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« home from austin | Main | fossilize apostle and I comb it with a rake »

October 13, 2004

Just A Geek audio and video from gnomedex now available!!1one

Linucon trip report is in the works, but it was honestly such an amazing weekend, I'm having a very tough time picking out just the highest of the high points.

Until it's finished, though, I've got something that I think WWdN readers are really going to like:

IT Conversations has put up the audio of my reading from Just A Geek and Dancing Barefoot at Gnomedex!
Quoth the website:


You may know him for his portrayal of Cadet Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation, but inside the skin of an actor is a geek trying (successfully) to get out. He's the author of the weblog, WilWheaton.net, and two books: Dancing Barefoot and Just a Geek. In this presentation recorded at Gnomedex 4.0, Wil reads original unexpurgated excerpts from his books, takes questions, and sits down for an interview with IT Conversations. It was one of the highlights of the weekend. Guaranteed to entertain, whether you're a Star Trek fan or not. This is Part 1 of 2.

The audio is outstanding, but it's not the best performance I've ever done (that honor is currently assigned to my performance at Linucon.) As I've mentioned before, I was terrified when I went up there, and I can hear the tension and apprehension in my voice as I try to connect to the audience . . . but about thirty minutes in, I think I got more comfortable and hit my stride. I'll post part two when it's out.

The entire performance is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 license, so please, please, please share it with people.

I'd love to hear feeback from anyone who tunes in.

UPDATED: In the comments, tsu points us to Part Two. Cool! Thanks, tsu!

Updated again: There is also Video of the performance (.wmv) available as a torrent file (mpeg is on the way, apparently. Sweet!)

Posted by wil at October 13, 2004 10:26 AM
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Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Just A Geek audio and video from gnomedex now available!!1one:

» Just A Geek Reading from Digital Man's Outtakes
The audio of Gnomedex has been available for a few days now and I've been downloading everything I can. IT Conversations did a remarkable job on the quality of the recordings. A couple days ago, the audio of Wil Wheaton reading from his book "Just A Ge... [Read More]

Tracked on October 14, 2004 02:11 AM

» WWDN, an Emergency signal, and IE crashes less? from Tinderblog
[Read More]

Tracked on October 19, 2004 05:44 AM

» Multipurbulous from Joe Baldinux
Fun at Gnomedex four point oh / Wil Wheaton at the lecturn / mic in front, book opened wide / reciting "Dancing Barefoot" / and "Just a Geek". [Read More]

Tracked on October 20, 2004 02:48 PM
Comments

Whee Haaa! First post!

Posted by: Squirrel at October 13, 2004 10:41 AM

That's so totally cool

Posted by: Annette at October 13, 2004 10:54 AM

Sweet! It's downloading as I type! I added your RSS output to My Yahoo, that's so swift, now I don't have to re-check wwdn all day :) However, while you were in Austin I was sad because My Yahoo said 'no new posts in last 3 days' :(

Posted by: rianpie at October 13, 2004 10:57 AM

I can't wait to listen to this.

Posted by: GURT at October 13, 2004 10:59 AM

Thanks for coming to Austin, Wil! Glad you had a good time.

Posted by: Gardenho at October 13, 2004 11:10 AM

I just listened to the whole thing. I remember being really worried about "endlessly lamenting" through the whole first 20 minutes or so, and I can really hear that apprehension, unertainty, and insecurity in my voice. Once I got past that, though, and got into SpongeBob VegasPants, I totally loosened up. So the second half is stronger than the first, I think.

I can't wait to hear part two. :)

Posted by: wil at October 13, 2004 11:17 AM

I'm having a great time listening to it. You're very entertaining.

Posted by: aharden at October 13, 2004 11:18 AM

I listened to it last night - what a great performance! I loved the books, but hearing you read the stories added a whole new dimension to them. You're doing the reading for the audio version of JAG, right?

