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Good morning, everyone, and happy April! I hope everyone had a nice weekend.Okay, let's get straight to business: here's the bad news: the entire site has crashed, and we can't figure out why.I don't know when the crash happened, or why, because I was offline all weekend, but I'm working on it. I suppose that if you can read this, it means things are working again, which will bring us to our second bad news: I tried to upgrade to Moveable Type 2.0 on Friday, and it broke. Goddammit! I swear, I am farking cursed. I know what went wrong, and I'm going to start pleading with the authors for some help. They seem like cool people, so hopefully they will be willing to give me a hand. *sigh*

On to the good news! Oh, this is such amazingly good news, and it's been so hard to keep this to myself, but there have been contract talks, and all sorts of negotiations, and all that...but I can finally make the big big announcement:

The official announcement will be made on Thursday, but I've been given permission by Paramount's hired goons to make the announcement today.

In four weeks, I will be joining the cast of Enterprise in a recurring role!

The details are still being worked out, but basically what they plan to do is have Wesley use his Time Traveler abilities to move through space and time to the NX-01. He'll be written more like the dark, troubled Wesley of "The First Duty" and "Final Mission", and less like the gee-whiz Wesley of days gone by.

Here's a little history: Nemesis is testing very well, and Paramount is extremely excited that this lame little website has generated such a huge following. I guess some people started a letter-writing campaign, without my knowledge, and Paramount listened. I spent most of last week on conference calls with Rick and Brannon, as well as some of the brass at Paramount, working out the details, making sure that Wesley will not be saving the NX-01 all the time. * grin *

I'll be in 8 of 22 episodes for the two seasons, with an option to renegotiate at the end of the second season. I'm only recurring to allow me the freedom to participate in other shows, as well as continue working for G4.

I'm so freakin' excited, I don't even know what else to say. I can't believe that I'm going to be working on Star Trek again, and I can't believe that I'm going to be working on Stages 8 and 9 again.

I have to go to a fitting right now. I'll write more when I have more details. I hope everyone has a great day!!

Well, most of you have figured it out, by now, but the truth is...

...I'm not gonna be on Enterprise. Even as a computer voice, or within the secret, dirty, late-night thoughts of Capt. Archer.

I hope everyone takes this in good humor. Lots of people sent really kind and sweet congratulatory messages, and I actually feel pretty badly for fooling such nice people. All the idiots who thought it was a really good idea to fill my inbox with "Wesley is gonna ruin Enterprise" crap should get a life, and direct any further comments to 1> /dev/null.

To be honest I was surprised at how many people were wishing me well; I was expecting the Kill Wesley Crowd to come out instead.

I think the greatest highlight of the day came when my mom called Anne, while I was at work.

The conversation went something like this:

Mom: Do you have something to tell me?

Anne: Uh, no.

Mom: Do you have some big news about Wil?

Anne: Oh, that. Uh, what day is today?

Mom: It's Monday!

Anne: Right. And the date is...?

Mom: It's April Fir-- OH! Damn you!

Heh. I guess my dad was all pissed off, stomping around my parent's house because I didn't tell them myself, and he "had to read it on Wil's $%@#!ing website!"

Thanks go to the Frodo Crew(tm) who helped me take this scheme from stupid idea to stupid fruition: Spudnuts, jbay, JSc, Cherish, Roughy, Bobby The Mat, and Greeny. Also to /. and FARK, for getting on board.

A couple of cool things did happen today: with the help of Ben Trott, I was able to get MT working again. Still ironing out some trouble with the templates, but at least I can write again, and login to 2.0. Just as soon as I get the template thingies fixed, I will turn comments back on. 2.0 has IP banning, which is a good thing.

I also spent the entire afternoon skateboarding with Nolan all around our neighborhood. I think we skated for close to 3 miles, up and down hills, past peacocks and squirrels (none of whom went "weeeeee", strangely enough), with Nolan skating up next to me to hold my hand, and telling me that he loved me and that it was really fun to skate together about once a block.

God, I love that kid. :)

Thought for today:

"Peace is the dream of the wise. War is the history of man."

I say it all the time, and I'm going to say it again: my favorite unintended consequence of this website is the community we've built here.

That community started in the GM comments, moved to IkonBoard, then to eF, then to eF again, and finally is living in the soapbox (powered quite nicely by phpBB2.)

However, in the last few days, the database has gotten all stupid, and we're trying to figure out wtf the problem is, so I've had to turn the soapbox off, temporarily.

It should come back online today or tomorrow.

Now you know. So there.

Boy, did this site get hammered yesterday!

Check it out:

• Hits 552263
  
• Files 414861
  
• Pages 77827
  
• Visits 45273
  
• Sites 37453
  
• KBytes 2873576
  

Then we had to put up the moose.

So I want to talk about this, for just a second, and how it came about.

I thought it would be cool to pull an April Fool's prank, because I've never done it before, and I am always taken in by them. Matter of fact, the only reason I didn't completely buy all the otherwise unbelievable stories I read yesterday is because I was spoofing one myself!

Here are the ideas I had, in the note I sent to my friends:

I want to do a good April Fool's Day thingy on the site.

Current ideas include:

1. WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER DOT NET -funny on the face of it, but could be considered derivative of the parody SA did of WWDN.

2. A false news story revealing that I have signed a contract to appear as a regular, reprising the Wesley role, on Enterprise.

3. Put up a page that says something about "w3 o\/\/nxx0rs j00!"

4. Same as 2, but the story is that I've signed to be in Stand By Me 2: Back to the Body. It's a horror film, this time, and The Body has come back to life.

I like 2 the best, because I think it's the most plausible, and should be able to fool the most people.

Do you cats have any ideas?

Oh, and keep this secret, you bastards.

So that was the genesis of it. We all hammered it out, and you saw the results. What you didn't know is that MT got completely borked on Thursday last week, and I've been observing a "minimal computer on the weekends" policy for about 4 weeks now. It was clear that I wasn't going to be able to fix it in time to do the story, so I downloaded the entire index page, and hard-coded the entry in notepad. That's why you saw the date being all screwed up at the top.

