Wil Wheaton's Blog, page 90

saxophones started blowing me down

“I hate to say this, but Ghost Shark is no Sharknado.” I sipped my beer and looked across the couch at Anne. Seamus slept between us, unimpressed by the ghostly antics of the titular shark.

“The on-screen Tweets are just trying too hard, and they’re getting in the way of the movie,” she said.

“Yeah, stop trying to make Fetch happen, SyFy. It’s not going to happen,” I said. Just then the Ghost Shark flew out of a puddle, cutting a hapless victim in half.

“OH!” Anne exclaimed, startling our dog, Riley, who jumped up and looked around nervously.

“It’s just the Ghost Shark, Piles,” I said to our old and nervous dog, “don’t stress about it.”

Riley laid down by my feet, between the couch and our ottoman, panting heavily. She has a bad knee and osteoarthritis in three of her legs, so she’s constantly in a lot of pain. We do our best to mitigate it with some medications, but in the last couple of months, she’s gotten much worse, and is slowly becoming less of a sweet dog and more of a cranky dog who really isn’t into the energetic puppy we have around the house. She was really not into that puppy walking up to her and licking her face a whole bunch. Generally, this behaviour is considered submissive, but Marlowe can do it so much it becomes obnoxious and irritating. I usually catch it and stop her before it makes Riley angry, but being distracted by the Ghost Shark, I didn’t notice that Riley was annoyed until she snapped at Marlowe, and Marlowe lunged back at her … and a full-on dogfight started beneath my feet.

I jumped up and tried to pull them apart, as Seamus jumped off the couch and, as pack leader, tried to pin Riley. Anne flew off the couch and grabbed one of the dogs, too. The next few seconds are a blur to me, but somehow we got Marlowe away, and while I was pulling Riley away from Seamus, she freaked out and bit my left wrist, hard. I remember screaming, pulling her jaw open and getting her off of me, just in time for Seamus to grab her again and try to pin her down again. I remember thinking, very clearly, that there was nothing aggressive in Seamus’ behaviour, that he was very calmly trying to subdue her. I realized that I was bleeding all over the place.

Less than a minute after the whole thing started, we had all the dogs separated. We checked them for injuries, and, finding none, addressed mine. I had four big punctures on my left wrist, and a couple scrapes across the top of my hand. We used some Hibicleanse to wash them out, dressed the wounds, and Anne gave me a Vicodin for the pain we both knew was coming as soon as the adrenaline wore off.

“When was your last tetanus shot?” Anne asked.

“I think it was 2007, so … six years ago.”

“You have to go get one,” she said.

“Why? I need one every ten years.”

“No, they changed it to every five years.”

“What the fuck? Goddamn tetanus industrial complex is bullshit, man,” I said. “Okay, I’ll go tomorrow.”

We tried to get back to Ghost Shark, but I’d pretty much lost interest in doing anything that wasn’t elevating and icing my rapidly-swelling wrist. About two hours later, I took another Vicodin and got into bed.

I woke up at 1:35am, my entire left arm from elbow to fingertips throbbing with the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my life, including sitting through most of Ghost Shark. I tried to move around and get it into a position that didn’t hurt that much, but I just couldn’t do it. I began to cry, and pace around the room. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was going into shock. I got intensely cold, and I woke up Anne. “I need help,” I sobbed, “this hurts so much I don’t know what to do.”

I sat on the edge of our bed and wailed like a little kid. I can’t remember the last time I cried so hard for so long, but I remember thinking, through the pain and panic, that maybe my body would interpret my wailing and suffering as a call to dump endorphins or something to minimize the pain. It did not do that.

“I’m taking you to the ER,” she said, “to get you painkillers and to make sure nothing is broken or severed.”

“Oh– oh– oh-kay,” I cried.