Posted by: tsu at October 13, 2004 11:18 AM

Oh, and part 2 is available! It was last night, too. The link from part 1 to part 2 doesn't work, but I think that's just a typo. Here: Part 2

Posted by: tsu at October 13, 2004 11:22 AM

Wil,
I really enjoyed both parts. Thanks so much for releasing them. I was listening at work...suppose to be working...laughed out loud twice.
Please keep doing this and audio blog often! Its such a treat for us prisoners of Dilbert-ville.
- Pixie

Posted by: Pixie at October 13, 2004 12:02 PM

Just finished listening to both parts, and I agree on both your points so far - the second part of the gnomedex is better than the first, and your reading at Linucon was better still. It's hard to get a measure of the crowd on the gnomedex recording - but I know the Linucon crowd was having a good time. You were more relaxed in Austin, and one of my favorite bits from Austin was missing from Gnomedex - "dude" being said many different ways to reflect its many different meanings.

I'll send more later via email.

You rocked in Austin on a lot of levels. I'm glad you had a good time.

Posted by: Robert in Austin at October 13, 2004 12:06 PM

Will,

I listened to the IT Conversations podcast this morning and I must say I loved it. I usually skip through IT Conversations PodCasts because I find them a little dry but I am going to say this series. I actually went and added this site to my RSS agregator after listening to your stories today.

I loved the William Shatner story and what Jonathan Frakes said to Micheal Dorn "He took a shit on our teen idol!" then Dorn says "You want me to kick his ass?" I laughed my ass off.

Hope you get the part you did the on camera audition. Keep up the good work.

I look forward to reading your book. Is there an e-book version?

Sincerely,
Fellow Peer

Posted by: Ralph Whitbeck at October 13, 2004 12:24 PM

I will give it a listen soon.
and... I will share it with as many people as humanly possible. ;)
Consider yourself blogged.. okay later this afternoon but I will do it.. I promise. :P

I am looking forward to hearing about your incredible weekend at the linucon.

Posted by: neph at October 13, 2004 12:37 PM

You know, the more I listen to this, the more I think Wil ought to be on SNL. Heck, I think he could pull of GWB alone better than that joker they have doing him right now.

Posted by: tim at October 13, 2004 12:53 PM

Just listened to your readings. Pretty neat. Awesome that you sold out of your book!

The interviews were interesting. It would be neat to have an annotated version of that interview, with subtitles telling people what the various topics were about, and how to read about them.

I'm really surprised that the "I hope the room doesn't fill up with popcorn" comment didn't get a laugh. The audience was just a little too young, I guess? Ah well.

Cool! Thanks for posting this.

Posted by: Craig Steffen at October 13, 2004 01:13 PM

tim: I think that Wil would be wasted on SNL. Granted I haven't watched much in the last few years, but it's just not as funny as it used to be. I think he probably has a much more sophisticated, narratively oriented sense of humor than SNL.

Posted by: Craig Steffen at October 13, 2004 01:16 PM

Woo!
Really nice.

Posted by: ionicus at October 13, 2004 01:33 PM

too damn cool, thanks for posting this. spent this afternoon listening to the whole thing - excellent job.

Posted by: iggy at October 13, 2004 01:35 PM

Great listen - part two and the shatner story killed me.
I'm not a forwarder, but the link's been forwarded all over the place.
Glad to follow the blog. Very cool. Thanks for the time.

Posted by: Rich G. at October 13, 2004 01:38 PM

Thanks, everyone!

I'm very interested in tracking the propagation of this around teh Intarweb. If you see it somewhere else, would you let me know? Probably comments would be the best way, to prevent overlap.

Posted by: wil at October 13, 2004 01:41 PM

Hey Wil, I just wanted to give you props for supporting the idea of creativecommons.org. I swear, I'm not affiliated with the site, I"m just a geeky law student studying copyright. :)

Posted by: Sam at October 13, 2004 01:45 PM

This is fantastic to hear! I loved reading these stories in the books, but hearing the stories live is even more colorful. Fabulous! The performance definitely gets better and better during the show. Oh, but I absolutely adored the Bush-isms and Bush impression. The Best!

