Monthly Archives: April 2003

That name again is Mr. Plow!

Man, my life is real boring right now.
There hasn’t been anything to blog about: no auditions (nothing for months, really. Maybe I really am finished.), nothing majorly exciting on the homefront besides the new dog (who is currently known as “Riley.” It’s stuck around for three days, longer than any other name, though I am still holding out for “Mr. Plow.”)
Oh, and though I took two very bad beats when we played poker (effing Cal rivered quad Kings TWICE against my straight, and again against my set of aces), I walked with about 104 bucks on a 40 dollar buy.
So.
Real boring . . . until today.

Aces full of nines

I’m playing poker tonight.
I can’t wait. Man, I love to play poker. Gimmie a game of pot-limit hold em, a hundred bucks, and I couldn’t be happier. I’m about two-thirds finished with Jim McManus’ Positively Fifth Street right now, and I’m loving it.
Anne and I watched the DVD of Jackass last night . . . holy shit. Some of it was really stupid, like watching a bunch of stupid stoners do stupid stoner things . . . but parts of it — Knoxville in old man makeup shoplifting, Wee Man getting chased by Preston all over Tokyo, making Bam’s mom say “fuck” — was insanely funny. And Rip Taylor! Damn.

Outrage Overload (one in a continuing series)

From Reuters:

Even Bush is fan of Iraqi information minister

WASHINGTON, April 24 (Reuters) – Now that the campaign to topple Saddam Hussein appears to be over, even U.S. President George W. Bush admits he is a fan of the public relations style of former Iraqi information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf.
“He’s my man, he was great,” Bush enthused in an interview with NBC’s Tom Brokaw on Thursday. “Somebody accused us of hiring him and putting him there. He was a classic.”

What?
He’s my man?
HE’S MY MAN?!
HE IS THE ENEMY, MR. BUSH!
You know who Bush’s MAN should have been? Every American soldier who was in Iraq fighting his immoral, illegal, and totally unnecessary war. Every child who is without a father or mother, every husband or wife, son or daughter who isn’t ever coming home . . . they are “your man,” Mr. Bush.

Bill Junior was a DAREDEVIL! Just like his old man!

“Look at me! Look at me!”
I hear that I’m gonna be all over The Screen Savers today: Kevin Rose is wearing a spiffy new WWdN T-shirt that I gave him when I was there last week, and Sarah Lane is going to be talking about this lame website in her Blog Report. (Thanks to WWdN reader Mary for the head’s up on that!)
So I got to thinking . . . if TechTV takes a screenshot of my site to put on the air, maybe I should do something stupid like this. It’s the onilne equivalent of jumping up and down and shouting “GO KENTUCKY!” in the background while some poor reporter tries to keep it together.
Hey, speaking of Screen Savers, go here, and vote for the hottest geek girl who ever modded a case: Morgan Webb.
Update: Heh. Guess I made the website, but not the broadcast. Did you see Kevin in my cool shirt? That was cool. I like the word cool. Cool. Cool. Cool.
Check out this cool thing I made today. It’s cool.

Mmmm. Cool.

Buddah Rhubarb Butter

When I started writing Just A Geek back in September or October of last year, I never thought that it would turn into a real book. My plan, honestly, was just to collect some weblog entries, write an introduction, and present it as an off-line version of WWdN.
But the more I wrote, the more I saw a story emerge. It was the story of these two people, who I’ll call Real LIfe Wil and TVsWilWheaton, and how they hated each other, but couldn’t exist without the other. When one of them was happy, the other one usually wasn’t: TVsWilWheaton wanted fame and fortune, and needed to prove to his detractors that he wasn’t just a long-forgotten flavor of the month. Real Life Wil hated the spotlight, hated that he was so addicted to the praise and attention of anyone who would give it, and just wanted to be with his wife and stepkids. The problem was, Real Life Wil couldn’t be happy unless TVsWilWheaton was satisfied. Just A Geek is about how I got these two characters in balance, and more-or-less put TVsWilWheaton on a Bus to Beelzebub, so Real Life Wil can listen to Sugar Free Jazz.
When I started writing it, it was easy. The stories connected together in a logical way, and I discovered lots of stuff about myself as I put them together.
Somewhere along the line, though, I realized the magnitude of what I was doing, and I panicked. After finishing the first draft, I saw stuff I didn’t like, and when I tried to rewrite it, I totally lost my focus. I also lost an editor, my muse, and began to question whether it was even worth finishing. I didn’t work on it for over a month, and seriously thought about giving up on the project.
See, I’m terrified. One thing TVsWilWheaton and Real Life Wil agree on is, we don’t like to do things that suck. We’re both perfectionists, and as much as we shouldn’t, we care what other people think of our endeavors.
If a movie sucks (Book of Days, for example, or Python) there are lots of things to blame it on: weak script, bad editing, lazy actors . . . and I can usually find something about my work that I like. But if this book sucks, if people just hate it . . . they are pretty much hating me, because it’s just me between those covers, you know?
Somehow, I’ve managed to stick with it, and I’m working on the final draft now . . . but I haven’t been able to sleep much recently, and I am filled with self-doubt. I’m too far along to give up, though, so I will keep at it.
My friend Roger once told me that if I ever decided to become a film maker, I’d spend ten years on a project, and never release it, because I’m such a perfectionist. I think he was on to something.