WIL WHEATON dot NET: Where is my mind?

As of this writing, there are 200 people registered in the $5 tournament on September 12, and 79 people in the $20 tournament for September 14. Math is hard, but I think that means that, within just a few hours, poker players have already contributed $3620, which is actually $7240 once PokerStars matches the contributions.

That.
Is.
Awesome.

But check this out! Due to overwhelming demand, PokerStars has added two more tournaments:

• September 15, 2005 @ 9:30 PM EDT — $50
• September 16, 2005 @ 9:30 PM EDT — $100

Posted by Wil at 06:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (37) | TrackBacks (0)

I sat in my living room, and flipped between CNN and The Weather Channel. My mind struggled to process the catastrophic devastation unleashed by Katrina.

"I have to do something," I thought, "but what?"

During the World Series of Poker, a good friend of several poker bloggers, Charlie Tuttle, died from cancer. A few Charlie's friends put together a charity tournament at PokerStars, and we raised over $2000 dollars for the hospital that treated him.

"Why not run a small tournament like that?" I thought. "I'm going to do WWdN tournaments anyway, so why not do one to raise money for hurricane relief?"

I walked to my office, and sent an e-mail to one of my friends at PokerStars:

. . . I thought we may have an opportunity to help a lot of people, if we did a PokerStars charity tournament for the Red Cross, to support Hurricane Katrina relief.

I'm thinking a $20 buy-in, with 19.99 going to the Red Cross. We did the same structure with the Charlie Tuttle tournament, so we were basically just playing for bragging rights and good karma, and there were lots of great jokes about the ninety-seven cents in the prize pool.

I know PokerStars is crazy busy with the WCOOP, so if you don't have time to make this a site-wide thing, would you be able to set it up the same way you set up the Charlie Tuttle Blogger tourney?

I planned on offering up a bust out gift, like an autographed book or something, and maybe I could even make a trophy that would go to the winner. Maybe we could get something from the FPP store for people who make the final table? If PokerStars can't commit too many resources to this, I'm happy to buy the prizes and stuff myself.

"In a minute," I said. I turned around in my chair, and told her about my tournament idea.

"You should ask PokerStars if they'll match the contributions," she said.

I thought about this . . . I was already asking for a private tournament to be set up right in the middle of the World Championship of Online Poker, and I was already asking for some prizes from the FPP store . . . "Screw it. I'm already asking for the Moon. I may as well ask for the stars, too."

"That's a great idea," I said, "I'm totally going to do that."

I told Anne about my idea, and she suggested that PokerStars could match whatever the prize pool is. What do you think?

Talk to you soon,

Wil

The next morning, I got a call from Lee Jones, who is the manager of the poker room at PokerStars, and a good friend of mine.

"I want to talk to you about your tournament idea," he said. Something in his voice made me feel like I'd been called into the principal's office.

"Uh-oh," I thought, "I over-stepped."

"Okay . . ." I said.

"Do you know about the tsunami relief efforts we did?"

"No, I don't," I said.

Lee told me how PokerStars ran several charity tournaments, and did some other things that eventually resulted in PokerStars players contributing nearly $200,000 to the Red Cross.

"PokerStars matched their contributions, and we ended up sending four hundred thousand dollars for relief efforts." He said.

"Oh my god," I said, "I had no idea."

"Yeah," Lee said, "it was pretty incredible."

He paused a moment, and said, "So. Since you mentioned your idea on your blog, we've been getting tons of e-mail from players who want to know what we're going to do for Katrina . . . "

"Here it comes. I'm totally busted. Crap."

". . . and we're going to do the same thing."

"Really!?"

"Really!?"

I could hear a smile in Lee's voice. "[The President of PokerStars] is totally on board, and it's going to be huge. We're going to put it on the Pokerstars blog, and on the client, and on the home page."

"Holy —" I said, "Wow! We're going to help so many people!"

"We sure are."

"I love it that this little idea I had has turned into something so much bigger." I said.

"About that." Lee said, "In addition to the twenty dollar freeze out, we're going to do a five dollar tournament also."