"carney on speed..." LOL!

Posted by: Julia at October 13, 2004 01:52 PM

Listening to the recording now as I type this....I am embarrassed to say I have not read either book yet, but they are both on my Christmas list......I love your writing style,from reading WWdN, it really pulls the reader in, and I am impressed to say the audio is pulling me in now too as I listen, I feel like I'm in the audience, laughing along and giving knowing looks to the "people" sitting around me....Wil, to use an overused phrase, You Rock......keep up the great work!!!!! Also, am I the only one who thinks it's too cool that Keith Coogan is regularly posting in the comments???? Neat to hear from him, am a huge fan of him as well...Jess

Posted by: Jess at October 13, 2004 01:56 PM

Wil,

That was fantastic. I had no idea.

Thanks,
troy

Posted by: Troy at October 13, 2004 02:09 PM

You sounded great! My computer is buggered so I could only hear. But you were great, very funny and charming!

Posted by: Beth at October 13, 2004 02:33 PM

I've never seen wil on star trek. Or what's this website about but i do know him from Stand By Me, one of my all time favorite movies. Why don't you act anymore? you should if you were that good a kid, I'm sure you're better now.
thanks

Posted by: sarah at October 13, 2004 02:37 PM

I've been listening to all the IT Conversations since you mentioned you were going to be up there too, so I happened to see yours go up yesterday. Very nice job. I liked when Jesus showed up.

Posted by: Josh at October 13, 2004 02:55 PM

Way too cool Wil. I loved the reading.

Posted by: =^) at October 13, 2004 03:04 PM

Downloading the audio and video of this as I type...I know what I'll be doing when I get home tonight! Looking forward to hearing you read from your book. I'm glad you had a great time out there in Texas.

Posted by: Roger at October 13, 2004 03:21 PM

Sat down to listen to five minutes of this and ended up listening to the whole thing. Great reading, great performance.

Posted by: Neil B at October 13, 2004 03:49 PM

heh, i just noticed, there's a [wheaton] tag on fark... that's when you know you've hit the big times!

Posted by: Ugly Virgin at October 13, 2004 03:50 PM

And you've been Farked again! (I'm sure you probably already know, though.)

Posted by: katcheya at October 13, 2004 04:01 PM

Listening to it right now - very, very cool!

It's been a long time since I've heard you speak; your last episode of TNG, probably. There's something in your speaking voice that reminds me of P.J. O'Rourke's, which is odd since you're from California and he's from Ohio.

So, when are you coming to the East Coast?

Posted by: Carl at October 13, 2004 04:37 PM

So I was hanging out with Jon Enge and a few other people this weekend who said you were involved in a tree incident at faire when you were 16. It's okay to fess up.. we all did dumb stuff when we were teenagers.

Posted by: Tess Boyd at October 13, 2004 04:47 PM

I just finished listening to part 2 (almost was late to class this afternoon from being so engrossed in part 1) and I have to say it's so awesome to be able to hear you do your thing on stage. I love the character voices, from 16-year-old teen idol Wil to G.W. to Gene Roddenberry, and when you did the cheeky Wesley Crusher action figure bit I pretty much collapsed laughing. You have a great skill of balancing serious touching moments with raucously funny parts.

I would love to see you perform live; hope you can make it to Seattle someday soon.

Posted by: Rena at October 13, 2004 04:55 PM

Loved the recording. I am really looking forward to the audiobook.

BTW - you don't sound bad or nervous at all. Just the tiniest bit shaky at the very beginning in a charming kind of way and then you really seem to hit your stride. The audience sounds like they were more "with you" than you feared they were (at least to me).

Keep up the great work!

Kerin

Posted by: kerinbot at October 13, 2004 05:20 PM

"mutual admiration society", AKA circle jerk.

