Dottie, I just break them.

My understanding of the publishing business leads me to believe this length falls into a weird place, so rather than try to find a home for it in the traditional publishing world, I’m just going to publish it myself, today. Seriously. There are links to buy it at the end of this post.

Dead Trees Give No Shelter is about Jay Turner, a broken and lonely man who has been adrift since his brother’s murder when they were children. Now, after twenty years away, Jay has come back to his hometown of Garron, Ohio, to uncover the truth about his brother’s death.

Here’s an excerpt:

12:21 a.m. October 16, 2014

Kenneth Blake strained his eyes, looking past his own reflection toward the room of witnesses on the other side of the one-way glass. He hoped that Jay Turner was in that room, hoped that Jay was there to hear him speak one last time.

Walter Davis looked at the phone on the wall. It had rung only once in the twenty-six years he’d been warden, and it would not ring tonight. Kenneth Blake was as guilty as any prisoner who had been strapped to that gurney, and no governor – reelection campaign or not – was going to pardon a child killer. He checked his watch against the digital clock on the wall above the phone. It was time.

“Mister Blake, it is my duty, under the laws of the great state of Ohio, to carry out your execution. It is it your right, under those same laws, to make a statement if you wish.”

Kenneth nodded his head at Warden Davis. He bore him no ill will. The warden was just doing his job, playing his part in the complex machinery of what passed for justice in twenty-first-century America. That Kenneth was, in truth, innocent of the murder of little Charlie Turner, twenty years earlier almost to the day, was of no account now.

He tried to coax some spit out of his mouth, failed, and licked his lips with a dry tongue.

“I just wanna say that I forgive you, warden. I forgive you and the judge, and the prosecutor, because you think you know the truth but you don’t. Mister Turner, if you’re out there, I want to say to you that I’m sorry I couldn’t save your little brother. I done my best, though, and I’m sorry I failed you.”

Warden Davis stood next to the gurney, hands clasped in front of his belt, stoic.

“Mister Blake, may G –”

“But you know I didn’t hurt that boy, because you was there and you saw it all. I know –”

“Mister Blake!” Davis snapped. He took no joy in this duty, but he would be dammed if he’d let this child killer taunt the victim’s surviving brother.

Kenneth continued to speak over him. “I know they made you think you saw something you know you didn’t see, but I know that you know what the truth is. And I know it’s callin’ you the way it called me, but you can’t go back there to them woods, Mister Turner. If you go back there it’s gonna get you, too, just like it got your brother. You gotta break the cycle.”

The Warden looked at the phone one final time, waited, then nodded to his men.

With mechanical efficiency, they moved as one: a button was pressed to recline the gurney, the needles in Blake’s left arm were checked one last time, a black sackcloth was draped over his head.

Kenneth, resigned to his fate from the moment he held Charlie Turner’s lifeless body two decades ago, nevertheless felt cold pangs of fear as the sack blocked out his vision and muffled the sounds around him. He heard the warden speak, and then sodium thiopental pushed him into unconsciousness, before pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride pushed the life out of his body.

When it was done and the other witnesses had left, Warden Davis met privately with Jay Turner. “I wanted to apologize for how Blake used his last words,” he said. “I can assure you that he did not know you were a witness.”

Jay nodded. “I appreciate that, Warden.”

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Davis said, “what was he talking about?”

Jay sighed. “I don’t know, sir. That’s not really a night that I like to think about, if I can help it.”

“Of course. I’m sorry for asking.”

“There’s no need to apologize. It isn’t the first time he’s said those things, but I’m kind of relieved it’s the last time I’ll hear them.”

Jay didn’t tell him about the nightmares. After all, they were just dreams; they weren’t real. For twenty years, he had reminded himself: they’re just dreams. They aren’t real.

I’m offering this story in both ePub and mobi formats, DRM-free, for $5. If I set everything up correctly, you should be able to download the format of your choice as fast as you can click your mouse.