"What a great idea!" I said. "Do we have dates?"

"Yes," he said. "We thought about waiting until the WCOOP was over, but the fact is they are going to need relief immediately, and we want to get some money to them as quickly as possible. We're going to do the five dollar event on Monday, September 12th at 9:30 Eastern."

I scribbled that down in my book.

"And we'll do the twenty dollar event on Wednesday, September 14th at the same time."

"Got it." I said.

We spoke for a few more minutes, (we are friends, after all) and after I hung up the phone, I did my patented run-around-the-house-hollering move.

Otis has all the tournament details at the PokerStars blog:

. . . coming up on September 12th and 14th, PokerStars.com and Wil Wheaton will host two Hurricane Katrina Relief tournaments with all proceeds going to the American Red Cross. PokerStars will be matching every buy-in 100% and will be offering prizes to the winners. Wil will also be offering autographed copies of one of his books to every member of both final tables.

The event on September 12th will be a $5+$0 No-Limit Hold'em freezeout at 9:30pm.

The event on September 14th will be a $20+$0 No-Limit Hold'em freezeout tournament at 9:30pm

You'll find the tournaments under the "Tourney" and "Special" tabs.

A quick, personal note about PokerStars before I go today: I love this company. I have been involved in several business relationships over the years, and I can honestly say that I've never been happier in my life. I feel less like a sponsored player and more like a member of a family. I asked for an awful lot, with very little notice, and they willingly gave more than I ever hoped for or expected. I'm so proud and grateful to be part of such a classy organization, with such good people.

So please, sign up for PokerStars, and join me in one or both of these tournaments. It's going to be incredibly fun, and will hopefully make a positive difference in the world.

While I composed this entry, I had CNN on in the background, and the level of suffering and devastation is just overwhelming. The looting, the people who are trapped and dying, the destruction of entire cities . . . it's suffocating. This is going to get worse, and now, more than ever, good people need to come together and show what we are made of. Whatever you can do, do it. I suggest contributing to:

• Americares.org
• Noah's Wish
• The American Red Cross

Final note: South Central Rain just came on iTunes . . . it's the first time in my life this song that I love has felt chilling.

Posted by Wil at 03:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (57) | TrackBacks (4)

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been working on three new books:

1. Do You Want Kids With That?, which is a collection of stories about being a stepparent.
2. The Untitled Poker Book, which is my effort to write a Big Deal or Positively Fifth Street or Diary of a Mad Poker Player.
3. The Untitled Work Of Fiction which is still in the larval stage . . . but I get excited whenever I look at my notes.

I'm working with my good friend and Dancing Barefoot editor, Andrew, on these projects, and as I go through old blog entries for material and talk with him, it reminds me how much fun I had with that book, and how wonderful the sense of community around WWdN and The Soapbox was back then. I'm thrilled that I earn a little bit of a living from writing now, and I'm continually shocked that so many people read my lame website, but in many ways, I miss the old days when I felt like whatever I wrote here didn't matter as much. It was so so sad to read the hopeful optimism I had with Just A Geek, but so cool to relive old Star Trek conventions, moments with Anne and the kids, the Avon walk and marathon, and track the ups and downs of the last couple of years in my life.

I sent Andrew a ton of material for Do You Want Kids With That? on Monday (my first official self-imposed deadline, and I hit it! Yes!) and while he reviews it, I can get to work on the other projects when I'm not writing for Games Of Our Lives, which is up to 32 columns! Can you believe that?

I was unsure about working on several projects in parallel. I didn't think I'd be able to maintain creative focus or momentum on several different projects, but Andrew reminded me that Isaac Asimov always worked on several different projects at once, so if he got blocked on one of them, he could just switch to a different one and keep on working. I'm no Isaac Asimov, but I'm a huge fan and admirer of his work, and if it worked for him . . . well, maybe it will work for me, too.

