I'm sure it's an enormous surprise to learn that I've spent a lot of time recently thinking about games and gaming, so I've found myself looking through old blog posts for research, inspiration, and to confirm or deny that strange "I think I've written about this idea before..." tingle that's recently set up camp in my brain.

So here's something I found today, which may or may not find portions of itself rewritten for my PAX East Keynote, but should zap some of you Gen X gamers squarely in the happy place...

There are all these video games that remind me of the happiness of my childhood: Journey, Riddle of the Sphinx, and Dodge-Em on Atari 2600. The robot gyroscope game, Excitebike, and Super Mario Brothers (the turtle trick!) on NES are just a few. Writing about those, I can feel the orange shag carpet at the house in Sunland, the blue berber carpet in La Crescenta, and I can see the little television in my friend's bedroom where we played RC Pro-Am until we had "NES Thumb."

Do you associate certain games with certain arcades or places?

• Donkey Kong will forever be associated with Verdugo Bowling Alley in La Crescenta, because that's where I first saw it. In fact, I thought it was some weird bowling game because the barrells on level one look like bowling balls, if you're nine years old and in a bowling alley.

• Centipede will always be Shakeys Pizza in Tujunga, where this young couple in their 20s let me play their last man at the cocktail version because their pizza was ready, and Ms. Pac-Man will always be associated with this head shop in Sunland, where I got to the pretzel level on the first try.

• Super Pac-Man, Defender, Gyruss, and Mouse Trap take me back to Sunland Discount Variety and Hober's Pharmacy (they've become interchangable in my memory) and Donkey Kong Country on SNES will always remind me of when I lived in Nice, France, during production of Mr. Stitch, and my brother and I beat it when my family came out to vist me for Christmas.

• Crystal Castles is Alladin's Castle at the mall in Eugene, Oregon, during the filming of Stand By Me, and Burger Time and Tutankham will always remind me of the smell of chlorine and concrete, from the basement-level pool at the Eugene Hilton.

Funny, just writing about those places I can almost conjure up sense-memories, like smells and other ephemeral things that I can't quite put into words but I can feel, but I can't quite make them out, like the boobie channel on cable in 1984 that was scrambled but would occasionally resove into view for two or three glorious seconds, which would be the subject of much discussion the next day at school.

Mmmmm... boobies.

If deadlines were dragons, I'd be in the lair with nothing left but my trusty sword and a relentless determination to slay the fucker and take his heart back to The Adventure Hook Tavern as a souvenir.

So in place of a proper post, here's what I did this weekend:

I'm running a 4e dungeon delve at Emerald City Comicon this weekend, and instead of taking one out of the book, I'm creating my own. I haven't done this in at least 15 years, but after about 30 minutes with the graph paper, the Monster Manual and my imagination, it all came back to me. I ended up a little delve that I think could be part of a larger campaign if I wanted to expand it, and I've come up with some pretty cool (if I say so myself) ways to encourage the PCs to do some role playing, even though they're getting pregenerated characters and it's a one-shot.

Okay, I'm going back to work. This dragon isn't going to slay itself.

Ohh! Edited to add this from Level 1 Gamer in comments:

I had the privilege of playing in the one of your Dungeon Delves at Rincon (www.rincongames.com) and had a blast.  I'm happy you are continuing with the idea because it's a great treat for the players and a great way to raise money for charity.  Are the proceeds going to Child's Play again?

I'm sure I don't need to convince anybody here, but if you are going to ECCC, try to get into Wil's Delve.  You won't be disappointed. He's a great DM.

I wrote a post about the experience on my blog if you want to see some pictures and video from one of the Delves at Rincon: http://www.level1gamer.com/2009/11/04/i-survived-wil-wheatons-dungeon-delve-of-doom/

I've put myself pretty much on lockdown until I finish writing my PAX East keynote, because my brain really isn't making it easy to convert my concepts and ideas into a proper presentation that is both thoughtful and entertaining.