A couple of things have come out of this: it would seem, at least on the face of it, that the ratio of Wesley (and therefore Wil) haters to non-haters has changed, from like 6:1 to 1:4 or so (well, maybe 7:5, thanks to pari-mutuel betting). This was a really surprising, and wonderful discovery. I really did begin to feel badly that people were congratulating me, and sending me all these warm fuzzies...but it really did make me feel good to know that so many people want me to do well. When I am really successful again, I will feel so good knowing that I'm sharing that success with everyone who reads WWDN, sends me mojo, and rides the insane roller coaster of the entertainment industry along with me.

Last time I'll say it: I didn't intend to do anything rivy. It was really just a prank, and I'll apologize again to everyone who was taken in. I hope you'll forgive me. Also, apologies to everyone else who is hosted by logjamming. I'm sorry that WWDN took the server down, and took your sites with it.

IMDB even picked up on it, saying, "April Fool's Joke Backfires on TNG Actor." I couldn't disagree with that characterization more, but it's pretty cool that they picked up the story!

The Think Geek WheatoniX joke was created a few weeks ago, and I had intended to send them a picture of me, surrounded by technical manuals and printouts and stuff, but then I got super busy with auditions and meetings last week...so they ended up using artwork that my friend Ben designed*. You may recognize that head drawing from the "Wil Has A Posse" T-shirts. I strongly encourage everyone to check out Ben's portfolio, and consider him for some design work. He is such an amazing artist, and should be way more famous than he is.

Watching the dust settle, would I do it again? Yeah, I probably would. It was really fun, and the "god you suck, jackass!" emails have been vastly outweighed by the "oh man, good prank! you totally got me!" emails. I also think it may have brought a few new people to the website, which is always a good thing.

I'm out. I have a meeting, then an audition, then a commute.

I hope everyone is having a great day! :-)

(*Yeah, I know that the link is currently down, but I'm sure it will come back up soon enough.)

Imitation is the highest form of flattery.

Truth be told, I think this is hellacool.

Har.

Ferris is currently sitting behind me, chomping away at this chewie bone thing that we got her the other day. The thing that's so cute about this is that she also has her Kong, and her Big Bouncy Ball protectively under her right front leg. Even though she's really working this cornstarch bone thing, she is totally staring at me, just in case I decide to make a move for any of her toys.

It reminds me of this dog one of my friends used to have. His name was Boris, and Boris was insane. He would pee on everything, until they got him fixed, and even then he still humped everything in sight. It was pretty funny, when we were all about 22, to go to my friend's house, and watch everyone jump out of the way, because once Boris got his heart set on your leg, or the leg of the sofa, or the cushion you'd just tossed on the floor, he was unrelenting in his expression of love.

Well, Boris had all kinds of toys, and he would move all of these toys from room to room in my friend's house, depending on who he was happiest with in the family, at any given time. Usually, they all lived in my friend's dad's room. On those rare occasions that Boris was pissed at everyone, the toys would all be in the back yard.

This one time, in the early 90's, my friend's dad noticed that Boris, who was a little terrier dog, was getting really fat, so he put him on a diet. Strange thing was, Boris didn't lose any weight. He actually gained weight.

Nobody could figure out what was going on, until my friend's dad caught him jumping up near a wall in the backyard, grabbing and eating avocados off a neighbor's tree, which hung over into my friend's yard. It turned out that Boris had been eating all the avacados he could get his paws on for weeks, which is why he was getting fat in the first place. So my friend's dad scolded Boris, fairly severly I guess, took the avocado away, and picked up all the pits and things that Boris had left under the tree.

Later that day, my friend's dad went into his bedroom. Not surprisingly, all of Boris' toys had been moved into the back yard. However, there was one thing left behind: an avocado pit, sitting in the middle of his bed.

True story.

Thought for today:

"Don't forget your history
Know your destiny
In the abundance of water
The fool is thirsty."

Hey! Check it out! I'm the Arch Enemy of the Week over at Dogbus.com!

Something Awful also has a really funny story about $cientology today, where they take the now-familiar "space nerd Wil Wheaton" jab at me.

I love those guys.

The Big Plan for this weekend was to go up North with Anne and the kids, because it's their Spring Break, starting today.

So we get the *cough* rental minivan *cough* loaded up, and ready to go, and I get a call from my manager: I have two auditions on Monday, both pilots, and I have an audition on Tuesday, for an Indie. I'm also supposed to test for at least one, possibly two pilots on Wednesday.

So all of my stuff comes out of the rental beast, and I go from spending the weekend with my family to spending it alone, preparing for these three auditions, as well as writing an episode of Arena, which is due on Friday.

Holy crap, how things can change in an instant.

It's not a bad thing, missing the vacation I mean, because I continue to make it down to the last handful of actors on all my auditions, (except for the call I had last week, where I got to spend all of 25 minutes with the material, and the producers were taking calls on their cell phones and leaving the effing room while I was doing my audition) and the more I have the better my odds are...but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't going to miss them.

It's weird to be in my empty house, alone, without even Ferris to keep me company.

It's just me and the cats, just like the old bachelor days...except I am under pain of death to "keep the $!%$#ing house clean" from my old lady.

So it should be interesting to see how I do on these three auditions, since I'll have three whole days to prepare a character and memorize the sides, without any distractions.

Well, except one.

I finally broke down and bought that PS2 I've been staring at in the Toy Shop window all these long months.

Oh, and I saw this thing on Tech Live last night, where they were interviewing this guy who does the official website for Walter Koenig, who was Chekov on Star Trek.

The angle of the story was that this guy does a great job with the website, and that Walter's fans know that it really represents him, because there's only this one guy running the site.

This was fascinating to me, because I see a trend developing in Star Trek alumni websites.

See, I know this other Star Trek guy who has a website, and he's got a pretty firm hold on it, and it's a really good representation of who he is, because he's fairly close to the webmaster.

He wasn't even mentioned on this show, nor was he mentioned in the feature all about blogging, even though he's got a pretty widely read blog himself.

I think we all know who I'm talking about.

Thought for today:

"For those about to rock, we salute you!"

If you're a SAG member, please "read more" below, for an important letter from Richard Dreyfuss regarding the SAG/ATA agreement, which is currently being considered by the membership of the union.

I am completely opposed to the agreement, and could go on, at length, about what a bad deal this is for actors, and how my guild, under the current "leadership" is poised to blow it, yet again, but Richard says it much more clearly than I ever could.

From Richard Dreyfuss
(An open letter to SAG members)

A very bad idea.

