Wil Wheaton

Nerd's the Word

He Was a Nerd Before You Were a Nerd

The Doctor is IN (OMFG!): Nerdist Podcast Live @ Comic-Con 2011

Dianne GarciaKaren Gillan and Matt Smith​See more photos in "San Diego Comic-Con 2011 Preview Night," "San Diego Comic-Con 2011 Day One," "San Diego Comic-Con 2011 Day Two." You will all have to forgive me for breaking the fourth wall of blogger "voice" for this one. The third person just wo ... More >>

San Diego Comic-Con Announces Sunday July 24 Schedule: Matt Smith and Karen Gillan to Appear on Dr. Who Panel

Shannon CottrellLast year, convention goers dressed as the Doctor and Amy. This year, Matt Smith and Karen Gillan will appear at SDCC.​More in "San Diego Comic-Con Announces Thursday July 21 Schedule: Bruce Campbell, Yoshiki, Stan Lee, Mike Judge and More.", "San Diego Comic-Con Announces Frid ... More >>

San Diego Comic-Con Announces Saturday, July 23 Schedule: Steampunk, Adventure Time, The Last Airbender, Robert Kirkman and More

Shannon CottrellSteampunk at San Diego Comic-Con 2010​More in "San Diego Comic-Con Announces Thursday July 21 Schedule: Bruce Campbell, Yoshiki, Stan Lee, Mike Judge and More." and "San Diego Comic-Con Announces Friday, July 22 Schedule: Doc Hammer, Jackson Publick, Chris Elliott, Wil Wheaton, ... More >>

San Diego Comic-Con Announces Friday, July 22 Schedule: Doc Hammer, Jackson Publick, Chris Elliott, Wil Wheaton, Felicia Day and More

Shannon CottrellDoc Hammer and Jackson Publick with amazing Venture Bros. cosplayers at SDCC 2010​San Diego Comic-Con just posted it's panel schedule for Friday, July 22. For fans of Adult Swim's cult favorite series, The Venture Bros., you'll want to mark this down (and prepare to get in line ... More >>

Time's 140 Best Twitter Feeds: Marion Nestle, Michael Pollan, Harry Reid Lord Voldemort

If you only have 140 characters, they should be worth reading, no? Depends on whose Twitter feed you read. Time Magazine has just published a list (of course they did) of the top 140 Twitter feeds around the country. No, sorry, neither Charlie Sheen nor Kim Kardashian made it -- Neil Gaiman is #1, S ... More >>

And Now, A Brief Message from Wil Wheaton (& Seth MacFarlane)

​It's funny because it's true. Thank you, Wil Wheaton (@wilw) and Seth MacFarlane (@SethMacFarlane), for making our day.

Thrilling Adventure Hour Interviews: Ben Acker and Ben Blacker

For more than five years, Thrilling Adventure Hour has been bringing L.A. a dose of "old-time radio." Well, sort of. Created by writers Ben Acker and Ben Blacker, Thrilling Adventure Hour is actually a stage show done in the style of radio. In other words, you're watching actors on stage in front o ... More >>

W00tstock 2.4 PWNS Thursday Evening Events at Comic-Con 2010

Nicole CamposLen Peralta's W00tstock 2.4 poster - drawn during the show, right on stage!​For what is typically considered one of the lighter, less big events-heavy days of Comic-Con, this year's must-see-and-do Thursday events in and around the convention center were outrageously plentiful. Yo ... More >>

Coilhouse Co-Founders Zoetica Ebb and Meredith Yayanos Talk Comic-Con

Over the course of the past two years, Coilhouse, both the blog and exquisitely designed print magazine, has become required reading for those who enjoy geek culture as much as they love art and fashion. Co-founders Nadya Lev, Zoetica Ebb and Meredith Yayanos have taken their "loveletter to alternat ... More >>

What Do 'Bud Bundy' and the Streamy Awards Have in Common? Everything!

​Hi, I'm David Faustino, and this is what happens when I drink (so drunk right now): You may remember me from a little show STILL ON TELEVISION called Married... with Children. It's generated over a biiiiiiiillion dollars for... Well, I don't really know who gets all the money... But anywa ... More >>

Full of So Much Win: L.A. Weekly Web Awards

From Anti-Technology to Twittering Fool: Slash Talks Social Media Pros and Cons

Erin BroadleySlash accepts his golden floppy for "Best MySpace Music Page"​Partygoers look for several things when deciding whether to attend a Hollywood soiree: convenient parking, networking opportunities, beautiful women, an open bar, and perhaps the most important as of late, does the part ... More >>

Who Has The Best Web Presence in L.A.? Winners Announced for L.A. Web Awards!