I've given myself next Wednesday as the ultimate deadline, because I need to hang a Sword of Damocles over my head if I'm going to get anything done. This provides great motivation and helps with the fucos, but with that helpful pressure I also get some stressful pressure that occasionally leads to things like this coming out of my head:

Gaming played a fundamental role in making me the person I am today, privately and professionately

I meant to write professionally, but obviously my brain thought it would be hilarious to make me feel stupid by making up a word. I also thought this was hilarious (after I corrected it) so I sent it to my editor with the following note: Someday, we're going to laugh about this. For you, that day is probably now. For me, it's next Wednesday.

Andrew replied: Wil, I would never laugh at you. It would be unprofessionate.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating: Andrew and I have worked together on everything I've written in the last ten years that hasn't sucked. I wouldn't be nearly as successful as I am without his Red Pen of Doom, and after all this time together, I understand why authors will go through the fires of Hell to stay with an editor.

I am not witty or interesting; I wont pretend to have anything profound to say. I am 26, female, divorced and spent most of my life feeling empty and hopeless. This may not help anyone, but these realizations helped me find my happiness. The points are in bold.

They didn't lie to you in elementary school, being different is awesome.

In high school and my early twenties I was teased for wearing video game related t-shirts. Now the the same girls who teased me often complain to me over facebook about being suck in generic relationships and "wish they had found something to love the way I love gaming". Also, I recently made a bet that my $15 TMNT purse would get more compliments at a bar than a $900 coach purse. I won.

That's the beginning, and it just gets better from there. Please, please, please go to Reddit and read the rest. I promise that you'll be glad you did. I only have one addition of my own, which I will add ... now:

Don't be a dick.

You tend to attract what you put into the world, and every second you spend being a dick is a second wasted. I'm 37, and while I've looked back on times I was a dick with great regret, I've never thought to myself, "You know, I really wish I'd spent more time being a dick to people."

This is one of those "I wish I'd written it, and I'm really glad I found it" things that I see from time to time, and I hope that lots and lots of people read it, internalize it, and share it with others. Thanks, alukima, for adding something good to the world. I hope this comes back to you a thousand times.

My friend Rich, who writes and draws Diesel Sweeties, occasionally gives me wonderful gifts, like that awesome 8-bit drawing of me in the infamous clown sweater that sits on what would be my blog's masthead, if blogs had mastheads.

When I got home from working on The Big Bang Theory yesterday, this was waiting for me:

Today's my last day on this episode, which seemed to fly by much faster than the last one. I'm so excited for the audience to watch the taping tonight, because I know how awesome the episode is, but I'm also sad, because I'm going to miss seeing and working with these incredible people every day.

I'm recovering HP and mana today by constructing a Vampire/Artifact deck for Magic: The Gathering. While opening boosters earlier, I came across a card in Zendikar called Landbind Ritual. It's a sorcery card that gives you two life for each plains card you control, and it has one of the most beautiful flavor texts I've ever read:

"Honor this place, for our children's children will stand here and speak these same words again." - Ayli, Kamsa cleric.

I would love it if this card was handed out to every person who visited a national park or unspoiled wilderness area. I would love it even more if people would speak these words to their children ... and truly mean them.

(Image by me. Click to embiggen. Please link to this post if you reuse it.)

As I walked from the comic shop set down to the bowling alley set today, I passed the set for Leonard and Sheldon's apartment, which is in the center of the stage. I gawked at it the way you do when you're a fan of the show and can't believe you're actually close enough to actually walk through it, and my eyes fell on the coffee table. I saw a lot of things that could have been on my own coffee table, so I decided to grab a picture (those are my Chucks in the lower right corner.)

I took this picture because this is more than just a nifty glimpse behind the scenes. This is an example of the attention to detail that is everywhere on every set of The Big Bang Theory. It would be really easy to just toss a few random magazines and soda cans there, because it's very unlikely that they'll ever be seen in this much detail, but at every level of production, they make a concerted effort to ensure that everything is authentic. I mean, how many of you looked at this and thought, "Hey, that could be my coffee table!" I see a lot of hands going up, and that's why I took this snap.

So it was another awesome day on the set of The Big Bang Theory. We rehearsed the show again this morning, and then we had our first run through for the producers after lunch. This first run through can be really stressful for some actors (including a rookie version of me) because we haven't had a lot of time with the script to get comfortable with the dialog, work out all the comedy beats, and settle on final blocking. I mean, we've only really run it once, and it can feel like putting on an incomplete performance or doing an underprepared audition for people you really want need to make happy.