For the past 18 months or so, I have been hoping for a satisfactory explanation of the ATA/SAG proposal to allow agents financial interests from outside sources.

Many agents who desire this proposal are our friends, allies, and associates, necessary and relied upon. Some are not. They are agents, not actors. Some are in our hearts. Many are not. Our ambitions merge, but are not one.

Almost without exception, I have yet to meet anyone who thinks this is a good idea outside the ATA, and some members of SAG. From actors, producers, studio executives to the higher-ups of the networks, even to senior members of the California State Legislature, I have found that most people feel that something is terribly wrong with this proposal.

The National Board approval is not reflective of anything close to the entire membership. It was a narrow vote and the divide in the Union is enormous. Yet, it's as if we're all on some roller coaster, careening out of control, towards some inevitable passing of this thing.

I believed that the proposal was important enough to merit a public airing, a presentation by the ATA, so that SAG members would understand this fundamental change in how we do business, but the ATA would not agree to do it. We now find ourselves at the mercy of factions within the Guild itself, which have polarized and personalized this subject beyond reason. Not only is the rancor within the Guild killing the respect we have enjoyed as a union, the vitriol and contempt is so loud it is making it impossible to understand the issue.

I am against this proposal because it would clearly be a conflict of interest. True, there have been conflicts of interest before, and we've lived with them for years; but they have never been institutionalized, as they would be now.

In a perfect world Disney and ABC should not be the same corporation, nor should AOL, Time Magazine and Warner Bros. These are conflicts of interest, which we pretend not to see. The ATA proposal to the Screen Actors Guild is one of them.

The 'safeguards' this proposal is offering are paper-thin. Having someone appointed by the agents to scrutinize their own conflict of interest is neither logical, nor reflective of the real world. Giving us the power to leave our agent if we feel he is guilty of some misconduct is not what I consider a 'choice'. So-called firewalls that would make sure the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing are unrealistic to say the least.

Any actor represented by, say, William Morris, CAA or ICM today may not be tomorrow. Few actors have relationships with agents that are 40, 30, 20 years or even 10 years old. Such relationships are more flighty than that, with both sides dropping each other at whim. We are confusing loyalty to an individual agent with loyalty to his corporation. We are being told that if ICM or WMA or CAA or all of them decide to strike out without the franchise, we actors would ultimately have to choose between our agent and our guild.

When I first heard an actor say that, I was staggered. One might be loyal to an agent, who nurtured him and helped his career, but what if that agent died? What if he sold out or retired?

You shouldn't be forced to choose between your agent and the union that has protected you and guaranteed you benefits and working conditions for 75 years. The sky is not falling. The apocalypse is not upon us. This isn't the right deal.

Please vote against this proposal.
---------------------------------------------------------

Be sure to visit:
www.actorsmovingforward.org
www.actorsrights.org

The house is so empty, and quiet...if it weren't so clean, I'd say it feels like when I was still a bachelor.

Being alone is sort of weird, since I've been with Anne and the boys for close to 6 years, but having an empty house does have some advantages...

• I can blast the punk rock as loud as I want, without fear of reprisal from the Missus.

• I can blast the Cake song "Nugget," without having to run into the room and mute it when they say "Shut the #!^& up!" because there are no kids in the house.

• Two words: Hookers and beer.
  

Well, maybe not that last part. At least not the hookers part.

Seriously, the quiet has been really nice, because I've been able to completely prepare 2 of 3 auditions, and get a rough draft of my Arena script done, and still have lots of time for Tony Hawk 3.

Here's a word of warning to PS2 owners: Finding memory cards is really hard. The 16 Meg "Mega Memory" card thing is a pile of crap, and, though I absolutely love EASports, Triple Play 2002 is the worst pile of shit game I have played since ET on the Atari 2600. I'm gonna go trade it for High Heat later on today.

I'm about to get back to work, but I wanted to share this funny link from Something Awful, which will certainly offend people who have no sense of humor.

The Thought for Today is actually from an Email I read this morning. It made me laugh out loud, so I'm sharing it with the world.

To: < wil@wilwheaton.net>
Subject: star trek

Ya know the writers could have solved that whole image problem of Wesley Crusher by

A. Giving him a cool name like "Sparks Mcgee" and a peculiar accent, possibly a tattoo

B. Having him kill people randomly on the ship for no apparent reason.

C. Giving him a cool car to drive around in, like a 1978 Trans Am or one of them Dukes of Hazard cars

D. Giving him a cool catch phrase like "I got a course you can plot"

E. Wear a cowboy hat

Then like Picard would say "Number One, where the devil is Sparks Mcgee?"
Then Number one would say "In his muscle car sir", then everyone would laugh except Worf who would say some shit about honor or something. Then people at home would think, "Man that Sparks Mcgee sure is cool, a real rebel."

My response to him:

Dude! Where the $#@! were you in 1988? Your country called you, and you failed to answer. I'm re-printing this at my site, so the whole world can see how much better Star Trek could have been if you'd just answered that phone call.

Often, when I have an important audition, I won't say anything to my friends or family, beyond my wife. I know that my friends and family get their hopes up for me, the same way I get my hopes up for myself, and sometimes that messes with my head.

It's like knowing that half the stadium is friends who have shown up to watch me play in The Big Game. :)

So, it just hit me this morning, there must be thousands of people (based on my webstats) who know about these auditions today. Jesus. Talk about filling the stands!

Well, it has worked in the past, so I'll do it again: would you please spare a moment for me today, at 2:30 PM PDT and again at 5:00PM PDT? I swear, in the past when I've asked for people to send me mojo, it has really worked. I'm the most skeptical bastard on the planet, but I swear to god I felt it.

I also realized this morning that I feel this extra pressure to not blow it today, because I stayed home from the vacation, and I have spent the whole weekend preparing. I mean, there is really a lot at stake this time out, and I can't blame it on not having time, or whatever, if I mess up.

However, I am super prepared...nearing that place where I'm over-prepared. I had time to create full characters, as well as get extremely familiar with the material.

The only thing I could do to be more prepared, is memorize the script, but I don't ususally memorize material for a first audition, becuase memorizing lines can lock me into a performance. If a producer or director wants me to change a performance a bit one way or another, it's much easier to make those changes when I have the sides in my hands. Of course, at this stage, the other actors have all been in on this at least once, in some cases twice or three times...so I'll have that working against me.