I keed, I keed.

Posted by: Adam Louis at October 13, 2004 07:33 PM

Wil, long time reader, first time poster. I've been hooked on IT Conversations, so when TV's Wil Wheaton came into my RSS aggregator, I just had to grab the audio to stuff onto my iPod for the commute.

I was listening to part 1 on the bus, on the way home from work. Twice, I started laughing out loud, and the whole bus looked at me like I was Special. Thanks, for that Wil! Damn you!

I listened to part 2 on the way home tonight, resolved to not Look Like an Ass by laughing out loud. Damn you, Wil! Less than a minute before my stop. In my neighborhood. Less than 100 metres from my house. I broke out laughing. Uncontrollably. Like an idiot. Between the Hooters girl (you know, with hooters...), and William Fucking Shatner, I was snorting like I just had a stroke.

That was an awesome session, Wil. You rocked hard. There's only one way to describe it: "Dude!"

Posted by: D'Arcy Norman at October 13, 2004 07:57 PM

Wil, dude! That was five kinds of awesome. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

You're an expressive writer, and you achieve this by being unafraid to connect with your audience and speak to them levelly; person to person. I enjoy this in your writing all the time. Hearing you read your stuff to an audience took it to eleven, so to speak. I guess it follows that you would handle your own material really well, but that doesn't make it any less cool to hear. I haven't bought your book yet, but after today there aren't many things that are likely to stop me.

Thanks for getting this performance out there, man! It took the great day I was having and gave it another reason to shine.

Posted by: Josh at October 13, 2004 09:21 PM

I have been following your blog for a while now and have enjoyed reading your comments on life and geekdom. I have to say though hearing your description of William fucking Shatner was hillarious. Being raised in the scifi con community the stories about Bill Shatners escepades of egotism are apocryphal. It reminded me of some of my favorite tales of him or people like Harlan Ellison.

Kudos to you for a good show.

Posted by: Jeremiah McCoy at October 13, 2004 10:15 PM

Thanks Wil! Great job. Got to love bit torrent!

Posted by: John at October 13, 2004 11:01 PM

Wil,

Just listened to your Tahoe presentation (thanks tsu for a good link to part 2).

As always, content was wonderful, and to have the pleasure of hearing you on the streaming thread added a dimension to my memories of your written material and inhanced my respect for your work.

I anticipate your next book, biography or fiction, and hope to savor it in all the ways you have allowed us to savor Just a Geek and Dancing Barefoot (written and audible).

Ok, now get back to work. We are waiting!!!

Posted by: Dornar at October 14, 2004 01:42 AM

I just saw the .wmv version of the vid. I wish that it wasn't cut off so abruptly there at the end for credits. Was there a problem with recording the whole thing? Oh well. It was cool to see you reading, I had always wanted to see one of your reads, but the way my life goes these days, I have zero time to be my natural geek self and go to shows and such anymore :-(

Posted by: Jason Turner at October 14, 2004 02:45 AM

Fucking BRILLIANT audio! Great asides and read with personality...so much better that how it sounds in my head. Wish I could've been there to hear it live.

Wil [holds up pint of Guinness], here's to many moons more...cheers, D

Posted by: Dee at October 14, 2004 04:47 AM

Okay.. you have been linked and properly blogged. ;)

Posted by: Neph at October 14, 2004 08:37 AM

err okay.. forgot to add the link. *oops*

My Blog

Posted by: Neph at October 14, 2004 08:42 AM

Yer a great multi-purpulous actor, Wil, keep it up!

Posted by: leif at October 14, 2004 09:00 AM

*listening to reading*

You lived in Topeka? I'm from there. I just spend six hours in a car driving there and back to get my braces tightened. Got a power band on my bottom teeth. Yes, it will soon be as painful as it sounds, probably in the middle in the night when I'm trying to sleep.