So as I buckle down and seriously get to work on these new projects, I'm making Yet Another Change to WWdN: I have several friends who write for Weblogs, Inc., and we've been talking about me contributing to their poker blog, Card Squad. I know that not everyone who reads WWdN enjoys or cares about poker, so I talked with Jason Calcanis about moving all of my poker content over there: trip reports, SNG reports, observations on the game, reviews, interviews with bloggers and professionals, etc . . . and he thought it was a swell idea.

So. Starting right now, with a few exceptions, I'm moving most of my poker blogging over to Card Squad. I'll still post major announcements here, but just about everything else will go over there. My Boobies over there is Controversy at the Bike.

Oh! Before I go: while I was writing this, I got e-mail from Dan at PokerStars, and I've got the green light on a charity poker tournament to support the Red Cross! More details will come later, just as soon as I get time and date worked out. (That's one of those major announcements which will probably get cross-posted here and at Card Squad.)

Posted by Wil at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (58) | TrackBacks (0)

So they really blew it with Just A Geek, and I won't work with them again . . . but O'Reilly still publishes some incredibly cool stuff, like MAKE magazine, which has a supermegaawesome blog that I read in Bloglines.

A lot of the stuff that MAKE talks about is over my head (making my own crystal radio from scratch is cool in theory, but I'll take that time and play Destroy All Humans, thank you very much) but occasionally something comes up that I absolutely love and can't wait to do on my own . . . like the errupting volcano cake!

MAKE is fun to read, even if you're never going to make (har.) any of the stuff they demonstrate, because on the same day that they link to the volcano cake, they show us how to use old 5" floppy discs as ultra-cool CD covers, and build a Lego computer.

Check it out, and if you like the blog, pick up the print version — it's a nice companion to 2600.

Posted by Wil at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBacks (0)

I was 0-3 in SNGs until just a few minutes ago . . .

PokerStars Tournament #11907419, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $20.00/$2.00
9 players
Total Prize Pool: $180.00
Tournament started - 2005/08/29 - 19:09:29 (ET)

Dear Wil Wheaton,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.
A $90.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.

Some readers have asked me if I could put together a charity tournament to benefit people who have been hit by Katrina. I think it's a great idea, and I'm working on it.

In the meantime, I'm sure the Red Cross is going to need blood and money, so anyone who can spare one or both should head out and give whatever they can . . . and beware of scam artists who claim to be running fundraisers, and promise to send the money to the Red Cross. Remember what happened post-9/11 and post-tsunami, when evil scammers took advantage of kind-hearted people. You're much better off contributing to an established organization that you can trust.

Posted by Wil at 05:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBacks (0)

This is so so so so so so cool! Wizards of the Coast will sponsor after-school D&D programs in public libaries.

The Afternoon Adventure with DUNGEONS & DRAGONS program will include everything librarians need to start regular gaming programs in their library with the original pen-and-paper roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D for short). Players assume the persona of fantasy characters and pursue magical adventures, confronting and solving problems using strategic thinking and teamwork. For three decades, D&D has appealed to an ever-increasing population of fans for its use of imagination and storytelling over competition. This free program will include a Dungeons & Dragons Basic Game (a $24.99 value), instructions for starting a D&D group in the library, a guide to using D&D as an introduction to library use, recommended reading lists, and other practical resources.

Libraries are almost as unappreciated as librarians, and taken for granted almost as much as a great teacher, which is a real shame. WotC gets 5d12 cool points for doing this, and if this program ends up encouraging kids to read more, and spend more time in libraries, I'll make it 10d12+100.

Come to think of it . . . maybe I'll call the old library I went to in elementary school and see if they'll let me come in and run a one-shot later this year. That'd be cool.

(link via boingboing)

Posted by Wil at 01:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (45) | TrackBacks (1)

I know there are some WWdN readers in New Orleans, Biloxi, Mobile, and other areas that are in Katrina's path . . . FWIW, I'm thinking about all of you guys, in that I-don't-personally-know-you-but-even-though-I'm-safely-in-Los-Angeles-I-empathize-with-you sort of way.

Stay safe.