She got dressed and got me dressed, and she drove me to the hospital. Luckily, nobody was there and I was in a bed very quickly. I have no idea how much time went by, but I had an IV in my arm pretty soon, and the nurse was putting some painkillers into my body. After five minutes that felt like an hour, it started to work, and the pain began to recede behind a heavy feeling of rising and falling at the same time. “I feel like a balloon filled with lead,” I said to Anne.

I spent the night there, getting painkillers and antibiotics and x-rays. Nothing was broken, and none of my tendons or nerves were damaged. The doctor told me that I couldn’t move my fingers because of the swelling. “Wrists are so small, there isn’t a lot of room for swelling to happen. It will go down over the next few days,” he assured me.

They put a brace on my wrist to help take the pressure off of it, gave me a prescription for painkillers and antibiotics, and instructions to clean my wounds. We drove home as the sun was starting to lighten the Eastern sky.

I slept all day, waking only once to take antibiotics and painkillers. It was almost 6pm when I got out of bed on Friday, and my wrist had swollen up to about the size of my forearm. Which is pretty big you guys, because I work out.

I spent the next three days trying to type with just my right hand and left thumb, moving through the hours in a painkiller-dulled haze, just waiting for the whole thing to be over. Meanwhile, Anne took Riley to the vet to find out if we can get her some kind of doggie anti-anxiety medication, because we can’t go on with her being the way she’s been for the last several months. It turns out that there is, in fact, some sort of doggie Xanax that she can take. She’ll start it tomorrow and we’ll hope for the best.

Over the weekend, I had some forced downtime, because I couldn’t really think all that clearly or use my hands to type. I ended up watching more TV in three days than I have in months, including some shows that I’d wanted to watch, but never did. I wanted to like GIRLS, but I couldn’t make it past the second episode. I can’t believe I waited this long to watch TRUE BLOOD. ADVENTURE TIME is hilarious, but that could just be the drugs talking. EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP is probably the best documentary I’ve ever seen about the street art movement, and is about so much more than just Banksy. I took GAME CHANGE with a grain of salt, but still enjoyed it.

By Sunday morning, I was completely off the painkillers and could take the brace off my wrist. I’m able to write this today because I finally have use of my hand back and instead of massive muscle pain I just have some stiffness in my forearm from the immobility. I get to wear four awesome Batman bandaids which should really be called Batmandaids.

I’ll be on antibiotics for another week or so, and I need to be careful to keep my wounds clean while they heal. All things considered, it could have been much, much worse, so I’m grateful that it is what it is instead of what it could have been.

this is a post-season 2 Breaking Bad spoiler.

I feel like all these people who hate Skyler on Breaking Bad* are completely missing the entire point of the series. Walter White is not the hero of this story, kids.

*and extend that childish hatred to Anna Gunn, who is a tremendous actor, playing a complex and compromised character.

save vs. con crud

I failed my Fortitude save against con crud, and what started out as general sinus discomfort yesterday has turned into full-on misery today, with the burning sinuses, broken-glass throat, and heavy feeling in my chest.

I’m not complaining too much (though I do have to miss something awesome tonight), because I have a stack of comics, a stack of games, and a pile of books that are all just waiting for me to have an excuse to do nothing but read them.

Anne observed that she might be the cleric in my party, because she she’s around I don’t get sick at cons … and while I don’t want to mistake correlation for causation, I do want to share an epic picture of Paul & Storm and me being epic:

 

That photo has nothing to do with this post, other than basically being the entire reason I wrote it.

“be honest, be kind, be honorable, work hard, and always be awesome”

The volume of mentions I get on Twitter makes it impossible for me to read them all, and I miss most of them*. I do my best to read them, because more often than not the people who @ me are funny and interesting, but … math.

Last night, I happened to see a mention from a fifth grade teacher, who told me that one of her students said he was related to me. I don’t have a lot of school-aged relatives, and thought it was probably a kid making up stories, so I asked her what his name was. Well, it turns out that he is, indeed, related to me! He’s my brother’s nephew, and I just love him and his sister (and his mom, who is my brother’s wife’s sister. Go ahead and draw the family map, I’ll wait.)