Posted by: Veronica Knight at October 14, 2004 01:00 PM

Hi Wil! I loved your work on STNG - it was cool to think that someone around my own age could be part of the crew. Anway, great job on this! I'm halfway through the first downloadable file now. Have you considering doing a Podcast (Intenet 'radio like' show distributed by downloading/bittorrent and accessible by RSS) of your own?

Posted by: Mark at October 14, 2004 02:52 PM

I just finished listening to both parts. Awesome job Wil! I really loved the story about "William Effing Shatner"- now I can appreciate your mechandise instead of going, 'huh'? Good luck with everything!

Posted by: Ashley at October 14, 2004 06:01 PM

I just finished watching the video.

Now I KNOW I have to see a performance you give sometime. So much fun.

I can't wait to buy the Audiobook. Will it be available on Audible so I can play it on my iPod? It better be! *shakes fist*

-Jeffery

Posted by: Jeffery Borchert at October 14, 2004 11:23 PM

I just got done listening to parts 1 & 2 of the audio. Seriously hilarous. Every time I turned around I was laughing. People kept giving me strange looks because I was listening to it at work! Great job!

Posted by: Sonja at October 15, 2004 01:03 PM

The sound quality's not great but you give great reading.
I look forward to seeing a reading some day.

Posted by: Delphine (andrea) at October 17, 2004 05:20 PM

Sound quality improved in part 2.
The Saga of Spongebob Vegaspants, the William Fucking Shatner story and the story about the Wesley Crusher doll were among my favourites.
I'd already read these but seeing them told by Wil animated with notations added an entertaining dimension. You're a great storyteller, Wil.
The part about the custody battle was interesting because I was reading WWDN at the time and I remember thinking that the ebay auctions were about paying the mortgage, etc. Whoda thunk that there was more to it?

Posted by: delphine at October 18, 2004 07:06 AM

maybe he needs to go back to the enterprise and leave us alone with those commercials...

heidi
baby sleep

Posted by: heidi at October 18, 2004 03:50 PM

I said this before Wil, but will do so again here since I just re-listened to it last night. Incredible job, very captivating. You seemed well composed the whole time, but the mutual slight unease between a speaker AND the audience (yes, we get uneasy and nervous too...) was totally clobbered by the popcorn comment. Can't wait to see you in Vegas for Gnomedex 5!

Posted by: myko at October 19, 2004 01:25 PM

There is no TRUTH. There is no REALITY. There is no CONSISTENCY.
There are no ABSOLUTE STATEMENTS I'm very probably wrong.
Credit Report http://credit-report.se.com

Posted by: Credit Report at November 21, 2004 01:47 AM

Arguments with furniture are rarely productive.
-- Kehlog Albran, The Profit
Cash Advance http://www.cashadvance.be

Posted by: Cash Advance at November 23, 2004 05:01 AM

I'd love to go out with you, but the man on television told me to say
tuned.
Cash Advance Loan http://www.cashadvance.be

Posted by: Cash Advance Loan at November 23, 2004 08:48 PM

God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board
-- Mark Twain
Direct TV http://www.direct-tv-com.com

Posted by: Direct TV at November 24, 2004 10:51 AM

After giving both segments of Will's performance a second hearing, I can say that I was thoroughly entertained.

Posted by: R.McKinney at December 17, 2004 01:17 PM

The sure way  to get top cookware for the kitchen get Calphalon which rules.  Or there is  Calphalon Cookware for some things -- and very fine it is - but Calphalon One is so great when it comes to pans and pots. 

If you want to get the best for the kitchen get All Clad is rocks.  You can try Le Creuset for certain things -- and it is great - but All Clad is so useful for things like pans and pots.  Likewise you All Clad and Le Creuset are number one in my book.

Posted by: calphalon at January 2, 2005 04:10 PM

After giving both segments of Will's grationperformance a second hearing, I can say that I was thoroughly entertained.

Posted by: gration at January 13, 2005 11:21 PM
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