Posted by Wil at 08:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (43) | TrackBacks (0)

What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though, by your smiling, you seem to say so. &mdash Hamlet, II.ii

We laughed and laughed, clinked our glasses, and laughed some more. Life was good, we were young, in Vegas, and kicking the shit out of the locals in the 4-8 Hold 'Em game at the Plaza . . .

I just had my unbeaten streak of PokerStars SNGs snapped . . . when I had kings.

It went like this: Kings in middle position, with two limpers. So I raised it up to 5x the BB, and four players stayed to see the flop. I wasn't very happy about playing my kings in a multi-way pot, until the flop came Q-6-2 rainbow. I figured one of these guys paired his queen, but figured I would have been re-raised pre-flop if any of them held QQ, so I was pretty sure I was in the lead.

An early position player made a very small bet, it was folded to me, and I popped him back about 3x. It was folded to the BB, who immediately went all-in. I figured that he didn't have a set, and put him on AQ, or QJ. (It was very unlikely that he had KQ since I already had the other two kings, but even if he did, I was still ahead.) He had me covered, so I called for the rest of my chips . . . and I was moderately happy when he turned up QJ. "Hooray for my great read," I thought. "Now here comes the Jack."

Sure enough, he caught a jack on the turn.

Gordinio: shows [Qd Js] (two pair, Queens and Jacks)
Wil Wheaton: shows [Kh Ks] (a pair of Kings)
Wil Wheaton said, "doh"
Gordinio collected 2700 from pot
Wil Wheaton said, "nh"

So the bad news is that I had to put a little -22 in my log book . . . but I think the nickname is official now, and Hamlet is just about the coolest nickname I think a guy could ask for (since, you know, Jesus is taken, and all.)

Posted by Wil at 04:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (87) | TrackBacks (0)

The pod people kids are /away this week, and Anne was out most of the day, so after I ran a bunch of errands, unsuccessfully shopped at the mall for the coolest watch in history, and did my laundry and the dishes . . . I rewarded my Big Boy behavior with a little online poker.

I've been playing the $22 SNGs at PokerStars.com for a while (thanks to the Sit-N-Go chapter in the 3rd edition of Lee Jones' Winning Low Limit Hold-Em, I've finished in the money in each one I've played over the last two months!) and I thought it would be fun to play a little bit today while there isn't a gorgeous wife running around who I'd much rather play with . . . and I wanted to fill some space on the blog with the two best things about it.

Thing the coolest happened on the first hand of heads-up play:

Seat 6: michael97045 (11265 in chips)
Seat 9: Wil Wheaton (2235 in chips)
michael97045 said, "ok... now that it's just me and you.... are you THE wil??"
Seat 6: michael97045 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 9: Wil Wheaton (button) (small blind) collected (450)
michael97045: posts the ante 25
Wil Wheaton: posts the ante 25
michael97045: posts small blind 100
Wil Wheaton: posts big blind 200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Wil Wheaton [Qc 3c]
Wil Wheaton said, "i guess so, yeah."
michael97045 said, "i didn't want to be the nerd guy to ask"
michael97045 said, "lol"
Wil Wheaton said, "wait. unless you mean Wil Smith."
michael97045: folds
Wil Wheaton collected 250 from pot
Wil Wheaton said, "I'm the other one."
michael97045 said, "i've spent most of this game reading your site"
Wil Wheaton said, "are you serious?!"
michael97045: calls 100
michael97045 said, "lol"
Wil Wheaton: checks
*** FLOP *** [3c 2h As]
michael97045 said, "yep"
Wil Wheaton said, "that's totally going on my blog"

PokerStars Tournament #11618125, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $20.00/$2.00
9 players
Total Prize Pool: $180.00
Tournament started - 2005/08/22 - 15:42:24 (ET)

Dear Wil Wheaton,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.
A $90.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account

Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.

I'm going to put together a private WWdN tourney real soon now, with a $10 +1 buy-in, so it's affordable for most people to play. If you're interested, sign up for PokerStars, and watch this space for tournament details in the near future.

