WIL WHEATON dot NET: 1.5

I taped a segment for VH1's new series "The Best Week Ever" a couple of days ago.

I took at look at the VH1 website a moment ago, (I'll admit it. I think "Super Secret TV Formulas" is the best idea since Britney said, "Hey, this Boone's is making me feel horny. Wanna get married, so I can say I saved it?") and the topics I talked about are listed for tonight's show.

So I'm guessing that, if I didn't suck, I'll be on at 11PM EST on VH1.

I had a TON of fun when I did the show, and I'm #praying that I'll get #offered a chance to contribute more to the show, and maybe their blog.

Updated: Well, none of my stuff made it. Maybe I'll get another chance next week -- there are a few topics we talked about that weren't on this episode. If anyone needs me, I'll be crossing my fingers.

By the way, how cool is it that Chris Jericho is so damn funny?

One More Update: I just heard from a producer at VH1. He told me that there were some issues, unrelated to me, that prevented my stuff from getting on this week. He says there's a good chance it will happen next week, so be sure to tune in then!

I promised an increase of 5 viewers, you guys. Don't make me look bad.

Posted by Wil at 04:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (40)

I have this compulsion to write and create. This is good, because I'm supposed to run in a manuscript of Just A Geek RSN . . . but I'm really only good for about 2 hours a day. Longer than that, and my brain just churns out garbage. Sometimes and there's value to garbage: It's easier to rewrite garbage than fill up a blank page, but more often than not, the gargabage* is just garbage.

So I put myself on a schedule, which I've kept very poorly the last two weeks. When I'm done with the Writing Stuff part of my brain, I activate the Other Stuff part of my brain: the Other Stuff I've been digging on recently (when I'm not getting wasted by a freakin' OWLBEAR when I'm two freaking moves away from beating Sokoban) is web development.

As a result, my lame HTML skills are growing by the tiniest bit each day, as I crawl all over the web to find useful php scripts, web references, and books to fill my head with learnin'.

A few days ago, I got an e-mail from Yahoo! that informed me my lame Geoshitties site would be *gasp* sent down the Memory Hole because it hadn't been touched in so long. Losing "Where's my Burrito" would be like losing an embarrassing but important collection of yearbooks, so the first thing I did was wget the whole thing, and then I made a tiny change to the index file. Hopefully, that will mollify Yahoo! for another year or so.

Going over that site really is like looking back on photos from 1987. There were several "I can't believe I thought that was cool" moments, especially when I viewed the source!

Hey, at least I didn't get a tattoo, right?

*(that was supposed to say "garbage," but "gargabage" is such a wonderful word, and so perfectly descriptive, I'm leaving this happy accident intact.)

Posted by Wil at 01:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (29)

In response to my recent nethack mania, Joel sent in this top ten list, which he wrote:

Top 10 ways to know you've been playing to much Nethack:

10. You spend all night turning on and off the faucet in your sink hoping to find a ring.

9. You go to a store and insist on standing on top of the merchandise before letting the owner tell you how much it is.

8. Everywhere you go, you grab as much food as you can hold and carry it around with you for later.

7. You are an accomplished musician, but refuse to play anything but five notes at a time, then you stop and listen for clicks.

6. You don't pick up anything you find on the street without dipping it in holy water first.

5. You throw out any mail the mailman brings you because you know it only says one of three things you've read before.

4. You are banned from your local church for sacrificing jackals on the altar.

3. You are banned from your local museum for taking a pick ax to all the statues... they didn't buy your "looking for spellbooks" excuse.

2. You always carry a dead lizard around in your pocket 'just in case'.

And the number 1 way to know you've been playing too much Nethack:

1. Whenever you look at someone's email address, you think "Oh my God! I'm surrounded!"

The number double plus one reason I know I play too much nethack is how hard I laughed when I read this. I'm not even going to try to explain it to my family.

Posted by Wil at 04:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (31)

Anne got home very late from work last night, so after the boys went to bed, I killed some time playing nethack. It's moving from "a fun diversion" to "a serious addiction." Just this morning, I was reading The Center for American Progress, and my heart skipped when I saw a Y next to a @. I instinctively hit "Z a ." and crashed my browser.

My waking obsession with Nethack reminds me of the old Tetris days, when I'd see patterns in everything. The best one was on approach to Kennedy Airport on a red eye flight, after I'd played through two sets of batteries on my Gameboy during the five hour flight. The Manhattan skyline (one of my favorites in the world) was mentally filled in by all sorts of blocks as the plane landed. I think I had about 5000 mental points when we touched down.

But check it out! I got farther last night than I ever have:

1 15917 Morc-Mon-Hum-Mal-Law died in The Dungeons of Doom on level 12. Killed by a xan. - [68]

Okay, I don't know WTF a Xan is, but it kicked my ass in three turns. I was in The Big Room, just one step away from the stairs when I died. The worst part is, my own stupidity cost me the game: I forgot to #pray (I was piously aligned) which would have, at least, restored my HP (at best, it may have whacked one of the baddies who was wailing on me). I was also carrying an unidentified amulet of lifesaving (is that what it's called?) which would have obviously saved me had I put it on. Moral of the story? Don't forget to quaff and read, and apply and put on everything when you're close to the end. It's not like you've got anything to lose.

Of course, you could also tear yourself away from nethack for more than three minutes at a time . . . even though there's something intensely satisfying about listening to the scores for the three Lord of the Rings movies while you play.

I'm just saying.

Exciting link of the day is also a plug for me: I'll be on The Screen Savers tomorrow (on tape, not in studio) with those interviews I did at JPL last week. I talked to my producer yesterday, and he told me that some of the stuff that couldn't make it on the air because of time constraints will be streamable on the web, at their website.

Posted by Wil at 01:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (34)

I've got several "irons in the fire" as they say over near the chuckwagon, so producing original material for WWdN is going to be difficult for a few days.

However, in a shameless effort to keep you around, I'll do my best to link at least one amusing / interesting / useful link a day until I can scrape some stuff out of the creative portion of my skull.

Today's link is to Something Awful. Specifically, a hilarious article Lowtax wrote called "How To Be An Internet Tough Guy.

Enjoy.

Posted by Wil at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (31)

When she accepted her much-deserved Golden Globe, überhottie Charlize Theron thanked the director of Monster, and said, "There's only so much you can do, but if somebody doesn't give you a chance there is nothing you can do."

. . . if somebody doesn't give you a chance there is nothing you can do.