I've done several run throughs (seven, total, over two episodes) while working on The Big Bang Theory, though, and it hasn't been stressful at all. In fact, it's been a whole lot of fun, and very informative to me as an actor. See, at some point in the last ten years or so, I realized that the writers and producers are working it out just as much as we are, and that they want it to be awesome just as much as we do; this is why we do the run throughs every day until we tape. Knowing this takes a lot of the pressure off for me.

Of course, it helps that the script is very good from the first draft we get. It helps that all the actors are incredibly professional, dedicated, friendly, and easy to get along with. It helps a lot to have a phenomenal director and a crew that seems to be one step ahead of us all day. When the writers and producers arrive, it helps that they know they're making a great show, so they're confident, relaxed, speak with a clear and unified voice, and give specific notes to make our performances better, instead of just giving notes for the sake of giving notes (which has happened to me in the past - not on this show - and was really frustrating, especially when I got five conflicting notes that were just given for the sake of giving them. Yes, I was expected to apply them all, yes, I tried, and yes, we ended up throwing them all out by the time we taped.) 

Anyway, the schedule for the first five days of production is pretty much the same: we work all morning with the director (Mark Cendrowski, in this case, who is awesome), show the writers and producers where we are in the afternoon, get notes, apply notes, and do it all over the following day.

So, like I said, for a lot of actors, the daily run through can be stressful. Indeed it was for me when I was young and less experienced. However, I've come to embrace it as an opportunity to not only make my performance better, but to learn a lot about writing and performing comedy by listening and paying close attention to the notes the writers and producers give all the actors, not just to me.

I wish I'd figured this out when I was a younger actor, because I would have been a better actor if I had: there is XP all over the place when we're on the set, just waiting for us to collect it and level. So, actors, listen to me now: When you're on the set, be on the set. Pay attention to everything that's going on around you, because you will constantly be presented with opportunities to learn about and perfect your craft. If you're lucky like me and get to work with some of the best in the business, you're learning from some of the best in the business!

I know that I - and a lot of other people - would pay a lot of money to listen to Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady and Lee Aronsohn give a seminar on how to write and perform comedy for television. While we were getting notes today, I realized how lucky I am to be on their set, working on their show, learning from them and getting paid to do it.

Seriously. Awesome.

From the moment I parked my car, I felt like I'd come back ... well, not home, exactly, but back to camp, or back to school, I guess. There's a story about that on today's Radio Free Burrito 23, which I just released; it's only 12 minutes long, and I think you should listen to it because I made it JUST FOR YOU. 

All day long, the cast and crew made me feel like I was part of their family who they didn't get to see very often, even though I've only been there once before. It was really neat to feel like they were as excited to have me back on the show as I was to be there. I really am a lucky guy.

It was a relaxed day, which I bet is nice for the regulars because they taped a show last night. We started with a table read of the episode (which was hilarious) and then spent the rest of the day running the episode. Just like last time, this is the part of the process where we're making very rough pencil sketches on a sketchpad; we haven't even begun to think about picking out paint and brushes for the final canvas ... but that will happen very quickly, probably by the middle of the day tomorrow, because we only have seven working days to take this from a bunch of creative people sitting around a table reading it to an actual show that goes out to millions of people on the magic talking box thingy. 

...Wow, I just freaked myself out. It's better not to think of it that way. Quick, get the Men in Black flashy gizmo!

Ahh, that's better. So, I was talking about Ping Pong, right? Well, I didn't get to play a full game of Ping Pong today, but I got to rally with Kunal for a little bit, and I didn't feel like I was playing with duck's feet for hands and a coke bottle for a paddle, so I'm looking forward to providing the sort of challenge a speedbump gives a monster truck when we play a real game tomorrow.

I want to be exactly the right kind of evil when we rehearse tomorrow, so I'm off to work on Evil Wil Wheaton's scenes. Seriously, go listen to the Burrito. You'll be glad you did.

I say "trying" because I just sat here with my mouth hanging open until the whole thing was over. This is pure brilliance. 

Anyway, it seems appropriate to share this as I'm going out the door to start work on The Big Bang Theory:

 (Seen on Reddit)