Heh. I have just realized something: for the first time in a very long time, I feel nervous about an audition. Not nervously excited, but anxious. I feel like there's a lot at stake this time, a lot more than usual.

Oh boy. Please send that Mojo as quickly as you can. I need it. :)

Happy Tuesday, everybody.

Hey, remember that band "The Happy Mondays?" I wonder whatever happened to them...if I only had some vast, global reserach device at my fingertips to find out.

Oh well. I'll put it on the Big List of Future Stuff.

Before I get to the recap of my auditions, I thought everyone should know that the G4TV website is up and running. Take a look*! My show is called "Arena."

Also, WWDN got reviewed by The Weblog Review today. Take a look.

So, there is no word yet on the auditions, but here is my personal recap:

The 2:30 wasn't as good as I had hoped. The I went in after a guy who clearly did a great job (he was in there for close to 20 minutes), which is the absolute worst time an actor can go in...I could tell that he had given them exactly what they were looking for, and I really felt like they just wanted me to hurry up and get out of the room. They were all really nice people, though...people I could totally work with. It was just bad timing for me.

A good thing though, was that I saw Sean Astin while I was there. Now, Sean is one of my absolute favorite people in the world. I've known him since forever, and I respect him tremendously both as an actor and as a person. It's funny; every time I tease him about getting roles in Lord of the Rings, or Goonies, or any of the other kick ass movies he's been in, he tells me, "Hey, you got Stand By Me. So we're even."

So, since I am always looking for the hidden positives in the increasingly shitty world of life as an actor, seeing Sean made that call worthwhile.

The 5:00 call went much better. It was also for a sitcom, and it was over at Warner Brothers. It was tough for me to focus, because of the lousy experience I had just had at 2:30, but I was somehow able to leave that behind me, and I did a pretty good job. There was only one other person in the room besides the casting director,which means that there is not a ton of laughter where there would normally be, if you were in front of an audience. That can really throw someone who isn't experienced in these things, and I was really glad that I knew how to handle that. I think I'm a little bit too old for that part, but I guess they're seeing people of all different ages, so I think I'm still in the hunt on that one.

Thank you to everyone who sent me their good wishes. I especially enjoyed "cat mojo.conf > /dev/Wil"

I copied that one onto the back of a calendar page, and carried it in my pocket.

You know, the thing about both of these calls is, I did everything that I could possibly do to be prepared. I created characters, I learned the lines, I developed the relationships...I will never get used to the people on the other side of the table not putting as much effort into their side as I put into my side.

So, now the stupid waiting begins...I'll update when I hear something.

Thought for today:

"You're a jerk, Dent. A complete kneebiter.

*the site is loading very slowly for me, YMMV

I have a partial update from the auditions on Monday:

I've heard nothing from the second call. However, not surprisingly, the first call, where they really made me feel unwelcome, is going nowhere.

I talked with my manager about it, and he got some feedback from them: they found people they really liked on Friday, and I guess lots of actors left that room on Monday feeling shitty, like they didn't even want them to be there. Well, duh. If they found people they really liked on Friday, why even bother to bring us in on Monday?! And why bother to bring in actors if they're going to make us feel like they don't even want us there?!

Now, I know I probably shouldn't say this, because in the entertainment industry, nobody is supposed to say obvious and truthful things, like Tom Cruise sucks, or James Cameron is an epic A-hole and Michael Bay is a complete hack, but here's some information from The Inside(tm):

This happens all the %$@!^ing time. Actors prepare their guts out for an audition, only to get there, wait an hour or longer (SAG says they're supposed to pay us like 30 bucks or something if we're there longer than an hour, but if an actor actually asks for that he will be blacklisted by that casting director, so nobody ever does), and go into a room where producers are on the phone, or looking through paperwork, or doing just about everything in the world except paying attention to the actor who is auditioning for them.

Most of the time, the person who is reading with you is so overworked, he or she doesn't take the time to learn what the scene is about, and reads the other lines in the scene with a flat, monotone disinterest that throws off the best of us. I guess what most of them fail to realize is that the best acting is reacting, and it's tough to react to complete and utter disinterest.

A notable exception to this rule is Tony Sepulveda, who casts at Warner Brothers. He is one of my absolute favorite casting directors to read for, because he ALWAYS makes me feel welcome and comfortable, and he ALWAYS knows the material he's reading. The last time I read for him, he was totally off the script, and even improvised with me. Tony is an incredibly busy man, yet he still manages to find the time to make actors feel welcome. It's a shame that there's only one of him.

You know, if I were a producer or director, I would want every actor who comes into my room to feel extremely comfortable. I would want to create an atmosphere where actors are free to feel vulnerable and take chances, and where they are able to do their absolute best work. I would want actors to come before me, and not worry about anything, at all, except showing me their take on the character.

Oh, I'm so living in a dreamworld. That is just not how it is. 4 out of 5 times, I go into an audition, and the people I'm reading for don't even stand up and thank me for coming in. Most of the time, I'm lucky if anyone other than the casting director even says hello, or shows a remote interest in my being there. I have experienced people taking calls on their cell phones and talking during my audition, taking calls on their cell phones and leaving the room while I'm doing my audition, reading the newspaper, reading their schedule for the rest of the day, talking to another person in the room...it goes on and on.

Good acting comes from an actor who is not afraid to stand there naked in front of a room, and bear their soul to the camera. You'd think that the non-creative philistines who run this bullshit industry would give a shit about that, and try to create an atmosphere where actors can relax and do their best work.

But here's the truth: these days, most of the people sitting in that room know that their show is going to maybe make it three episodes before the equally-insecure and un-talented people at the network cancel it before it can find an audience, and put re-runs of some shitty reality show in it's place. And because they know this, they are scared to death, and they don't trust their instincts, and they project all their insecurities onto the actors who are in front of them.

You know, the audition process for Win Ben Stein's Money was the most fun I have had in YEARS, and that was entirely because Andrew Golder and the entire group over there told me, from the very beginning, "We want you to feel comfortable and relaxed. We want you to feel free to make mistakes, and not worry about looking bad, because when you can do your best work, it makes us look good." It made me feel likeI was playing before the home crowd in The Big Game(tm).