That sums up -- perfectly -- why it's so goddamned hard to be a working actor.

Posted by Wil at 02:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (75)

If you're not reading bOINGbOING every day, you should start right now.

WAIT!

I mean, as soon as you're done enjoying the majestic WWdN.

For those of you who are still here, I present a terriffic article I read at bb this morning: Confessions of a Car Salesman from the wonderboys at Edmunds.com.

It's filled with useful and sometimes shocking information, that anyone who buys or leases a car should know. That's not surprising, since providing consumers with just that type of information is what Edmunds is all about. The unexpected thing is, it's wonderfully written literature, too. Are you listening, This American Life?

You are?! Well, why won't you put me on your damn show then?! !?!111

Oh. Sorry about that. I mean, uhm . . .

Yeah. It's a really great article, and worth your time.

Okay, now you may be dismissed. :-)

Posted by Wil at 07:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (23)

Over the weekend, Ryan and Nolan and I played several hours of Talisman. Friday night, we played for close to four hours. On Saturday, it was almost five before my Warrior of Chaos defeated Ryan's Thief on the Crown of Command. Last night, in an effort to play the game in a reasonable amount of time, we decided to play the game with just the original rules, and the first two expansions, but while setting up the game, I realized that my Talisman Adventure components seemed to be missing, so I set out on a quest to find it.

My quest took me into one of my closets, where I thought the box may be hiding behind some blankets. While I was deep in the closet (har. har. har.), I failed my search attempt, and a roll of eight forgotten Teen Idol™posters fell off a shelf and hit me on the head. I took 1d4 damage from this clever trap.

I never found the Talisman Adventure box, and we ended up playing "Classic Talisman," with just the original rules, characters, items, and stuff. As punishment for our insolent attempt to complete a game in less time than it takes to fly coast-to-coast, the gods prevented us from completing our game. It's still set up on our dining room table, to be completed later today, after homework and chores are finished.

This morning, while I quaffed coffee and waited for OpenOffice.org to load so I can work on Just A Geek rewrites, I thought to myself, "Maybe it's a sign, those posters falling on my head . . . maybe I should . . . auction one of those Teen Idol™ things, and purchase a replacement Talisman Adventure Set!"

I smacked my right fist into my open left hand, Burt Ward style.

"Oh, good idea," my Mr. T. Bobble-head said, "I pity the fool who doesn't auction off one of those posters!"

"Don't look at me," said Mr. Plow, "I only talk when I'm in the right World of Springfield Interactive Environment, which is sold separately."

"Well then, I guess it's two against one, Mr. Plow," I said, and hit submit.

Posted by Wil at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (72)

Posted by Wil at 02:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (33)

I swear to freaking Anhur, if I die of freaking starvation on level five of the Dungeons of Doom one more time, I will scream.

Posted by Wil at 03:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (53)

On Tuesday, TechTV sent me to JPL to interview some of the people responsible for the Mars Exploration Rover mission for a Screen Savers segment that will air next week.

I was lucky enough to land interviews with Dr. Joy Crisp, who is one of the project scientists, one of the guys who drives the rovers (who I can't find any web data on, so I'm pretty sure I've gotten his name wrong, like an idiot) and Julie Townsend, who is the Tactical Uplink Lead (how cool does that sound?)

I thought I may be a little silly ("So, tell me, if you had to reverse the polarity on the rover's main deflector shield . . . ") but mostly serious ("What's the data transfer rate from the Rover to the DSN, and what protocol do you use to talk to it?").

When I was there, though, I found it very difficult to joke around, because I am so in awe of these people. I mean, I pretended to do shit in space. These people really do, and their work will have a far greater impact on history than mine. Oh, and they're all super nice and patiently answered each question I asked like they hadn't heard it a thousand times already. When faced with an intelligent scientist who is passionate about her work, who is taking time out of her day to talk to me, it just seems wrong to ask some flip question about how many Martians they've had to photoshop out of the images.

We talked a lot about what they expected to learn from this mission, and how relieved they were that it's working so well, especially considering all the losses they've had from recent Mars missions. Their optimism and excitement was infectious, and electric, and I was very grateful to be there to share some of it with them.

So I was *incredibly* sad this afternoon when I read that Spirit hasn't talked to JPL for 24 hours, and they're afraid that they may have lost contact with the rover.

There's still some hope that they can recover from what is being called a "very serious anomaly," but that hope is fading fast.

So if anyone reading this could, you know, maybe look up toward Mars tonight, and send a little Mojo to Spirit, that'd be cool.

UPDATED @ 1800 PST: Spirit Beeps It's Alive And "Commandable": NASA Official

NASA officials at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have confirmed that the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has responded to an emergency command this morning by sending back a radio beep -- an event which had been stated as a possibility, but not a certainty, at the end of this morning's JPL press conference. "This means it's commandable," a JPL spokeswoman told SpaceDaily.

Posted by Wil at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (65)

I just found out that Dancing Barefoot is number three on Mysterious Galaxy's 2003 Paperback Bestsellers list!

I know for a fact that this wouldn't have happened without WWdN readers. Thank you :)

Posted by Wil at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (25)

Over the last eight years, I have always looked for ways to connect with the boys. It's a delicate dance that I have to do, respecting their limits while pushing them to give new and different things a try. It's made even harder by my position in their lives as a Stepparent™. Most of the things I love are rejected out of hand, because to embrace those things would be to wholly embrace me, which (in their minds) would be to somehow betray their father. I have shared my interests and passions with them, but beyond poker, and Ryan's limited affection for 80s alternative music, we have little in common at this point in their lives. It makes me sad from time to time, but it's something I have to accept; they're just not interested in geeky things like comics and RPGs. I'm sure that part of it is their age, and the differences in our generations. There are times when we make wonderful connections, but I still lay awake some nights and wonder if I'll ever be able to fully close the gap that currently exists between us.

I'm not a car nut, by any means. I think American muscle cars from about 1960-1974 are pretty damn cool, but I could care less about today's expensive sportscars . . . Nolan, on the other hand, positively loves them, and while we were at the car show, he made an effort to share that love with me, the same way I've attempted to share my love of science fiction with him. On the surface, this is just a car show . . . but it's much, much more to me . . .

Over the next hour or so, we slowly moved from one booth to the next across the West Hall. I watched Nolan as he sat in several cars that he likes to drive in various Xbox games. I could see the far away look in his eyes while he was in the Audi TT, gripping the wheel tightly as he pulled through turns across Trafalgar Square in Project Gotham Racing, and I smiled. He finished his race (in first place, no doubt) and got out of the car.