Posted by Wil at 03:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (53) | TrackBacks (0)

So this weird thing happened two or three weeks ago: in the middle of the night, some aliens or MIBs or something snuck into my house while we were asleep, and they replaced my sweet, reasonable children with Teenagers.

Overnight, I went from pretty cool to really annoying, and questions that were usually answered with phrases like, "Okay," or "I'll do it in just a minute," or "Yes," were suddenly met with "Whatever." or "GOD!" or my personal favorite, stony silence with the rolling eyes and exasperated sigh.

It's so weird, man. And the thing is, my doors were all locked, and my windows were all closed . . . so my theory is that the Aliens or MIBs or whatever don't actually enter the house. Instead, they use some sort of parabolic mirror to direct a tractor beam through the walls, which we can't see or hear, and they pull the old switcheroo from orbit. I have no idea what they do with the sweet, reasonable pre-teens they take away, though. The current operating theory is that they need their youthful exuberance for fuel or something, but it's just a theory.

I called my mom, and told her how things had suddenly gotten really challenging as a parent, and you know what she did? She put her hand over the phone, and shouted to my dad, "Finally! It's Payback, Rick!" I'm pretty sure I heard my dad shout out something like, "Woo!" or "Yeehaw!" from another room . . .

Anyway, I'm taking a crash course in parenting teenagers, which is fundamentally different from parenting pre-teens. It's not even like switching from vi to emacs . . . it's more like switching vi to emacs and someone re-assigned your keyboard and changed the language and now the damn thing reboots randomly and though occasionally it makes sense, most of the time you're so goddamned confused you wonder why you bought a fucking computer in the first place. The weirdest thing is how suddenly the pod-people arrived. It really did happen overnight (or maybe in the span of two days, but not longer than that.)

A couple of things I've learned, that I offer up, free of charge, to anyone parenting a teenager, or about to parent a teenager:

1. When we say, "no," what they hear is, "ask me again in a slightly different way in about ten minutes, and act like it's the first time you've asked me. Or you could go ask your mom, and pretend that we haven't talked. The most important thing is, you must act as if we haven't had this conversation, and keep asking me until you get whatever it is you want."
2. No matter what we as parents do, we are so unreasonable.
3. No matter what my parents say, I was never this irrational when I was a teenager.
4. Whatever it is they want to do, all their friends get to do it, with their parents' blessing.
5. Music is better when it's so loud the bass distorts. (Yes, I realize the irony of my "If it's too loud, you're too old" T-shirt from 11th grade.)
6. Even though they may act like they totally hate us, they still love us. It's just that their brains are all fucked up right now, and they need our help to figure out what the hell is going on (but won't admit it, and don't know how to ask for it).

Interesting note: for a few reasons that are nobody's business, Anne and I limited TV and withdrew the video games recently, and once the storming around and exasperated sighing (which, I've learned, is the base currency of all teenage communication) ended, the first thing the kids did was ask if they could get my D&D books out of my office and play with their friends. So Ryan is learning how to DM, and Nolan is making a Drow (He is a huge fan of Drizzt Do'Urden and the Forgotten Realms). While they were in my office, Nolan pulled out all my old DiscWars sets, and has been teaching all his friends how to play it (and extracting promises from me to play with him as soon as I get a chance to re-learn the rules.)

So there's this interesting-and-cool thing happening: naturally, because they're teens, they're pulling away a little bit, figuring out who they are, and pushing against Anne and me as we define their age-appropriate limits, so a lot of the things we used to do together are so lame now . . . except for nerdy gaming. They LOVE the nerdy gaming, and it has become a conduit for me to communicate with them, as well as remain a part of their life. Ryan even told me the other day, "I want to start a club at school that's for nerds to do nerdy stuff, but I want to have, like, Masonic Degrees for nerds."

"What degree are you?" I said.

"I don't know," he said, "But you are a 33rd degree nerd."

I didn't ask him if there was a secret handshake, because I didn't want to be so lame.