So the challenge for me is to somehow get over this terrible enviroment that pervades auditions these days. I have to be able to walk into a room, and not give a shit about them, because they certainly don't give a shit about me. But that's extremely hard! I do care about them. I have put time, energy and effort into creating this character for them, and I want to please them! It's really tough to do my best, when I feel like the people in the room don't care whether I'm there or not.

Now, maybe I'm insane, but wouldn't it be better, and easier, and more cost-effective for the studios to put actors at ease, and make us feel like they do, in fact, give a shit about us being there? If they'd do that, actors would be able to do much better work, because they wouldn't feel nervous and overly scrutinized. Shows would be cast much more quickly, and everyone would go home happy.

But, as I said, I am so living in a dreamworld.

Thought for today:

"If imagination is not set to the task of building a creative life, it busies itself with weaving a web of inner fears and doubts, blame and excuse."

-Laurence G. Boldt

Well.

Final updates: Not testing on any of the pilots. Not going any further on the other call from Monday, but not because I wasn't funny...because I'm too old. Which is really okay, because I kind of knew that as soon as I looked around and realized that 1992 is Nostalgia, and Perl Jam is $#@!^ing oldies for the other kids there.

But I'm going to trust that this is Balance for something really wonderful that is just beyond my ability to see right now, and I'm going to put down seven things I'm happy or grateful for:

Seven
1. Ferris is home, following me all over the house. I realized today that I have officially become a "dog" person.
2. David Hasslehoff, singing "Hooked On A Feeling." You'll just have to trust me on this one.
3. The Frodo Crew. You're my confidants, and I've only met one of you in real life.
4. Spudnuts. Not just his brilliant comedy, but his Wisdom.
5. Taking out the garbage cans tonight, I saw that a huge garden spider had built an enormous web in my backyard. I love this, because this huge, complex, beautiful web is vital for this spider's survival, yet it will be gone by noon tomorrow. That spider is going to build an equally beautiful and necessary web again tomorrow night, and this web will be as unique and as complex as tonight's. This is a great lesson.
6. No matter how fucked up the entertainment industry is, I know that there are people out there who feel the same way I do. We will find each other and bring forth a Revolution.
7. I have been so preoccupied with my own bullshit, I thought that my little brother was having sinus surgery tomorrow. It was today. I just talked to my mom and found out that Jeremy is doing fine, and the surgery was totally routine and was completed without incident. I love you Jer. I'll see you this weekend.

Hey! It's Friday, and that means we're all struggling to figure out what to do with our weekends...

Of course, if you live in or around Los Angeles, you can hop on some of our clean, safe, effecient and reliable public transportation, and come over to the ACME Comedy Theatre tonight, and catch me doing The J. Keith vanStraaten Show. Our lead guest tonight is David Carradine, who played Cain on Kung Fu!

Farkers know that this weekend is Fark Fest LA, and there are hellacrazy Fark opportunities. Should be Super-sized fun.

Now, seeing as how my wife and kids are out of town, you'd think that I'd be out this weekend drinking and enjoying some fine entertainment...but you'd be wrong. I'll be writing all weekend, and playing GTA 3, because I am that lame.

G4 made an announcement yesterday about our programming lineup. I'm still not allowed to say too much about my show, butI think I can safely say that we filmed two episodes yesterday, and I'm really, really happy with how they turned out. I'm really proud to be part of this show.

There is a message board that G4 has set up for all the shows (this link goes straight to Arena), and you can login and talk about my show with me and some of the people behind it...now, I heard from this magic talking donkey that the folks at my network are watching the traffic on the board to guage interest in the new shows. So if you're interested in Arena, and you want G4 to know, log in and tell them!

Finally, I found out something pretty cool yesterday: WWDN is ranked number 20 on the all-time top ten list* at Blogdex. I just thought that was really cool. This website has really grown over the past few months, and I love it that so many people are reading it. :-)

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Thought for today:

"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."

-Albert Einstein

*I realize that you can't be number 20 on a top-ten list. Sure, I could change it, but it just illustrates my lameness in a beautiful way. :)

The show last night was really fun. I got to meet lots of Farkers, inluding Drew, who is just a really cool guy.

The show wasn't my funniest of all time, mostly, I think, because David Carradine had this certain energy that said, "Hey, Wil, just keep your bitch mouth shut, funnyman." Don't get me wrong- he was extremely cool, and told great stories. He just wasn't as easy to joke around with as some of our other guests. It didn't help that I was really intimidated by him. I mean, Kung Fu for farksakes.

However, I did get some good funny out there. At the beginning of the show Keith and I sit at the desk, and he asks me what I've been doing, and I said, "Well, Keith, my wife and kids have been out of town for over a week, which means that I'm living the bachelor life right now.

"And I've learned a thing or two this week, while they've been gone: I have learned that there is, indeed, such thing as too much Playstation and porn."

(pause while the audience laughs)

"I mean, goddamn. My hands are KILLING ME! I can hardly get them to work anymore!"

I held up my hands, twisted and contorted into this crazy shape.

People laughed. It was fun.

We had two other guests, who were simply BRILLIANT. Our comedian was Greg Fitzsimmons, who made me laugh until it hurt.

Our musician was an amazing jazz singer, Sandra Booker. I can't believe that I got to sit on the same stage as her, while she sang. If you like jazz at all, you should check her out.

The coolest thing in the whole show for me, though, was when Keith, Adam, and I had a scatting contest, with Sandra Booker. It was really fun, and I won! (France surrenders.)

After the show was over, I hung with the Farkers for a bit, then headed home, where I stayed up until 4:30 playing GTA 3, completing only 3 missions. Which is the beauty of GTA 3, I think. :)

Today, I'm writing more Arena stuff, and working on the Soapbox.

Thought for today:

"The concept of violence is out of date. The destruction of your neighbor is the destruction of yourself."

This is one of those updates where I say, "I don't have time to update!"

I've got ten billion things to do this week, so I don't think I'll have time to say much of anything here.

However, if you live in Sacramento, you may want to come out to Boomer and The Dave Day tomorrow. I'm coming up from Los Angeles to hang with them, and play dodgeball against Tiffany.

Yes, that Tiffany.

It should be hellafun.

Ah, incidentally, I have heard this Ashley Judd rumor, and it's news to me.