"Nice driving," I said. "Ready for the South Hall?"

"You know it," he said, and took my hand.

We left the hall, and headed down a long corridor. Our walk was uneventful, until we neared a small chamber called the Concourse Hall. Nolan looked in as we passed, and stopped abruptly.

"Oh my god, Wil! We have to go in there! I just unlocked a Lotus in PGR2, and they're totallygoing to have the real one here!" He said, "Can we? I've never seen one in real life."

"Of course!" I said, "That's why we're here."

We walked into a room that was packed (well above its capacity) with hundreds of exotic sportscar enthusiasts. In addition to the Lotuses, this hall contained the Bentleys, the Ferraris, the Lamborghinis, and the Saleens.

"Man, this room is really full. Should we come back later?" Nolan said.

I looked around the room. It was hot, and a faint reek of greasy hair and sweat hung in the air, like an elementary school hallway after lunch recess. Several people pushed their way past me, one of them knocking me off balance. Nolan squeezed my hand and steadied me.

"I think the Lotus booth is just to the right," I said, "I think we can at least see that, and if it's too crowded, we can come back later on."

"Are you sure?"

In the far corner of the room, a group of men cheered, and I saw several arms reach into the air.

"Yeah. I think there's just some sort of giveaway happening over there."

"Maybe it's a free whack at the GTO," Nolan offered.

"Oh! Where can I sign up?" I said.

We giggled and slowly wove our way through the teeming masses yearning to win prizes, until we were pressed right up against the rail in front of the Lotus booth.

We hadn't even stopped moving when Nolan went off on this car. He was like an audio version of Car and Driver.

"Can I take pictures?" He asked.

I handed him the camera and told him to go nuts.

A few minutes and about a thousand pictures later, we squeezed out of the suffocating room.

While we walked past a booth selling Auto Show T-Shirts, Nolan said, "Wil, I can get so many Kudos with that car in PGR 2 --" He stopped, and turned to face me.

"Is this boring for you?"

It was a very unexpected question, and caught me completely off guard.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I keep stopping you to look at cars."

"Nolan, it's a car show. What else are we going to do?"

"Okay, I'm just checking." He looked away, then back to me. "Are you sure you're not bored?"

"Nolan, I'm really happy to just be hanging out together, and I think it's totally cool that you're into these cars. I'm having a fantastic time."

"Okay," he said.

We walked another fifteen feet or so before he stopped again.

"Thanks for bringing me here, Wil." He hugged me, right there by the Los Angeles Times booth.

I hugged him back, tightly, in spite of myself. "You're welcome, Nolan. Thank you for telling me that." I smiled. I've spent most of the last eight years teaching both kids to be compassionate and appreciative. I love it when I see a little glimpse of my parenting in action.

"I'm really glad we did this today," he said.

"Me too."

(Next time: The real return of the muscle car!)

Posted by Wil at 02:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (32)

Hey, take a look at this, from Alan Graham:

I normally don't ask for help, but this is a situation where all I can do is make an appeal. My friends could make all the difference in the world. My wife recently became the Director of a non-profit art program that serves thousands of children . . . in a major budget crisis. They have no usable computing gear (their ONE Dell is ready for pasture). So I donated a lot of my personal gear and time . . . including one of two computers I plan to donate (we're not rich, but I do have some stuff I can spare).

Well this morning my wife fell and injured herself . . . and the clamshell iBook I donated . . . which now has a cracked screen. Cannot be used and cannot be fixed (screen is more than the machine is worth). We're not asking for one penny . . . but are looking for some folks who might help, out there in the blogosphere, to turn those lemons into some lemonade. I don't have the money to repair the machine (and not asking for any), but I could use a little word of mouth.

Alan is a great guy, and it would be really cool to help out. Take a look at his page, and learn about the program (The Children's Art Network) his wife is directing. It's fantastic.

If you know someone who has some extra Apple computer stuff they don't want or need, or maybe have a connection to a Dickensian Mysterious Benefactor, pass it along, okay?

Posted by Wil at 02:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

My pal Sean brought this lovely photo to my attention.

It should give the restless WWdN reader something to do for, oh, six or even eight seconds today!

Posted by Wil at 09:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

I had the strangest dream last night: I was working in my office, and there were hundreds of Dreams standing in my hallway, making a cacophonous racket as they fought with each other to be the first through the door.

I got up from my desk, threw my glasses down in disgust, and flung the door open so I could tell them to quiet down.

The hallway was empty and silent, and that's when I woke up.

Here's part two of The Exciting Adventure of Wil-man and Nolan-boy and the Strange Case of The 2004 Los Angeles Auto Show:

"So where should we start?" I said. My answer came in the form of Nolan running toward the biggest SUV I've ever seen. Seriously. It was a few feet shorter than a Star Destroyer.

I caught up with him as he climbed into the back seat.

"Wil! Look at how much room there is in here!" He said as he bounced and extended his legs to barely touch the back of the seat ahead of him.

"Yeah, but the power to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of The Force." I reminded him.

He looked at me with a furrowed brow. "What?"

"Sorry," I said, "I was having a nerd moment."

"Oh, good. I hope we can have lots of those today." He said, dryly.

"I find your lack of faith disturbing." I said, and twitched my fingers.

He shook his head and laughed, "Whatever, Wil . . . "

He hopped out of the truck, a Bvlgari-styled Cadillac Escalade, (which, I must admit, while being quite possibly the most environmentally irresponsible vehicle on Earth, was pretty damn sweet. Its interior was more like a Gulfstream jet than a car) and took my hand.

"Let's go see the GTO," he said.

"Do you think it's going to look any less ugly than last year's?" I asked him.

"I sure hope so!" he said, and we were off.

We made our way through the crowd, which was quite similar to the 405 on a Friday afternoon, and landed at the Pontiac booth. The 2004 GTO turned slowly on a raised platform in front of us.

"Oh --" he began, and looked up at me. "Can I say a cuss word?"

"What word?"

"The cuss word version of 'dangit.'"

I looked at the abomination that is Pontiac's "updating" of the GTO, and heard thousands of voices cry out in disgust, only to be suddenly silenced.

"Yes," I said, "yes, you may."

"DAMMIT!" He said, emphatically. "What an ugly pile that is!"

I nodded. "It sucks the most," I said.

"Aren't muscle cars supposed to be cool?" He said.