On the alt.country binge: I bought two from the Asylum Street Spankers, who remind me of Squirrel Nut Zippers, but bawdier, and Joe Henry's Trampoline the oher day from iTunes (look out for those iTunes benders! Before you know it, you've spent 50 bucks, if you're not careful!), and so far I love it. In fact, I've been listening to it while I write this, and it's a perfect soundtrack for this entry. Gods, I love it when music does that, don't you?

To bring this back full circle(-ish): In all honesty, the kids are mostly good and still enjoyable, and I know better than to take the normal teenage behavior personally. Learning how to deal with them as teens has been very helpful for me and Anne . . . but my family (and raising kids who will become productive and respectable members of society) is more important to me than anything else in the world, so contributions to my blog will probably slow down for the very near future while I master this new set of skills I'm picking up . . . though Shane recently threw down a gauntlet at me, e-mail-style, that may result in a giant pile of writing over the next few weeks.

Or not.

Stay tuned, if that's your thing.

Editorial note: Please, please, please see the humor in this entry. My life isn't falling apart, everything is really fine at home, and my relationship with my stepkids isn't faltering or in danger or anything like that. Thanks.

Posted by Wil at 02:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (117) | TrackBacks (1)

If you like Wilco or Uncle Tupelo, you must get Son Volt's first album Trace.

Heh. If the 1990 me ever met the 2005 me and discovered that I'd become a fan of alt.country, I think I'd kick me in the nuts. Goddamn know-it-all 18 year-olds.

Posted by Wil at 08:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (53) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week, I went up to Tahoe with Anne and the kids for our annual August Family Getaway.

I absolutely love Tahoe, and I really want to move up there when they get out of high school.

I've got lots of interesting stuff to write about, including my trip to Vegas for BARGE, the bear that broke into our cabin in Tahoe, and reviews of some great books I read while I was gone, but I have a mountain of "real" work to tackle first.

Until then, I present last week's Games of Our Lives, which is probably my favorite one so far: Time Pilot

Gameplay: Most airplanes can only fly through the air, but you've managed to get your hands on a plane that flies through time! Unfortunately, it only allows you to travel into horde after horde of pilots who want to kill you. Quit your cryin', nobody said time travel would be easy.

Could be mistaken for: Time Pilot '84, Gyruss, an evening with that one roommate who incessantly flips between SciFi and The History Channel. Jesus Christ, Eddie! Pick a fucking channel and stay there! Jeez!

Speaking of The Onion, I was reading the July 27th issue last night after dinner, and I think it's got some of the funniest stuff I've seen in months, including "Armchair Publicist Would Totally Reign In Tom Cruise" and "War On String May Be Unwinnable, Says Cat General" (You've got to see the picture — don't look at it while drinking, though, or it's coming right out your nose. You've been warned!)

Posted by Wil at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (34) | TrackBacks (0)

I read my book (current read: From a Buick 8, which I'll finish tonight) while I waited in the departure lounge for my plane today. I did my best to tune out the bickering children behind me, so I only caught a little bit of the conversation a guy had on his cellphone when he sat down next to me.

"Wait." He said, "so you thought it was a girl, but it was a dude?!"

I stopped reading. My eyes looked at the phrase I craned my neck to look and wasn't exactly surprised to see Huddie Royer — and behind him, Eddie.

Something was said on the other end of the conversation, and the guy said, "Oh shit, man! Did he grab your weiner?"

The guy laughed about as hard as I would have, had I not bitten down on my cheek, as he got up and walked away.

Later, when I walked down the jetway, I was behind six guys who were clearly all lifelong friends.

"What do we tell the girls when we get back?" One of them said.

In unison, they all replied, "We drank, and we gambled!"

"And then we drank some more!" One of them added. The guy nearest him punched him in the arm, and they all laughed together.

Only in Vegas.

Posted by Wil at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (58) | TrackBacks (1)

The Universe is so weird . . .