This notice only affects Soapbox users, but everyone else is free to read it, if you want, because I'm all about the love.

We're having database issues, which are currently being sorted out.Basically, you can read stuff, but you can't add any new posts in certain forums. It's not a huge deal, but it's time consuming, and I don't think I'll have time to work on it seriously until the weekend.

Sorry.

As long as I'm making a big deal about the site update, though, I'll point your attention at the FAQ, which went a fairly big revision about 10 days ago. I added a buncha new questions, and all that stuff, so...I know it won't occupy you for 4 days...but, hey, at least it's something.

You could always go bug Russ until it's fixed.

Oh, and I've seen the satirewire piece. About 15000 times. :-)

That's Keith on the left, and Adam on the right.

That's Sweet Uncle Willie in the middle.

Playing dodgeball yesterday up in Sacramento with Boomer and The Dave was a very traumatic experience, and it brought back all the painful childhood memories associated with goddamn fucking dodgeball.

Matter of fact, the only difference between playing yesterday, and playing in 3rd grade, was that I wasn't crying when I walked off the court.

I still sucked, I still got hurt, I still felt humiliated and embarrassed when I tried to play...

But at least I knew why I felt so terrible when I was done: I just suck at dodgeball. I'm weak, I can't throw, and that stupid ball always slips out of my hands when I try to catch it.

My wife, on the other hand, rules at dodgeball. In 6 games that we played, she was the last person left on our time 4 times.

So Dodge Club (har) really sucked for me, but I did have fun the entrire rest of my trip up there. Boomer and The Dave are really cool guys, and the whole crew from KWOD is always super hellacool to me when I visit them.

But I hate dodgeball, man.

I fucking hate fucking dodgeball so much, I could sit here all morning, and well into the evening, and rant about how fucking much I hate fucking dodgeball.

But I won't.

I've got lots more to write, but I have to get to work and finish an Arena episode today, so I'll briefly say:

The show last night was really fun. Holy crap there were TONS of soapboxers and posse members and farkers all in effect, and it really made me feel great.

I know that I got to meet lots of you, and that I had to literally run from the building to catch my plane (which had 4 people on it, including me and Anne) so I missed a few of you, and I'm really, really sorry that I didn't have time to stop and talk and stuff.

Coolest thing yesterday: Hanging with Tiffany. Wow. What an amazingly cool person. She agreed to be a guest on the JKvS next month, so all of you who are in LA should come out and see us. I'm trying to get her on the May 10th show.

As I was running out to the car to get to the airport last night, there were a few people walking in front of me...and one of them reaches up, and puts a sticker on a stop sign, the way I put OBEY stickers on everything in the world. So as we approach the stop sign, I look up at it, and see that it's a "Wil has a posse" sticker.

How cool is that?!

So I took a picture, which I'll scan and upload next week sometime.

Speaking of pictures, here's a color version of Sweet Uncle Willy.

If you're looking for something to do today, you should check out The Mystery of Wil's Pants over at Retrocrush.

Oh, and the Soapbox is fixed. Send your thanks to jbay.

Hoo Boy!!

This is absolutely hilarious.

Fark is doing a photoshop contest, and the subjects are me and Drew.

Really, really funny stuff. Most of it is very creative, and has been passed around my office all day.

Enjoy!

Thought for today:

"A narrow-minded, self-centered attitude is the basis for negative emotions like fear, anxiety, and frustration."

I am officially a total geek right now.

I am listening to the Batman soundtrack (the Danny Elfman score, not that Prince monstrosity) on my PC speakers while I type this.

I think it's appropriate, because I'm writing this morning about those really awesome days of youth, when nobody understands you, your parents are completely unreasonable, and you can't wait to grow up.

During those days in my life, the Batman score competed with Black Celebration and Only a Lad for air time in my car. It was part of the soundtrack of my life.

Last night, I was watching the History Channel, and this commercial for some 80s super box set comes on. It's pretty standard for an 80s collection: there's Foreigner and Journey, as well as some Crowded House and Howard Jones (yeah, I thought that was a weird mix, too.)

While I'm watching this commercial, I start to feel this completely overwhelming sadness. This type of massive sadness that starts so deeply within me, I can't even define its origin in a physical location. It was sadness coming out of my soul. I get this feeling that I can only describe as "hyper-nostalgia."

So I'm sitting there in bed, my cat snuggled up to me on one side, my wife sound asleep on the other side, and I start to silently weep, as this David Fincheresque montage of childhood images and feelings races through my mind. I can feel my fear and nervousness the first morning I went to public high school in 9th grade. I can feel the excitement of standing in line to see Batman, in Westwood, at 9AM a few weeks before it opened. I see faces of friends long forgotten, and places which were teenage hangouts that don't even exist anymore. I feel pain, love, hope...but mostly, I feel sadness and regret that is completely overwhelming.

It's like I'm sitting in my bed, mourning the passing of my youth.

It's not that my life is totally miserable now, it's just so much more complicated than it was when I was a child, and I haven't really stopped to think about that in quite some time.

I mean, I would gladly trade wondering whatever bullshit my wife's ex-husband is going to pull today for not being able to stay out past 12 with my friends.

I would gleefully trade worrying about making mortgage payments for...well, for anything, really! :)

Every time I go to Paramount, I look around and I think to myself, "man, I had it so good here. Too bad I was too young and arrogant to realize that." But that could be a series of entries, all on it's own.

When I go up to my parent's house, and go to my old bedroom, I can see in my mind the phantoms of my teenage years: Watchmen comics bagged and hung on the walls. Depeche Mode concert posters above my bed, where my cat Ziggy would be sleeping. Stacks of GURPS source books on the floor, and, of course, my Mac II, complete with smokin' fast 2400 baud modem.

I miss all of these things, and writing about them now I can really feel a sense of loss, and longing. I just closed my eyes, and I could see things in my old bedroom that I haven't thought about in years: 82 Los Angeles Kings season ticket stubs from 1988-89, taped to the wall next to my computer, underneath this simply dreadful fantasy-art poster I bought at a game con that same year. A clump of silly string mashed into the cottage cheese stuff on the ceiling, above my bed. Five book shelves, filled with VHS copies of the entire collection of 79 episodes of Star Trek.