"Yep."

"Like mom's Mustang. That's cool." He said.

"Yeah. This isn't a muscle car. It's like a Taurus that is pretending to be a muscle car. Let's get out of here before anyone sees us and thinks we're admiring this thing."

We hurried out of the Pontiac booth, past a middle-aged couple.

"Oh my god," the man said as we passed, "I can't believe they did this to my car." His wife put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

(More next week. Have a great weekend, everybody!)

Posted by Wil at 08:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Today would have been the 75th birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

To honor his memory, his legacy, and his dream, I offer the following wisdom from Dr. King himself:

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

Remember the Dream.

Posted by Wil at 03:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I haven't had a haircut in almost two months, even though I am married to a hairdresser. I guess it's like the shoemaker's kids being barefoot.

As a result, my hair is huge. It stands up about four inches off my head, and sort of curls around like Wolverine . . . and not in a cool way.

Yeah. Scary.

Anne got a good look at my Marge Simpson-lite hair this morning.

"Holy crap," she said, "your hair is wearing you!"

"Yeah. I can't seem to make a goddamn appointment with my hairdresser, and despite the Logan look, I can't snikt it off."

I flexed my hands to show the lack of Adamantium claws.

"You lost me there," she said, "I don't speak nerd, remember?"

"So if I told you that my huge hair is a 5 point CHA disadvantage, that wouldn't mean anything to you?"

"No."

"And you wouldn't know that I'd mixed D&D rules with GURPS?"

We looked at each other for a moment. "That's right, baby, you're married to this!" I thought, mentally making a saving throw vs. Irritated Wife.

"May I please have a haircut?" I asked, politely.

"Yes you can," she said. "Let me get the hedge clippers."

Posted by Wil at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

I'm listening to the soundtrack from Two Towers as I write this. Ferris and Riley are on the floor behind me, back to back, slowly creeping across my floor in an effort to stay in the rectangle of sun that's warming about 16 square feet of my living room. The smell of coffee and freshly-baked potato bread hangs heavy in the air.

None of this has anything to do with what I sat down to write, but it's a wonderful winter morning here in casa Wheaton, and I wanted to commit it to 1's and 0's, so it's never forgotten.

Back in November, Nolan and I tried to go to the Los Angeles Auto Show. Of course, when we got to the Convention Center, we found out that the Los Angeles Auto show was, in fact, in Orange County that weekend. All was not lost, however, because we went on to have an incredibly wonderful day together anyway.

This last weekend, the Los Angeles Auto Show was actually in Los Angeles, and Nolan and I spent all last week counting down the days until Sunday (Sunday! Sunday!) when we planned to attend.

Sunday was unseasonably warm and clear. We wore T-shirts and took the train down to the convention center. We sat in the very front, and watched the tracks, gleaming in the January sun, as they guided us toward Union Station.

"Are you excited, Wil?" Nolan asked me.

"You bet I am," I said.

"I can't wait to see the cars from PGR2," he said.

I nodded.

"You know what PGR2 is, right?" He said.

"Project Gotham Racing 2," I said, "Jeeze. I'm not that out of touch . . . am I?"

"Well, I guess not," he said with a grin, ". . . right now."

"I hope we have as much fun as we did last year," I said.

"Me too," he said.

We arrived at Union Station, ran down the tunnel to the Red Line, and jumped into the train just before the doors closed. Three stops later, we were on the Blue Line for one stop. We got off the train at Pico, and emerged in a crowd of auto-enthusiasts.

We walked to the Convention Center entrance down a street lined with vendors who hawked cheap toys, flowers, social security cards, and various types of food. We stopped at a red light next to a woman pushing a shopping cart topped with a propane grill. The smoky air was fragrant with cooking onions and sausages.

"Oh! That smells good! Can we get one?" Nolan asked.

"Are you sure you want to eat a sausage that's prepared on top of a shopping cart?" I asked.

He thought for a moment. "Uhm, no. That's gross." He said.

"Maybe we can grab something inside," I said.

"Maybe," he said, "but I don't think we should spend seven dollars on a pretzel."

I laughed as the light changed. The crowd of people pushed us into the street, and Nolan held my hand as we crossed.

"Hey, you get in for free because you're twelve!" I said, while we waited in line to buy our tickets.

"And you can --"

"If you say I can get in as a senior, I'm gonna --"

"Hit me with your cane?" he said.

"No, but I'll tie you behind my Rascal Scooter and drag you through the mud," I laughed.

We bought my non-senior-priced ticket, and walked into the West Hall.

To Be Continued . . .

Posted by Wil at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Paul O'Neill has backed off from some of the statements I quoted a couple of days ago. Of course, this has resulted in a few e-mail lectures from people who kindly advise that I should just shut my stupid Hollywood liberal mouth and move to France.

I'm not planning any relocation, or any self-censorship in the near future, so If you're one of those readers, I kindly advise you to go listen to Rush and come back tomorrow.

Posted by Wil at 08:17 PM | Permalink

Last month, I wrote about The awesome generosity of Penny Arcade readers, and the lack of media coverage of that story.

Well, today there is a fantastic follow-up to that story. The author of the story that prompted the guys at PA to launch Child's Play celebrated, and apologized to Penny Arcade and its readers.

This is some combination of a celebration and an apology. First, the celebration.

A week before Thanksgiving, The Herald printed my first column on ultra-violent video games, and then put it on the Web site, www.heraldnet.com. The most important reaction I saw came right after Thanksgiving through a Web site called penny-arcade.com.

An unidentified writer wrote, "If you are like me, every time you see an article like this one -- where the author claims that video games are training our nation's youth to kill -- you get angry."

When readers clicked "this one," my column on video games popped up.

[. . .]

Among other things they did to inspire giving, Penny-arcade published a letter from one of its readers. He is the father of a 5-year-old boy who had spent most of the previous five months at Children's Hospital getting chemotherapy for lymphoma.

Almost every parent can immediately identify with that father's distress, and with his heartfelt "thank you" to Penny-arcade for its Child's Play toy drive.

[. . .]

Here is the apology part and then back to more celebration. Certainly many gamers read my column as a statement that I believe that they are bad people. For that impression I am sorry. I did not and do not believe that.

In any case, the Penny-arcade Web site and many of their readers, who are apparently gamers, demonstrated that they have big hearts and generous instincts.

Mr. Bill France, who wrote the original story, and the story quoted above has earned a trophy and a pizza from the official WWdN Prize Patrol™.