Because it’s a FAQ: to put the mobi file on your Kindle, you can email it to your Kindle as a personal document, or connect your Kindle via USB to your computer and drag it like you would any other file to any other device. I’m not sure how ePub works for all devices, so you’ll have to check with the manufacturer of yours for specific instructions.

(Please note that I am a total noob with Woo Commerce, and I have no idea how to configure it so that it doesn’t ask you for an address and phone number. Feel free to put fake information into those fields, until I can solve that issue.)

You may ask yourself, how did I get here?

I’m trying to figure out some stuff about traffic sources, and I feel like my stats package isn’t entirely accurate. If you don’t mind, would you please choose the option below that most accurately reflects how you found out about this post?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

As my thank you for your time, here are my dogs, being good dogs, Brent.

 

Tabletop S04E07: Harbour

Harbour packs a lot of game into a very small box, and we had a whole lot of fun when we played it this season.

This episode also includes what I think is my very favorite quote ever uttered in the history of the show, courtesy of Nika Harper: “I am a nihilistic wolf shepherd with an anchor and nothing to lose”.

a stranger’s hand, reaching out through time, to touch yours

“We are always getting away from the present moment. Our mental existence, which are immaterial and have no dimensions, are passing along the Time-Dimension with a uniform velocity from the cradle to the grave.” -H.G. Wells, The Time Machine

During last night’s Storytime With Wil, I unexpectedly noticed something pasted into the back cover of the thirty-five year old book. It was a little slip of paper, one of those ditto runoffs that they used in schools in the 80s, and it told us this book belonged to a kid named Dean, who was in Traverse City Junior High School. It was a child’s drawing of Snoopy, laying on his back, like he does on top of his dog house, only he was on the back of a book which was propped up like an open tent. Along the cover of the book long, skinny letters spelled out R. I. F.

R.I.F is Reading Is Fundamental. R.I.F. is a literacy program that makes a real, meaningful, positive difference in kids’ lives. My school didn’t have R.I.F. (it was a private, religious school, so we didn’t have a lot of the cool public school programs my friends had) but we had our own version of it. We read books, we’d accumulate points, and when we had a certain number of points, we could cash them in for a book of our own. I can’t say for certain, but I’d like to imagine that Dean, in 1981, cashed in some R.I.F points to get this particular copy of The Mystery of Chimney Rock.

I got unexpectedly emotional when I saw this little rectangle of paper, pasted into the back of this book, and I struggled to put my finger on exactly why, until someone in the chat said that it was like a time machine. It’s like someone was reaching through time, and touching my hands. It was this tactile, tangible moment, where I and the 480 or so people who were watching got to make a semi-personal connection with this kid, Dean, who owned and read this book in 1981. I wonder: did he make the same choices we made? How many of the 36 endings did he experience? Did he read it aloud? Did he have friends or siblings who he read with or to? Was he like me? Was he shy and awkward, finding escape and comfort and companionship inside the covers of this book and others like it?

I’ll never know, and I don’t want to know. I just love the mystery, and I love the connection. I love the continuity that exists between someone putting this book into Dean’s hands, thirty-six years ago, and it finding its way into my hands, last night.

So I had this idea to encourage the viewers to donate a book to R.I.F., either by purchasing one from their wishlist, or maybe by donating a book from their personal collection to a library, or a school. I just thought it would be cool to take the joy that I (and presumably some of the viewers) indirectly got from this R.I.F. program, and spread it around a little bit. Because the world is overflowing with sadness and despair right now, and we could maybe chip away at it, just a little bit.

I’d love it if you’d do something to promote literacy in your community, or make it possible to give books to some kids who don’t have the privilege and good fortune we have. We have no idea how we can touch and affect and change a life through a simple act of anonymous kindness, but maybe in thirty-six years, someone will pick up a book that one of us helped put into the hands of a child, and experience the same joy we all experienced last night.