​From Google Wave to mommy blogs to TechCrunch's Mike Arrington "stealing our tweets," 2009 was a booming year for the Web and social media scene. To celebrate, LAWeekly.com is hosting the LA Web Awards 2009 and asked you to nominate the best in 36 categories. Who gives the best tweet? What's ... More >>

YouTube Wildcard: Los Angeles Music Clips from Around the Web

There's no way we can cover it all. We try, but, as you well know, West Coast Sound misses a lot of music events every week. We just can't cover them all. But YouTube can, and it's got its own beautifully random tastes. Herewith, stuff that happened recently that we missed, but others caught. Wil ... More >>

Sounds of the Arcade: A Gamer's Memories, One Quarter at a Time

Arcade games - the actual cabinets that took actual quarters - were ubiquitous throughout my childhood. After about 1978, you couldn't walk into a fast food restaurant or convenience store and not find one.

Nerdy Like Me: The Secret Mini Driver's Club

Kevin Scanlon"You ready to leave?" Anne asked from just outside my office door. "Yeah, let me just finish this," I said, typing as fast as I could, my fingers and brain in a familiar creative race. "If we don't leave right now, we're both going to be late," she said. I glanced at the clock: 3:15p ... More >>

Magical Places We Loved as Kids, Then and Now: Miniature Golf and the Goddamn Volcano Hole

Kevin ScanlonAbout once a year, I get it into my head that I need to go play miniature golf. I convince my wife to come with me out to Sherman Oaks or Upland, and we spend an hour or so trying to contain our disappointment that the carpets are torn, the grounds aren't maintained, the ponds are fille ... More >>

Over the Weekend: Perry Farrell and Macy Gray Surprise at L.A. Weekly's L.A. Weekend, Plus We Get Krafty at the Grilled Cheese Invitational

Other than the term "swine flu," we learned several very important things over the weekend: Bea Arthur (RIP) made a damn good leg of roast lamb, there is definitely a limit to how much grilled cheese one can consume, and that the Belvedere vodka served at our L.A. Weekend festival -- yeah, that stuf ... More >>

SELF-PROMOTION PICK OF THE WEEK

Have You Played Atari Today? Bringing the Original 2600 out of Storage

Kevin ScanlonAbout 12 years ago, my wife and I pulled her original Atari 2600 out of storage and hooked it up to our television. We set it on the floor, next to my Sega Genesis, and showed it to our kids. "What's that?" One of them asked. "This is how we started playing video games at home when we ... More >>

April Fools Internet Wins, Plus the Perfect Prank Right at Home

Kevin ScanlonWhen I worked as a scout for Propeller, I dreaded April first. It was already hard enough to find interesting, quality news stories, and having an entire day where I couldn't trust anything I read was just annoying. However, I've always enjoyed creative and humorous things that are obv ... More >>

Segmentation Fault: Rebooting Positronic Brain, See You All Again on April 6

Kevin ScanlonOn my bio, it says that I'm an actor, writer, husband and father. I love being every one of these things, and somehow I've managed to strike a good balance among them in the ten years I've kept all these plates spinning in my life.It's been remarkable that I've managed to keep them all ... More >>

He shoots, He scores: Why I love the Los Angeles Kings

Kevin ScanlonWarning: This week, I'm talking all about the Los Angeles Kings. Even though we've had a team here since 1968, the First Rule of Being a Sports Fan In Los Angeles dictates that relatively few people follow the Kings or care about the game, because the Kings have struggled - not "The Cli ... More >>

Baseball at Sunland Park: This is the way I remember it...

Kevin ScanlonNot that it matters, but most of this is true. When I was six years old, I set foot onto on a T-ball diamond for the first time. I was skinny, awkward and unsure of myself - basically a smaller version of the teenager I'd eventually become - and I didn't have very good coordination, b ... More >>

Pasadena Pub Quest: Putting the Olde Back Into Old Town

Kevin ScanlonFrom Marengo on the East to Pasadena Ave. on the West, there's no shortage of bars along and within a block of Colorado Boulevard in Old Town Pasadena. They range from really cool, like Lucky Baldwin's on Raymond, to really douchey, like [BAR NOT NAMED SO I DON'T GET MY ASS KICKED BY A ... More >>

Off the Radar on Mount Lowe: Undiscovered and Overlooked in L.A.