Posted by Wil at 03:22 PM | Permalink

I think that Alison Berkley is teh rules:

It just occurred to me that I am a snowboard whore.

I am the lady in red (literally) who accepts cash at the end of the day from the ultrawealthy ski vacationers at Snowmass who think I'm a miracle worker because their brain-dead kid actually got excited about something besides video games for the first time since the day she turned 13.

They call us "snowboard pros" which makes it sound a lot more legit than it really is. Whatever. My parents are just happy I'm a professional at something, especially after all that money they blew on boarding school and the six years it took me to get through college.

No, I'm not bumming around some upper-crust resort. I'm not afraid of the so-called "real world" or facing the responsibility of becoming an "adult." I'm a snowboard pro, bitch. That's Alison Berkley, S.P.

It's rare that I read something and laugh all the way through, so for that, Alison Berkley, S.P., I salute you!

(huge thanks go out to Russ who brought this story to my attention)

UPDATE: A few readers e-mailed me that, after she wrote this article, Alison Bekley was fired from her job at Snowmass:

The "Princess" has dinged her crown -- and lost her job.

Cheeky Aspen Times columnist Alison Berkley apparently went too far last week when she detailed her perceived shortcomings as a local snowboard instructor, writing, among other things, in her weekly column -- entitled "The Princess's Palate" -- that she felt like "a snowboard whore" for dressing in red and accepting cold, hard cash from Snowmass Ski Area's "ultrawealthy."

Her bosses at Aspen Skiing Co., which is owned by the Crown family of Chicago, were none too pleased with the sassy columnist, earlier this week terminating her employment and the privileges that go along with it, including her ski pass and the on-mountain locker she mocked in the column.

It's just another example of Rich Fucking Assholes™, who have no sense of humor, screwing things up for the rest of us. Alison Berkley, Fomer Snowboard Pro and Martyr, I still salute you. You are still teh rules. Maybe spending less time with Rich Fucking Assholes™ and their Spoiled Brat Kids™ will give you time to focus on a writing career. You're obviously good at it.

Posted by Wil at 06:17 PM | Permalink

Here's some more geeky webby goodness I've uncovered in the last few days.

Blogger users can easily create RSS feeds for their site using Rss-ify. It's really cool. All you do is put some tags in your entry templates, generate a URL, and watch the fun.

(hat tip to Juan Cole, who is the first blogger I read to use this nifty application.)

For anyone wondering, I use NetNewswire Lite on my iBook (still in a coma, but hopefully coming back from the logic-board doctors at Apple this week), and AmphetaDesk on my Linux machine, though I'm giving Pears a try today.

Remember a few days ago when I was so excited to learn the magic use of the TITLE tag? Several readers e-mailed to let me know that I can build symbols using unicode, like < or > to show off my HTML . . . uh . . . "skills" . . . I guess . . . in a less-lame way.

<a href="http://www.homestarruner.com" title="seriously.">like this!</a>.

Many people ask me why I don't use target="_blank" in my links. So many, in fact, that I really should add it to the FAQ. The answer is, "because it's just as easy to right-click (or ctl-click, if you're a machead) to open links in new windows, most browswers can be set to open links in background tabs or windows anyway, and I'm too lazy to type it into every link."

The follow-up, of course, is, "Well, then why don't you just put make "_blank" the base link?"

To which I reply, "Because I don't want to. So there. Nyahh."

Now, I am off to have left-over soup, and a slice of just-baked potato bread for lunch. \m/

Posted by Wil at 12:07 PM | Permalink

Last night, I made "The Chicken Soup", from the Whole Foods Market Cookbook. It took just under five hours from the beginning to the eating, but it was totally worth it.

I made the stock, prepared all the spices and vegetables, and even added some egg noodles, at the urging of my wife. The entire house smelled like . . . well, it just smelled like warmth, and love, and home, if that makes any sense. The time spent in the kitchen was sort of meditative, as I carefully washed and cut parsnips, carrots, onions and sweet potatoes. I was delighted as the windows fogged up when I was dicing dill and parsley. It was just me and the stove, turning three quarts of water into a meal.

I'd talked about my plans for this meal for days, and inadvertently built it into an Event™: Nolan cleaned and set the dining room table with great care. He carefully folded paper napkins and ensured that each of us had a spot-free soup spoon. Ryan put one of my Esquivel CDs on, and lit candles. Fortunately, they stopped short of donning clip-on ties . . . though I suspect the notion crossed their minds, for comic-relief if nothing else.

Because of this grand build-up, I was a tiny bit incredibly nervous when everything was done, and it was time to serve. The entire family was seated, and I carefully ladled out bowlfulls for each of us. I took tight, tense breaths as I sat down. Four steaming bowls of soup now sat on the table, and my judgment was at hand.

Before we could take up our spoons, Nolan held his apple juice up and said, "A toast to Wil, for making soup from scratch!"

"Cheers!" Ryan said with a smile as we clinked glasses.

"I hope it doesn't suck," I said, recalling the eggplant pilaf I made last week. I thought it was fantastic (and ate it for lunch over the next two days) but it failed to excite Anne and the kids, who ended up eating hastily-prepared grilled cheese sandwiches that night.

"It smells so good," Ryan said, "Can I eat now?"

"Yes," I said. I felt like I was on an all-in stone bluff in late position, hoping for a fold, dreading a call.

Ryan lifted his spoon to his mouth, blew gently across it, and ate.

I looked across the table to Nolan, who was taking his spoon from his mouth. Anne hadn't picked up her spoon, yet. She was watching them almost as intently as I was.

Ryan swallowed, and was the first to speak.

"Oh my god, Wil! This is the best soup EVER!"

He removed any doubts that he was just being polite when he immediately dug in for another spoonful.

"What do you think, Nolan?" I asked.

"Normally, I hate cooked vegetables," he said, ". . . but whatever you did to them here made them really good!"

"That's awesome, you guys," I said, "I'm so glad you like it!" I felt like a kid again, showing off an "A" on a project to my parents, and I hadn't even tasted it yet!

I looked at Anne, and she smiled and gave me the thumbs up. "This is really good, Wil," she said.

That's all I needed to hear. I took my first bite . . . and it was heavenly. The last-minute decision to toss in a bit of cayenne paid off. It balanced the sweetness of the parsnips and yams brilliantly, and the fragrance of freshly-chopped dill filled every bite.