After I confirmed that we are, indeed, family, she sent me this, which she said inspired the conversation:

Click to embiggen.

She designed this, and it hangs in her classroom. It forms the foundation of her class rules.

I showed it to Anne, blinking hard to get all the dust out of my eyes that had suddenly arrived in our living room.

All I want to do with my life is inspire people to be kind and awesome, and I love it so much that this teacher thought my words were worthy of sharing with her students.

*#humblebrag, I guess.

Coup: An amazing bluffing game from Indie Boards And Cards

Thanks to my fellow gamers respecting, understanding, and supporting my “I’m not here to take pictures and sign autographs, I’m just here to play games” policy at GenCon, I got to play a ton of really great games this year, including probably the best bluffing game I’ve ever played. It’s called Coup, and it comes out from Indie Boards and Cards (they do The Resistance, among other things) later this year.

While I was waiting in the airport to come home yesterday, I looked it up on Boardgame Geek, and decided to add my own review to the board, you know, to give a little something back to the community:

Subject: One of the best bluffing games I’ve ever played.

I played a demo of this at GenCon, and fell in love with it. I played with five strangers, and when the game was over ten minutes after we started (it takes all of 2 minutes to learn it) we were ready to start over and play again.

The cards look great, the rules are incredibly simple to learn, and even though there’s player elimination, it only takes about 10 minutes to play, so nobody has to sit out for too long.

This is a fantastic palate cleanser during a game day, and a great way for a few players to get into a quick game while waiting for a slot in another game.

You won’t see this on the Geek, though, because it wasn’t accepted

Comments from users that moderated this article:
Not much content
Not a review
Lacks depth.

Well fine! You’re not my real dad! I’ll put my not-a-review on my own site! With blackjack! And hookers! In fact, forget the review!

I’m just kidding. I suppose it’s not actually a review*, and more of a forum post … but it really is a great game, and something I hope we can find a way to play on Tabletop if we do a season three.

 

*This one is, and it’s worth whatever geek gold you happen to have in your pocket.

Congratulations to Tabletop!

Last night, Tabletop won the most meaningful and genuinely prestigious award in the gaming industry, The Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming.

I don’t care about awards, and prefer to just let the work speak for itself, but it’s not hyperbole to say that it’s the Stanley Cup of gaming awards, and it is given by a group of people who I deeply respect and admire.

This show would not and could not exist without some very wonderful people, and all the work they put in from the very beginning of the first season. I owe them an incredible debt of gratitude for the work they’ve done and continue to do, and for making it possible for me to share my love of gaming with the world. We’re making something that’s more than just an entertaining show; we’re bringing families together, helping kids with learning disabilities, and this weekend in Chicago, a lady told me that Tabletop made it possible for her to communicate with her autistic son for the first time in his life. So it is my great honour to share this with

Our Director, Jennifer Arnold

Our First AD and Associate Producer, Adam Lawson

Our Executive Producer, Sheri Bryant

Our Associate Producer and Games Guru, Boyan Radakovich

Our amazing editing team, lead by Steve Grubel

Everyone on our fantastic crew

My dear friend and partner in crime, Felicia Day

I also want to thank everyone who watches Tabletop, plays Tabletop games with their friends and family, and creates the games we love to play. We will keep making this show as long as people will watch it, and as long as we can somehow pull together the funding to make it possible.

Congratulations, Team Tabletop! I’m so proud of us!

 

 

 

woob – repurpose (plus a guide to ambient)

I woke up before the sun, and flew in a lawn dart from ORD to IND on a little over five hours of mostly-restful sleep. As I walked through the airport, I heard the muted voices of gate announcements echo off the walls, and it reminded me of the Pink Floyd song On The Run. The similarities took on a surreal, dreamlike quality when I ended up in a tunnel, on a moving walkway, under rainbows of neon tubes, surrounded by fellow travellers in various states of running to their gates.

