• 07:30 Awake, attemping to do a day's work in half the time, before going to airport to go to Melbourne to go to interview to jump through hoops :) #
• 11:39 @posty Where are you at l'airport - where are you going? I'm in the Qantas club, heading to Melbourne in an hour :) #
• 11:45 ...eventually, they tell me, the more frequently I do this, the less I'm going to stress over going away for less than 36 hours *deepbreath* #
• 14:30 Well, hello Melbourne! Thankyou for the nice sunny weather and uneventful flight. It is much appreciated. Now - to find the hotel! #
• 20:14 Currently debating whether or not to order room service dessert. I'm not really hungry, but some of this stuff sounds delicious :D #
• 21:10 @monnie ...dinner was already delivered, so it's more the question of *more* room service, not the service itself... Still deciding :) #
• 21:11 @squidinky I'm not looking forward to having to leave the hotel first thing tomorrow morning (8am! St Kilda Road!) to go to an appointment! #

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wwdn/~3/344107344/im-off-to-nerd.html

It's so weird to have this great week working on Criminal Minds that I can't talk about in any detail until October. I have no mouth, and I must scream, you could say. How about I just give up one little non-spoilery thing, and nobody tells on me, okay?

At the end of the shoot, I was thanking a lot of the people I worked with for making it such a great experience. Every single one of them told me that they wished I worked on the show every day. I guess the feeling was mutual.

So, yeah, that made me feel pretty good. If you get a chance to work on Criminal Minds, I highly recommend it.

Now, to business:

Tomorrow, I'm heading down to San Diego for an abbreviated stay at Comic-Con. Here's my schedule:

• On Thursday, I'll be on a panel called Star Trek Without a Blueprint: How books and comics keep expanding the boundaries of the Star Trek universe. We'll be talking about the future of Star Trek publishing in room 32AB from 4:00-5:00. I'll be on the panel with Andy Mangels (moderator and Star Trek author), Margaret Clark (executive editor, Pocket Books), Andy Schmidt (senior editor, IDW) and Star Trek authors Kevin Dilmore, Dave Mack, Scott Tipton, and Dayton Ward.
• The rest of the time, I'll be with my friend Rich Stevens at the Dumbrella booth, which is number 1335. MC Frontalot is going to be there, too, so if you're looking to fill that final square on Nerd Bingo, come and see us.
  

Oh. I guess it would be useful to know what I'm taking with me to sign and sell, wouldn't it?

In addition to some 8x10s from Star Trek and Stand By Me, I'll have copies of The Happiest Days of Our Lives , which I'm kind of hoping will sell out.

I'll have a few copies of Dancing Barefoot and Just A Geek. I'll also have a few copies of Volume 2 of the Star Trek Manga. I won't have any copies of Volume 3 of the Star Trek Manga, but it's just been released, so I'm sure you'll be able to pick up a copy somewhere. If you bring it to the booth, I'm happy to sign it for you.

Finally, I will have copies of this year's Chapbook, which is called Sunken Treasure. What's that, you say? You don't know what that is? You don't have time to click a link, you say? Well, my lazy friend, allow me to show you part of the author's note:

Every summer, I make one of these limited chapbooks and take them with me on the inevitable summer convention tour. In the past, I’ve pulled material from whatever I’m working on, as sort of a fall preview, but this year the book I’m working on is so top secret, I’d have to print the chapbook on self-destructing paper, and while that would make it a very limited edition, the costs associated are kind of prohibitive.

So for 2008’s limited edition chapbook extravaganza, I’ve put together the first ever Wil Wheaton Sampler. With the help of my editor Andrew, who is a former ninja warrior and recreational time traveler, I’ve pulled together things I like from all three of my books, my blog, and this groovy collaborative fiction project I play with called Ficlets. I’ve also included, for the first time anywhere, one of the scripts I wrote for a sketch comedy show at the ACME Comedy Theater.

I am really proud of Sunken Treasure, and I think Andrew (my friend and editor) and I came up with something really special. I only sold about a dozen of them at San Jose Super-Con (there really weren't that many people there this year) and since I'm not welcome at the Creation convention in Vegas, the only places you can get copies of it will be Comic-Con and PAX. I'm anxious to get these little books out into the wild, though, so I hope you'll tell everyone you know, for a grand total of 150 people (you guys can coordinate this, right?) to come by the Dumbrella booth and check it out. It's so weird to make something I'm so proud of, and only get to share it with a handful of people so far.

I don't know if I'll be particularly motivated to post while I'm away. I'll likely be posting all sorts of things to Twitter, including where I am and when I'll be signing. There will also be pithy observations about my fellow geeks, so you don't want to miss that. Erm, provided I can avoid the fail whale, that is. Ahem.

The Internet is quiet as hell lately. I feel like I'm talking into an empty tube, so thanks for reading and commenting; it makes me feel a little less like a crazy old man with no pants standing on the corner ranting about the weather.

http://blog.laurellkhamilton.org/2008/07/new-phone.html

I’m listening to My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, "Sex on Wheels". It was one of four songs that made the short list for my choice of ring tones for Jonathon. One of the things that finally drove me to get a new uber techie phone was a desire for personalized ring tones. Shallow, true, but sometimes when you’re afraid of something it’s all about the fun. I’m intimidated by technology, but it was either get a phone that had a calendar, a to do list, the works, or continue to lug around the huge day planner. The one I found that finally worked was like a freaking hardback book. It was heavy and awkward to carry around. Jon and most of the people we work with on both coasts have blackberries, or some other uber tech phone. It takes the place of the huge day planner. I vowed I would learn to use the new phone. First, we went to the store and I chose the phone, not Jon. The mistake we’d made in the past was that Jon would choose something for me, and when we got it home I couldn’t work it. This time I made him not help me at the store at all, on the theory that if I couldn’t work it at the store it was not coming home with me. I am now the proud owner of a Palm Centro. It has a calendar, a to do list, and little alarms to help me remember things. I’ve carried it for several days, and I’m still happy with it. I can still work it. Cool.

Jon has had to help me a couple of times, or explain something that didn’t make intuitive sense to me, but overall it’s my phone. And the day planner can stay on my desk where it belongs.