I absolutely love the creative experience I have as a writer. I love observing things and recreating them for people who weren't there. I love it when something very small happens, and I play the "what if . . ." game until I've got several hundred words in front of me. I love it when people who have read my books or my blog or Games of our Lives tell me that something I've created has touched them in some way (some profound, others merely entertaining, but touched nevertheless.)

When I was in Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker, I was in some weird sort of zone that I don't entirely know how to explain. I remember that I told a friend of mine, "Yesterday afternoon, The Writer woke up, and I'm just trying to stay out of his way until he says everything he needs to say." Even though I was mostly writing about poker while I was out there, I still feel that it's some of the best stuff I've written, as far as observing things and recreating them for people who weren't there go.

But when I got home, The Writer went into hibernation, and it's been frustrating me. I don't feel motivated, and when I sit down to write, I'm bored within a few minutes, just about everything I write is forced, and I end up throwing most of it out.

I've spent several sleepless nights the last week, thinking about this, tossing and turning, and pacing around the house while I try to figure out what it is that I'm missing. What's wrong? Why do I feel so . . . listless?

A couple of days ago, it came to me: I miss acting. As much as I love writing, and as much as I hate the bullshit grind of auditioning and all the stupid shit that goes along with it, I miss the joy of performing. Even though I hate the drive down to ACME, and I hate not having free time on Saturday nights, I miss the joy of giving up teh funnay, and I miss being part of that team of great performers. I miss the familiar feeling of eating lunch off the catering truck, having bagels and coffee and breakfast burritos each morning . . . I miss that esprit de corps that I always feel when I'm on the set.

Yeah, as much as I like being a writer . . . I really miss being an actor.

So last night, I sat on my patio, had a cigar, and visualized myself walking onto a set, sides in my hand, kleenex around my collar, make-up on my face, ready to go to work. I saw myself reading scripts and bringing amazing characters to life. When I went to bed, I repeated to myself, "I am a working actor," until I fell asleep. Whatever. That hippie bullshit is fine, but shit in one hand and visualize in the other, right?

That's what I thought, too, until this afternoon, when my manager called me with a job offer for a video game. They wanted me to work tomorrow, but I have to go out of town tomorrow morning, so they juggled their schedule and I start recording in two hours. He also had an offer for a movie that shoots next year, and interest from a producer on still another project. Then, about thirty minutes ago, I got a call from an associate of a friend of mine who is a casting director. She offered me a small (one day) role on a movie that works next month!

I did a little dance when I hung up the phone. This just became a very good day.

Posted by Wil at 04:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (106) | TrackBacks (1)

I stood in front of the open refrigerator, and scanned the shelves. Anne spoke to me from the dining room.

"What are you doing?" She said.

"I'm thinking about having a Homer Simpson," I said.

"Donuts and a beer?" She said.

I stood up, a pink box in one hand, an Arrogant Bastard Ale in the other.

"Yeah," I said. "Isn't that horrible?"

"What's horrible," she said, "is that I knew what you were talking about without looking."

I opened up the box. A glazed donut clung to one side, and a devil's food with rainbow jimmies rested next to it. The crumbs and remains of their brothers surrounded them.

"You want to join me?" I said. "There are two donuts left."

"No. That's disgusting." She said. "I think I'll have a Flaming Moe instead."

"Okay," I said, "I'll get the cough syrup."

Posted by Wil at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (46) | TrackBacks (0)

WWdN reader Charlotte told me that my appearance on CSI was voted "Best Celebrity Cameo" by readers of Canadian TV Guide!

Wil Wheaton, CSI 38%
Colin Farrell, Scrubs 19%
Swoosie Kurtz, Lost 21%
Quentin Tarantino, American Idol 15%
Gerald McRaney, Deadwood 8%

Posted by Wil at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (49) | TrackBacks (0)

I celebrated my birthday by spending four days with my family, completely unwired.

If you get a chance to spend four unwired days in a row, I highly recommend it. If you can spend those four days with people you love, I double-plus don't not recommend it.

Thank you to everyone who sent birthday wishes via e-mail or comments. So far, year 33 is looking good.

Posted by Wil at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (31) | TrackBacks (0)