Though I love to cook, I'm not particularly good at it, and there was a very good chance that I'd screw this up. I know that to make a meal that the family enjoys is a very small thing, and people do it every day . . . but the whole reason I wanted to write about this is what Ryan said to me when we were washing dishes after dinner:

"You know, Wil," he said, "tonight,you did something nobody else has ever done."

"What's that?"

"Not only did you get Nolan to eat cooked vegetables . . . " he turned off the water and faced me. "But you got him to go back for seconds. High-five, Wil. Seriously."

We laughed together, effortlessly, like a happy parent and child, and turned the water back on.

"Nolan and Mom are going to watch TV. Do you want to read when we're done with these?" he asked. I've been reading The Two Towers and he is about to finish 'salem's Lot. For the past week, we've been sitting outside or next to our fireplace, depending on the weather and time of day, and reading together.

"Yes," I said, "Yes, I do."

These are the moments that I cherish. These are the memories I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

Posted by Wil at 11:35 AM | Permalink

Okay. Political stories and rants are officially back "on the table."

Last night on 60 Minutes, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill described George W. Bush as "a blind man in a roomful of deaf people" during Cabinet meetings, and revealed that within days of his inauguration, Mr. Bush planned to use U.S. troops to invade Iraq.

Of course, this means that, three years after he was sworn in, when Mr. Bush told us that Iraq was "a grave and gathering danger" (either because of those non-existent WMDs, or the equally non-existent ties to terrorists) he was doing nothing more than trying to fool We, The People, into going along with his inauguration-day plans to have his war on Iraq.

That information should enrage all Americans. The fact is, the Bush administration played us for suckers. In the aftermath of 9/11, when he could have actually been "a uniter, not a divider," George W. Bush took our grief, outrage, and fear and exploited it.

And now, as the lies for war unravel, George W. Bush -- the "compassionate conservative" -- shows us where his priorities truly lie.

It took 74 days for the Bush Administration to begin an investigation into the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity to Robert Novak. It's very clear that the purpose of the leak was to intimidate former Ambassador Joe Wilson, and send a warning to anyone else who would dare speak the truth about the Bush Administration's lies.

For those readers who aren't familiar with her, Valerie Plame's extremely undercover work for the CIA focused on tracking down weapons of mass destruction, and ensuring that they didn't find their way into the hands of terrorists.

Gosh, that sure sounds familiar . . . isn't tracking down weapons of mass destruction, and ensuring that they don't find their way into the hands of terrorists the reason over 500 American soldiers and countless Iraqi civillians have lost their lives in the last 10 months? (They've changed the reason for invading Iraq so many times, I've lost track. If it's a different reason today, if we're back to "liberating the Iraqi people," or "He took a shot at my daddy," just wait. I'm sure they'll return to "WMDs and Terrorists!" soon enough.)

See, whoever blew Ms. Plame's cover actually increased the danger to Americans from terrorists with WMDs. Thank god we have that color-coded alert system to keep us distracted safe! Good thing we all know to watch out for dangerous people reading The Old Farmer's Almanac, and six year-old girls boarding airplanes!

But here's the thing that just boggles me, and actually moved me to write tonight: The Bush administration waited 74 days before they started an investigation into who blew Ms. Plame's cover, putting her, all her assets, and all of us at risk.

Seventy-four days. When National Security is at stake.

How many days did it take for the Bush administration to call for an investigation into Paul O'Neill?

One. One day after he was on 60 Minutes. One day is all it took for what can be called a punitive investigation, at best, when all that's really at stake is the rapidly vanishing ability of the Bush White house to lie to us and get away with it.

So the question sweeping the nation is: Does Mr. Bush care more about protecting Americans from terrorism and ensuring our safety, or protecting himself from criticism, and ensuring his reelection?

Well, I think that's asked and answered, and I'm counting down to November.

(We're still having some upgrade issues. Hopefully, comments will return by the end of the week)

UPDATE: Until comments are up and running again, I thought I would share some e-mails that I've read regarding this post:

Posted by Wil at 10:39 PM | Permalink

I forgot to mention this earlier: I think that the newest Strongbad e-mail is the funniest since Dragon, or maybe Monster Truck.

Posted by Wil at 04:11 PM | Permalink

Back in the old days, when ASCII Pr0n was teh hot, and the only way to use a graphic browser was to go to the computer lab at a college and look at weather maps with NCSA Mosaic, I had a script in my .cshrc that would run fortune, and pipe the output to my .plan and .sig files. Okay, it's not writing cron jobs to ncftpget the latest mozilla nightly, untar it, compile it, and launch the browser to Fark so it's the first thing I see in the morning, (not that there's anything wrong with that) but it was enough to impress my friends in 1991.

I think the last time I used fortune was over five years ago, but I just discovered this:

[wil@marvin wil]$ /usr/games/fortune -m Wheaton

(cookie)

%

"I figured there was this holocaust, right, and the only ones left alive were Donna Reed, Ozzie and Harriet, and the Cleavers."

-- Wil Wheaton explains why everyone in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" is so nice

%

Dude. I'm in a Unix fortune. Seriously. \m/

(Thanks to Joe, who e-mailed this information to me, causing Yet Another Epic Geekout™ that my wife doesn't understand.)

More geeky stuff and an honest-to-goodness weblog entry coming up later on . . . but now I'm going to go spend the next several hours in the kitchen making soup . . . from scratch . . . for tonight's dinner.

Posted by Wil at 03:01 PM | Permalink

I have kept political stories "off the table" for several months . . . but today I read an article at K5 called What Good Is The Bill of Rights?

Read on, but be warned: this is a seriously long-winded political rant.

Posted by Wil at 06:48 PM | Permalink

The show last night was incredible! Even though Keith, Adam and I haven't done a show together in over a year, I think, we fell right into the same rhythm we had together when we were doing shows every single week, and we gave up some serious funny. Afterwards, a few audience regulars told me they thought it was our funniest show ever.

Two things about the show: Tracy Smith is insanely hilarious. You should all go to ComedyCentral.Com and vote for her, so you can see her on Stand-Up: Showdown.

The band last night, Orange County's own Handsome Devil, is teh rock. They are super nice guys, and they're about to break out HUGE in the pop-punk world. If you're in LA or OC, and you like the loud music, check them out.

The Big Time Guest™ was Henry Winkler. Last night was the first time I actually met Henry Winkler, but it wasn't the first "encounter" I had with him. That happened in 1980, when I was 8 years old . . .