Kevin ScanlonLast week at blogging.la, Chal Pivik said, "Despite re-opening in late 2006 after nearly five years of renovations and additions, Griffith Observatory remains one of LA's relatively off-the-radar attractions, even though parking and admission is free." I completely agreed, and spent mu ... More >>

Winter Mute: A Father and Son's Endless Summer

Last Sunday, it was 83 degrees - in January! - under a nearly cloudless sky the color of a television tuned to a dead channel. It was beautiful; one of those nearly perfect days that makes some people want to move here, and makes it worthwhile for those of us who already do. I desperately wanted to ... More >>

Let's Forget About the Tongue-Tied Lightning: Battling Britney Spears and Gilbert Arenas for 2008 Weblog Awards

Sunday afternoon, my editor e-mailed me and asked how I was doing in the 2008 Weblog Awards, where I'm nominated for Best Celebrity Blogger, alongside blogging heavyweights Gilbert Arenas and Britney Spears. Yes, you read that correctly. "I think I'm going to lose to Britney Spears," I wrote back. ... More >>

Triple Word Score: Gaming Philosophy and Scrabular Impotence

My wife Anne is one of those Scrabble players who regularly scores between 350 and 400 in a two player game. I am one of those Scrabble players who is lucky to break 150 without opening the dictionary to find out if the collection of mysterious glyphs laid out before him can somehow be assembled int ... More >>

Stress Less: It's Christmas time. There's no need to be afraid.

The economy is in the shitter, unemployment is skyrocketing, and it turns out that there are just nine days left until Christmas, which means there are only eight shopping days, provided you're willing to run through the mall with Governor Ahnold and all the other panicked people on Christmas Eve. I ... More >>

Vegas, Baby! Vegas! An Incomplete Guide to Lounge Music

I watched a lot of movies when I was a kid, frequently imagining myself in some of my favorites. In 1977, the movie was Star Wars and I was Han Solo (like most geeks, I was really Luke Skywalker, but he was so whiny and Han was so cool!) In 1982, the movie was Tron, and I was Flynn, using my supreme ... More >>

Super Fun Happy Slide: Reflections on an Acting Career

I spent the first two thirds of my life working as a full-time actor, but about five years ago, my primary focus shifted from acting to writing. A funny thing happened on my way to being a full-time writer, though: I started working a lot as an actor, both on camera (CSI, Criminal Minds) and with my ... More >>

LA People: Wil Wheaton — Child Star, Adult Geek

Talking science fiction over drinks with the guy who calls William Shatner WFS

It's Only Rock and Roll but I Like It: Music as a Soundtrack to Life

Music is exceptionally - my wife may say irrationally - important to me. I can walk into a store, determined to spend hundreds of dollars, only to turn around and walk right back out if something horrible is playing inside. Music has never been disposable background noise; it's defined me, inspired ... More >>

Crosstown Traffic: Angelenos as a Cultural Microcosm of 21st Century America

Web Editor's note: the L.A. Weekly is proud to raise a pint of Guinness and welcome Wil Wheaton onboard as our new weekly columnist. Check back every Tuesday for his latest. Get Wheaton's RSS feed here. Way back in early 1990, I was at the Forum in Inglewood for a Kings hockey game. The Kings we ... More >>

Comic-Con 2008 In Photos - Friday, July 25

PHOTOS BY NICOLE CAMPOS The force is strong with this one. Powerpuff Girls Reunion! - l-r: Cathy Cavadini (Blossom), Tara Strong (Bubbles) and EG Daily (Buttercup) The Visitors have returned! Quick, hide the guinea pigs! Keeping up with the Joneses. Sign up now for the 501st! Serve yo ... More >>

HE-E-E-E-RE’S FUNNY!

Going to a comedy club is risky business — but fear not, we’re there for you

Shake It Like a Camera-Phone Picture

Vampire Diaries: Getting Geeked on Buffy and Spike at the Sci-Fi Summit