I recently visited one of my best friends from high school, who moved into his mom and dad's house when they moved out. It's the same house we hung out in when we were young, but now his kids are running around in it...and I can still see the path we wore through the ivy, going up the hill to my house. The house is the same, but it's so very, very different now.

My best friend Darin is getting married in just a few weeks. Darin and I have known each other since I was 14 and he was 16. We have done just about everything together, and crossed lots of major bridges together on our way to adulthood. I've been married with kids for 2 years, but never felt like it was that big a deal...it's HIM getting married that makes me feel like we're finally adults, with mortgages and responsibilities. When he is married, we will have crossed another major rubicon together.

So when I saw this commercial last night, it hit me: I'm turning 30 in 3 months.

Three months, man.

I am the primary father figure to two kids, one of whom will be a teenager two days after I turn 30.

A teenager, man.

I am going to be the parent to a teenager, and I'm going to be 30. I don't know why that's fucking with me as much as it is, but it sure is burning a lot of cycles in my brain.

Thing is, I know that I'll be 40 someday, and I'll look back and think, "Man, I thought things were so messed up at 30...and I was so wrong," as I watch Ryan graduate from college, or get married, or whatever.

But right now, I miss those wonderful days in the late 80s and early 90s, when I couldn't wait for the weekend, so I could hang out at Darin's house and play GURPS and Illuminatti, before heading out to the movies to catch whatever crappy Lethal Weapon movie was in theatres.

I totally understand that saying about youth being wasted on the young. I guess that's the beauty of childhood: we don't know how tough life is going to get when we grow up, so we cavalierly waste time, blissfully ignorant of how valuable our youth is going to be to us, late one night when we can't sleep, because we're thinking about paying bills.

Well, I've started and erased 3 different entries this morning, so this is the last try to not be grouchy and lame.

The thing is, I'm just having a really shitty day. I presented material at ACME last night, and it SUCKED. I just haven't been able to find my funny for months, and tangible reminders of that, like absoultely BOMBING on stage last night, really sting.

It's okay, though. It will pass. It has to pass.

Right?

Well, that's what I keep telling myself anyway.

It's been so hard for me to be funny recently...I won't go into it, but my life has been under siege for the last 2 years, and it's just getting worse and worse, with no sign of improvement.

Between that and this "hyper-nostalgia" that I spoke of over the weekend, I just can't be funny.

It also doesn't help that I keep seeing the phrase "Has been" and "washed up" immediately preceeding my name all over the place.

Boy, it's a great fucking feeling to know that people are calling me washed up at 29.

Oh, and I hear that they've cut me out of the Star Trek movie. Perfect.

Incidentally, I'm totally not fishing for encouragement. I'm just saying...well...it hurts. It shouldn't, but it does. That's all.

Hm. Failed at the "Try to not be grouchy and lame" thing.

Damn.

While I look for my funny, I'm going to heed the advice of many people, and do a list of Seven Things...to keep perspective, and stuff.

1. I spoke with my manager, and he made some calls about Trek X. The word is that it's too early to know if I'm out or not, and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to cut my scene, so this may turn out to be a Stupid Internet Rumor(tm). I am grateful that I have good people working for/with me, who care about my career as much as I do.
2. I got to come home early from work today, because I finished and turned in two episodes a day earlier than I thought I would. So instead of sitting in traffic, I'm sitting at home waiting for Anne and the boys to get back.
3. The episodes that I turned in are being described as "really really funny" by the head writer, my producer, and my executive producer.
4. My mom sent me a really awesome "This totally sucks, what you're going through, but look for the lesson and respect The Balance" email.
5. I get to go away for the weekend with my best friend Darin, for his bachelor party. It's just sinking in right now, I mean, at this very moment, how happy I am that I'm going to get to spend 4 days with just The Guys(tm).
6. I have two desk calendars. One is The Far Side, and the other is quotes from the Dalai Lama ("Hey Lama! What about the tip? How's about a little something for the effort?"). Between the two of them, I bet I can find a great deal of wisdom and happiness...if I'm just willing to look.
7. Finally, I am extremely grateful to know that, for the few "fuckin' internet fucks," there are the TONS of people who seem to "get" me, and send me good wishes. Having said that, I got some great Wisdom from a comment earlier today: I have been putting WAY too much of my happiness and sadness in the hands of other people. I never would have seen that, if someone hadn't pointed it out to me. I learned today that my current struggle is to just be comfortable and happy within myself.

   I wonder if that's The Lesson that I need to learn right now? As I approach 30, and as I look around me for my funny, and I deal with all the external frustrations that I can't control, even beyond my career...I wonder if The Lesson is that, in order to succeed, I need to rely upon myself, trust myself, love myself, and not put my happiness and sadness into the hands of others.

8. I am grateful that I just had that moment of clarity. That's cool. I totally wasn't planning that when I sat down here.
   

Okay, that's 8. But I'm giving myself permission to break my own rules.

The Thought for Today is going to bounce around in my head for awhile.

All Pong, all the time.

It sounds like one of those joke commercials from GTA 3, doesn't it? I mean, it's not quite "Fernando's New Beginnigs," but it's a close third after PetsOvernight.com.

Well, G4 went on the air yesterday, and we're broadcasting all Pong, all the time, for 7 days.

It's what they call a "Launch Stunt." They program something silly for a week or so, and it gets people talking about the network, and builds audience. I think it also lets them test the signal and stuff, and work out any problems before the "real" programming goes up.

Well, we've already gotten lots of press, including this story at Slashdot, from this morning.

Best thing about the comments so far? People saying, "Man, if they did a show where I could watch people play UT, I'd watch that!" Well, that is EXACTLY what my show is! If you look carefully, you can find my post all about it.

This is how much of a nerd I am: I didn't care about The Wall Street Journal (I'd link, but those bastards want 50 bucks from me), or Reuters... but I got all excited when I saw the channel I work for in a story on Slashdot. Yep, news for Wil, stuff that matters.

A cool thing happened last night: I was going to pick up dinner, because Anne and I realized at about 7:30 that we didn't have anything in our fridge, and I asked Nolan if he wanted to come with me. He said that he wanted to stay home and play PS2, but when he saw that I'd taken the cool games back to work, he decided to come with me.