When I was a kid, I always looked forward to auditions that were actually "on the lot," (rather than in some office building in The Valley) because I thought all studio lots were just like The Universal Studios Tour: movie stars roaming freely, thousands of extras dressed in exciting costumes, and sets so real we'd swear we were in The Old West, or on a space ship.

"I sure did, Willow. That was very cool."

Henry Winkler didn't have to give me the thumbs up. He didn't even have to wave to me. He could have just walked away from the window, or pulled a WFS.

But he didn't. He was kind, and gracious, and gave me a story that I've been telling for 23 years.

Last night, before the show, I told Henry that story. Before he could say anything, Adam Chester told him a similar story. It turns out that Henry Winkler is one of the nicest people in the world, and he's waaaayyy cooler than Fonzie.

Posted by Wil at 02:39 PM | Permalink

Guess what I learned how to do today? Give links their very own titles! This means that readers who are blind will no longer have to wonder what a link is when it just says here, and I have picked up yet another useful skill.

For those of you who are as lame as me (don't worry, I won't tell): when you make your links, you use a "title" attribute after the URL, like:

Hey! I found a funny website < a href="http://www.somethingawful.com" title="Something Awful: The Internet Makes You Stupid">here!< /a>

Obviously, you'll have to take out those spaces in the anchor tag.

Next up in our three part series: Step Two: ??????

Posted by Wil at 12:59 PM | Permalink

Oh, this is too freakin' cool. NASA has a moblog from Spirit! (thanks to bOINGbOING for the link)

Here's the first color image Spirit sent back.

I was in Virginia working on The Day Lincoln Was Shot (something I'm very proud of, by the way) when Pathfinder landed, and I'll never forget the feeling I had standing in my hotel room, watching the photos come in. My mom and dad said that it felt like Apollo 11 all over again.

I'm really glad that the Martian Earth Space Probe Defense System didn't shoot Spirit down, because we're in for some really cool images over the next few weeks.

Posted by Wil at 09:37 AM | Permalink

RetroCRUSH is a pop culture website run my my friend Robert Berry.

On November 20, 2003, Robert wrote a humorous article called The Worst Sex Scenes Ever: A Look At The Most Unsexy Sex Scenes".

On December 30, 2003, his article was stolen by the UK Tabloid The Daily Star. Robert writes,

"The UK tabloid 'The Daily Star' printed the same feature, with the same movies I used (even failing to omit a joke entry for the film Deliverance that I also included in my feature). Instead of crediting my site, however, they credited a seemingly fictitious American magazine named FILM. Not only did they highlight the films I mentioned, but they lifted three separate quotes from my article and attributed them to FILM magazine readers who responded to a (apparently non-existent) poll."

It was subsequently syndicated to at least 30 other news organizations without crediting Robert, who is the author of the story.

Robert recounts his conversation with Kieran Saunders, the News Editor at the tabloid:

"He said, 'Well, if it's on the internet it's up for grabs. You can't copyright anything on the internet.' I told him that was untrue and he then refused to speak with me further, and said all future communication needed to be sent to their legal contact, Steven Bacon in London. I even tried to call back an hour later to speak with the actual author of the piece, Emily Rose, and Saunders answered the phone, stating, 'I told you never to call here again, speak to our legal group' before ending the call."

Robert is looking for a copyright attorney who is interested in handling this slam-dunk case. His contact info is at RetroCRUSH.

Posted by Wil at 08:56 AM | Permalink

On Friday morning, I woke up and felt like myself for the first time in almost a month, so I spent the weekend making up for the lost month of December.

Friday afternoon, Anne and I finally saw The Return of the King. I won't discuss specific spoilers, because I would have been pissed if anyone had done that to me, but I will say this: I left feeling incredibly saddened that it was over. I love those characters, and that world, and I was so sad at the final fade out that their journeys were over. I'm holding onto faint hope that Peter Jackson will make The Hobbit, so we can return to Middle Earth (and see Smaug!) one day . . . but just barely.

While I was sick, and couldn't get out to the movies (there was no way I was going to be that asshole in the theatre who's coughing and sneezing the whole time), I watched the extended version of FOTR and TTT, as well as all 10 or so hours of the appendicies, so I was really pumped up for RotK, and I wasn't let down at all. I can't wait for the extended DVD version, (which I hear will be about 5.5 hours long!) to come out!!

Saturday was pretty windy, and by the end of the day, the sky was so clear, I felt like I could reach up and touch it. When the sun set, it was like someone had painted the sky on a glass globe, turned it upside down, and placed it over Pasadena. The Eastern sky was a deep, deep indigo spotted with a few stars, and the Western sky was crimson and orange, and Venus hung just above the horizon. I've seen some beautiful sunsets in my life, and Saturday's easily makes the top ten.

Sunday, we took advantage of the clear air and unseasonably warm weather and went on a hike to Echo Mountain with my brother and his wife. The views were spectacular, and we all had a wonderful time. While we were up there, Jeremy and I finally found the Echo Mountain Geocache, that we couldn't find last year.

When we came back to my house, Anne and I made pizzas for all of us, with yummy artichoke hearts and freashly-made sauce, and then we played the Pop Culture edition of Trivial Pursuit. If you're in your early 30s, like me, you probably remember playing the original Trivial Pursuit in the 80s, right? Of course, by "playing," I actually mean "wanting to stab yourself in the eye with a fork because we could never answer any of the questions." Well, I am happy to report that the Pop Culture edition was built just for us! Trivial Pursuit is significantly more fun when you can actually answer the questions . . . especially when one of them is "What did Dennis Moore distribute?" (Answer: Lupins!)

It was a truly wonderful weekend, one that (to steal a phrase from Steve Jackson) restored many of my hit points. I think I may have gained a level, too, but I won't know until I tally up my XP.

Posted by Wil at 11:45 AM | Permalink

I know from personal experience that The Media are often a miserable failure when it comes to getting the story right, but this story that I read yesterday really upset me.

Last month, Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade had a fantastic idea: show the world that gamers are not the mindless idiots the Mainstream News would like to think we are, and help out some children at the same time. Thus spake Gabe:

"If you are like me, every time you see an article like this one - where the author claims that video games are training our nations youth to kill - you get angry. The media seems intent on perpetuating the myth that gamers are ticking time bombs just waiting to go off. I know for a fact that gamers are good people. I have had the opportunity on multiple occasions to meet hundreds of you at conventions all over the country. We are just regular people who happen to love video games.