A few hours after I landed in Indianapolis, I checked into my hotel, fed myself, and came back to my hotel room to do some maintenance work on my blog. While working, I listened to the entirety of Dark Side of the Moon, followed by Echoes from Meddle.

That’s when my arm began to itch. This has been going on for months, and nobody knows why, but I get the worst itching in the world between my elbow and wrist on the top of my left arm. It feels like it’s coming from my nerves, doesn’t respond to scratching or topical creams at all, and sometimes itches so badly it feels like I’m being pricked with tens of thousands of tiny needles. It sucks, and the only thing that helps at all is benedryl. So here I am, a little loopy on not enough sleep and two benedryl, listening to Pink Floyd like some kind of throwaway joke character in an HST pop-up book for children, when Echoes finishes up and this album called Repurpose by woob starts to play.

And this is what I set out to write in the first place, which I suppose could have just been a link on Twitter: woob is one of the essential ambient acts, and the (relatively) new album Repurpose lives up to expectations.

Here, take a listen:

 

If you’re intrigued, and want to know more, you may be interested in the following, which I wrote in 2008, referencing something I wrote in 2005:

I’m always happy to share this type of music with people, and if I have an opportunity to turn people on to music that really opened my mind (without the assistance from any chemical or mind-altering substances, I always feel compelled to add) I always seize it.

I’ll point those of you who are interested to a portion of a post I made in 2005 (my god, how is it that it simultaneously feels so long ago and so recent to me?) about ambient music. The “it” I refer to is an ambient song I made in GarageBand called Lakeside Shadow:

If you like it, you’ll probably like some of the artists who influenced me over the years: Woob (especially 1194, and especially the track strange air) Dedicated (especially Global Communication, also called 76 14), and Solitaire (especially Ritual Ground). Also, Instinct Records (still alive) andSilent Records (sadly, tragically, defunct since 1996) released an amazing number of genre-defining ambient discs in the 90s. And now, just to prove how hardcore I am, I’m going to throw out Pete Namlook, and the FAX Label, but their stuff is far more experimental than the rest of my list, and isn’t what I’d use to introduce a new listener to Ambient music.

Finally, if you can find it, Silent Records put out an incredible record called Earth to Infinity (I think in 1994) which was pulled shortly after it was released, due to some sampling issues. I think it’s one of the greatest ambient recordings of all time, and don’t ask me for it because I’m not going to jail for you, Chachi.

I think I could have said “incredible” a few more times. Allow me to emphatically pulverize this dead horse deep into the ground: if you only get two ambient records in your whole life, they should be 1194 from Woob and Earth to Infinity (holy shit there are two available from Amazon). If you can only get three, add 76:14, and thank me before you touch the monolith and journey beyond the infinite.

Okay, as I said in 2005, most of my ambient CDs are from Silent, Instinct, and Caroline, and I have a metric assload of FAX recordings that I don’t listen to very much any more. If I were to expand on the artists and albums I mentioned three years ago into a list of essentials, I would add Pelican Daughters‘ breathtaking record Bliss, Consciousness III (or Lunar Phase) by Heavenly Music Corporation, and the 2295 compilation from em:t.

If you’re intrigued, and want to know what some of this stuff sounds like without waiting, please go directly to Magnatune, and fire up their ambient mix. They’ve got artists over there, like Robert Rich and Falling You, who make truly incredible music. (I really think I need to say incredible and really more. Really.) Soma FM has magnificent downtempo and ambient streams, as well. Groove Salad and Dronezone rarely disappoint.

The thing to understand about ambient, though, if you’ve never heard it before, is that it’s slow and deliberate. It takes its time. It doesn’t work in the car, and it doesn’t work if your brain is cranked up to eleven. It’s best enjoyed when you can relax, and let it fill the room around you as you slowly sink into it and out of yourself, like you’ve stepped into a giant gelatinous cube.

Hrm. Maybe that’s not the best way to describe it. Go ahead and fill in your own: “______________.”

Yes, that’s it. That’s it exactly.