On the way there, we were listening to Incubus in my car. I know that he likes to see the CD case for what is in the player, so I passed it back to him, and I told him that there were many things about our relationship that I loved, and many things about him that I loved, but it was very special to me that we can share an interest in music. I mean, he likes all the same bands that I do, especially the super indie stuff. So I go on and on, telling him that, and he says, "Wil, when you gave me the case, and you said there was something you wanted to tell me, I was going to say everything that you said." Then he says, "I love you, Wil."

I just thought that was so cool. Parents don't always have things in common with their kids, as much as they'd like to, and it touches me deeply that I can share something like music with Nolan.

April 26th is here, doo dah, doo dah.

Hey! My Los Angeles Kings beat the Colorado Avalanche in OVERTIME last night, to keep their playoff chances alive!

GO KINGS GO!

Nolan wants the Avalanche to win, because he always plays them as his team on PS2, so we had much fun last night, watching the game and cheering for our respective teams. Ryan isn't that crazy about hockey, but he did watch the first period with me...then I hammered him in USA vs. The World mode on NHL 2002.

I really treasure things like watching a game, or playing PS2 with them. Nolan even tried to work the "Hey Wil, since this is such an important game, can I stay up past my bedtime to see what happens?"

So of course I didn't give in...not. I let him stay up until the end of regulation, which was about 9:30...his bedtime's 9, so that wasn't too bad. When the Kings won in overtime (YEAH BABY!) I jumped up from the couch and gave one of those victory screams...you know the kind, right? I mean, unless you live in Chicago...or Sacramento.

Well, I gave one of those screams, and ran into the back of the house, not realizing that Nolan was probably asleep...until I got to his bedroom door, and saw him, lying on his bed, eyes shut. Without even opening his eyes he deadpans, "Kings won, huh?"

I love it when he deadpans stuff like that. I think he gets that from me.

So, I'll be away for the weekend with The Guys(tm). There won't be any more updates until Sunday night, or Monday night, depending on how crazy the weekend is.

I hope everyone has an awesome weekend, filled with magic and illusion!
/doug.henning

Just to clear up any confusion, today's title has nothing to do with this entry; I'm just listening to The Cure, and that's the song which is currently playing. Hey, by the time I finish writing this, maybe I'll change the name to "A Forest."

So the weekend was awesome. I can only share a few things with you all, because it was a bachelor party after all, and therefore The Code of Guys Has been inVoked.

What I can say is:

• Dee is getting an awesome husband out of my friend Darin.

• The Rum Jungle at Mandalay Bay is really cool, even of you can't stand rum.

• Interestingly enough, Caius is completely full of shit, and it's only a matter of time before Ron moves into a cabin in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by landmines and razor wire.

• For the first time EVER I won money in Vega$. That's right, Vega$ can still kiss my ass, but I have 80 of Vega$'s bucks, so I only have about 2,020 to go before I'm back to even over my lifetime.

• On Sunday morning, this cute girl comes running over to me, and says, "Stop! I have to tell you something! You are so hot!"
  So I got that going for me, which is nice.

• I have a new motto for Excalibur: It's Laughlin on the Strip!

• That thing they say about making sure you re-hydrate after having "just a bit too much to drink: is totally, completely, 100% true. Oy.
  

It was wonderful to get away from everything, and just be stupid for 2 days. It was awesome to call Shennanigans on Caius, watch Mike pass out fouls and penalties, bowl at 2AM because we could, and spend 5 bucks to play Pai Gow Poker for 90 minutes.

I even found my funny while I was gone, which was an unexpected bonus.

Speaking of funny, and pretty cool, Something Awful wrote a thing all about yours truly today. Sure, it's not a 21 year-old girl telling me I'm hot, but I'll take what I can get.

Well, I guess if I was going to change the title, I'd be calling it "Primary," but I'm too lazy to do that, so 10:15 Saturday Night it shall remain.

You know, I've been a Kings fan since the purple and gold days.

So you'd think I'd be used to this.

But goddammit! They showed such promise in this series...but here's the thing: you don't score 4 goals on Patrick Roy in a game 7, ever. Forget the empty-netter. Longtime Kings fans saw that one coming.

On the other hand, it is strangely reassuring and familiar to have the Kings eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. And that meltdown in the third period was vintage.

Oh well, at least we have the Dodgers.

Oh, wait.

Nevermind.

Boy, I should really be in bed now, but I can't sleep.

I think I'm getting sick, and my throat is just killing me. My sinuses are all dried out, and I keep coughing. I think all that smoke and recycled air in Vega$ got to me.

Anyway, so I'm in bed, just starting to doze off, which is a good thing because I have to be up early tomorrow, because we're filming 2 episodes of my show, and I'm pretty sure the Big Men In Suits are coming to watch us...but as I'm dozing off, I get this idea for a sketch to present at ACME tomorrow night, so I hop out of bed to write it.

When I sit down here, I see that I have email waiting for me, that they're talking about me at Mike Doughty's BBS. Now, Mike Doughty was the man behind one of my favorite bands of all time, Soul Coughing.

Apparently, they were pokin' fun at that stupid picture of me that Robert posted at RetroCrush a couple of weeks ago...

So I read through it, and posted:

"So anyway, Mike (can I call you Mike?), here's some fanboy ramblings from the artist formerly known at TVs Wil Wheaton: Your band was and currently is one of my all-time favorites, and I was listening to Ruby Vroom this morning. You were a real inspiration to me (along with Burroughs and Rollins) when I was younger and wanting to be a writer.

Okay, that's the end of my fanboy lameness.

Here's my stickin-up-for-myself lameness:

We all looked like tools in the 80s. Anyone who denies that is either too young, or too delusional to remember. Unfortunately, I have the joy of my 80s lameness being forever preserved in magazine form for all eternity. And for the record, "Party Naked" was the pathetic plea from a confused and awkward 14 or 15 year-old for female attention. Pink Floyd was one of the few bands I had heard in 1987 who had anything meaningful to say (Listen to Animals, and you'll get my drift).

In times like these, when I feel mortified at this photographic record, I thank the gods that I never wore anything like Corey Feldman.

Well, at least I was never photographed in my fedora."

God, don't I sound like a stupid fanboy, there?

Anyway, if you haven't heard Soul Coughing, you really owe it to yourself to check out Ruby Vroom and El Oso, at least.

So when it's 5AM and you are listening to Los Angeles, you can know if the Radio Man is laughing at you, or with you.