With that in mind we have put together a little something we like to call "Child's Play." Penny Arcade is working with the Seattle Children's Hospital and Amazon.com to make this Christmas really special for a lot of very sick kids. With the help of the Children's Hospital we have created an Amazon Wish List for the kids. It's full of video games, movies and toys. Some of these kids are in pretty bad shape and just having a Game Boy would really raise their spirits."

Well, the Penny Arcade readers responded, and over $200,000 worth of toys and games were donated to the children's hospital. Others who couldn't or didn't give toys, gave donations that totaled just over $27,000 dollars.

Think about that for a second. It's a fairly big story, isn't it? Those Gamers, the ones who play GTA: Vice City and want to come to your home to eat your children actually aren't so bad after all. Those Gamers, who are planning the destruction of our American Way of Life when they get together for LAN parties are actually a caring and thoughful group of people. It kinda screws up the search-and-replace The Media have done on "Heavy Metal Music Listeners" or "Marilyn Manson Fans" for their shock-and-horror stories, doesn't it?

A Google News search turns up three stories about the kindness and generosity of Penny Arcade and its readers.

Three.

The other story that seems to have captured The Media's watchful eye returns 11,100 stories. Those are some great priorities, News Media.

Finally, let's give Tycho the last word on their experience with The Media:

One hears a lot about media bias, quite a lot indeed, but the accepted formula goes like this:

the "Media," capital M, an imaginary monolith with a supposedly synchronized perspective, is saying things that I disagree with. The things that I believe are right, therefore these factual distortions are the result of some lens - a bias which is deeply ingrained, like a vein of rich silver.

That's all well and good, but let me propose the CFR Hypothesis, where CFR stands for "complete fucking retards." Let's see if you like it.

The first time the news dumbshits came out to talk about Child's Play, though they were clearly told who was responsible for it they excised one of the people behind it. I consider this a fairly minor issue, but they're still retarded. When they came to the Children's Hospital itself for the toy delivery, there was no reporter even down there with us. A cameraman got some footage and then (I believe) ran away. I thought I heard him say "Ghosts!", but that's neither here nor there. When this footage was aired, I learned something new: that the toys had been donated by a local catholic school, and were valued at nearly a thousand dollars. Understand this. A single bin of GBA SPs was worth four thousand dollars, and we had four such bins. That's above and beyond the seventy GameCubes the other twenty carts of toys, which at our best estimates come to around $175,000. Then there was a check for twenty-seven thousand. Here's where the depression sets in.

What we - this is a grand We, which includes you - what we did was completely amazing. It was worth doing purely on account of its own virtues. But the other part, what we might call the "Secondary Objective," was to promote the idea that we are not fucking murderers. This is an effort to combat media portrayals. Here's the trick, the dark revelation, the Empire Strikes Back which produces our moment of darkness: we need to rely on that selfsame inept machinery to broadcast our new message as well. They're simply not capable of it. I understand that there's just no story in people being good to each other, but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened from time to time.

Everyone who produces Penny Arcade, and everyone who reads Penny Arcade did an amazing, thoughtful, kind and compassionate act. They should be recognized for what they did, and that's what I'm doing today.




Please read MORE for a Journalist's response to this entry.

Posted by Wil at 11:44 AM | Permalink

Every year, Anne and I make tons (tonnes) of Christmas cookies for our friends and family. We do gingerbread men, snowmen, ginger snaps, and sugar cookies with pounds of sugary "frosting" on them. Oh, it's the opposite of healthy, but so much fun! We take these cookies, put them on a nice festive plate, and deliver them to our neighbors on Christmas Eve. Of course, this year, we were both sick as hell in the weeks leading up to Christmas, so we didn't bake anything for friends (family still got some plague with their cookies, but if you can't give plague to your family at Christmas, what can you give them?) Yesterday, we were both well enough to make several plates of cookies, and last night we delivered them as "New Year's Treats." Our neighbors are so wonderful, we ended up spending the entire evening in their homes, looking at pictures, drinking wine, and catching up. People talk about "your friends and neighbors," and we're incredibly lucky that our friends are our neighbors.

When I bought my first house about ten years ago, I was totally oblivious to the importance of location, and I ended up living next door to The Absolute Worst Neighbors From Hell. Their ability to be slovenly, inconsiderate jerks was stunning. They were so terrible, we ultimately sold the house we loved to move away from them. When we were looking for a new house, even if the neighborhood looked nice, (which many of them did) I went out of my way to knock on doors, and meet the potential new neighbors. ("Hi, I'm Wil, and I may be buying a house on this street. Are you cool?") I'm sure that seems a bit weird, but if you've ever lived next to The Absolute Worst Neighbors From Hell, you may understand why it was so important to me.

I was a long, tough, and sometimes frustrating process, but we finally found a great house, on a great street, surrounded by great people, and that's where we live now. In a way, I'm glad we lived next door to The Absolute Worst Neighbors From Hell when we did, because they taught us the value of neighbors, and the value of living on a street where there's real community.

Posted by Wil at 12:00 PM | Permalink

This is quite funny. I'm mentioned in today's comic from Goats.com. I hadn't heard of goats until about ten minutes ago, but I went back to the beginning of the story arc, I laughed out loud.

So check it out. Unless you don't like to laugh. Then you should grab your nuts and say to your nearest buddy, "Hey, I sat in some gum!" If that doesn't get you laughing, I don't know what will. (Yes, I realize that this advice won't work for the ladies . . . so you should just . . . uhm . . . line up to the left for make outs.)

Hey! Look! I sat in some gum!

Posted by Wil at 10:08 AM | Permalink

Check this out:

In 1968, Richard Nixon won the White House. He did it in a shameful way--by dividing Americans against one another, stirring up racial prejudices, and bringing out the worst in people.

They called it the "Southern Strategy," and the Republicans have been using it ever since. Nixon pioneered it, and Ronald Reagan perfected it, using phrases like "racial quotas" and "welfare queens" to convince white Americans that minorities were to blame for all of America's problems.

The Republican Party would never win elections if they came out and said their core agenda was about selling America piece by piece to their campaign contributors and making sure that wealth and power is concentrated in the hands of a few. To distract people from their real agenda, they run elections based on race, dividing us, instead of uniting us....

In America, there is nothing black or white about having to live from one paycheck to the next. It's time we had a new politics in America--a politics that refuses to pander to our lowest prejudices. Because when white people and black people and brown people vote together, that's when we make true progress in this country.

Posted by Wil at 03:41 PM | Permalink