This is not the first time I’ve talked about this album, but it will be the first time I’ve linked to woob’s newest album, Have Landed, which is brilliantly described as “The soundtrack for every classic sci-fi movie that should have been made.”

Have another embedded player:



It should come as no surprise that I encourage you to go buy these albums and give woob your money so he/she/it/robot/angel/devil/sentient fungus/ makes more music for us. I hope that, if you’ve come this far, you’ll go a little farther and dig beneath that one tree by the wall to find what’s there.

Login issues: resolved

14.8.14 1342 EDT: With some help from Mysterious Kevin, we tracked down the source of the commenting sign-in woes, and everything should be working once again. If you’re still having trouble, clear your browser’s cache (or login using porn private mode) and you should be all set. Thanks for your patience, and thank you for participating in conversations here at my blog.

Chicago comicon wrap-up

I had a truly wonderful time at Wizard Comicon in Chicago this weekend. I met thousands of people who love the things I love, and spent a whole lot of time geeking out about the games we love to play and the universes we love to visit.

Here’s some of the really awesome cosplay I saw:

I love love love that these young women decided to cosplay as the characters they love, even though those characters are male. I’ve seen tons of Doctor Who cosplay from women, and I think it’s extremely awesome that these ladies are not letting gatekeeper dipshits tell them that they can’t cosplay as the characters they love because of their gender. Kick ass!

I also got to see some really great examples of people getting excited and making things:

LEGO Tabletop painting. Please enjoy the photobombing.

Closer view of the LEGO Tabletop painting.

 

This guy made this with a wood burning thing.

This young woman (I think her name is Amanda) painted this Wesley in (I think) Watercolour. I wish I’d taken a closer shot of it, because it’s beautiful work.

I also made some custom Cards Against Humanity cards, that you shouldn’t look at, because they’re kind of NSFW.

 

They don’t all have to make sense, you guys.

[image error]

The is the underlying premise of my script for “Doctor Screw”.

 

I got to see some really neat stuff that I didn’t know existed, like Cosmic Boy action figures (I was excited because I played Cosmic Boy on Legion of Superheroes).

I also got to sign a bunch of Robin stuff, because I play the Tim Drake Robin in DC Universe Online, as well as a bunch of cool Blue Beetle stuff (I played Ted Kord on Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and so far I’m the only actor to play that particular role!) that I wanted to just keep for myself.

Finally, some of you may remember Wesley Crusher’s Sweet-Ass Motherfucking Bouffant. If you do not remember Wesley Crusher’s Sweet-Ass Motherfucking Bouffant, I suggest you go look at Wesley Crusher’s Sweet-Ass Motherfucking Bouffant right now. GO NOW I WILL WAIT.

At the con, I met a delightful young woman called Marty. Marty’s friend Hannah is the creative genius who made sure the world knew about Wesley Crusher’s Sweet-Ass Motherfucking Bouffant. I was so excited to meet her, I had to sign special pictures for the two of them:

To Hannah: Look at this fucking sweet bad ass motherfucking fez. And what the fuck?! That’s right, it’s a false fucking moustache on top of a real motherfucking hot shit panty-dropping real moustache!

To Marty

Back right the fuck up and look at this sweet-ass motherfucking non-bouffant.

Fuck.

Yes.

In gold, Wil fucking Wheaton

We laughed really hard while I was writing these things down, which made me very happy, on account of me being easily amused.

I had a great weekend, and I though I have a few more stories to recount, I’m in the airport waiting to go to Indianapolis for GenCon, and it’s time for me to get on my plane and go PLAY MORE GAMES!

commenting sign-in trouble

1421 CDT 13/8/13 We’re aware of the problem, and we’re trying to figure out why Facebook stopped working as a login. I suspect it has something to do with Facebook changing the API to require a photo ID, hair sample, DNA swab, and your deepest fear, notarized. I’m also looking at an alternative solution to making an account here that doesn’t require a password that looks like line noise.