My new book was reviewed on Slashdot yesterday, and while I was writing and reading comments, I noticed that the current Slashdot poll question is, simply put, “Best Star Trek?”

I was actually surprised that in all the years Slashdot has been bringing us news for nerds this is the first time this question has been asked, and when I went to vote for TNG, I remembered a story I liked to tell at conventions, back in the day.

In my first book, Dancing Barefoot, I wrote a story called The Saga of SpongeBob VegasPants (which, if nothing else, is a lesson to all you aspiring writers out there, and a reminder to the rest of us: put some fucking thought into your titles, guys, because if you don’t, you’ll be talking about The Saga of SpongeBob VegasPants for the rest of your life.) The story is about my experiences at a convention celebrating the 35th anniversary of the original Star Trek series. I’ve excerpted it for the GiR before, but I’ve never shared the particular story that the Slashdot poll brought to mind until today.

I’ll pick this story up while I’m on stage, giving my talk at the convention. Up until this point, thanks to a perfect storm of nerves, exhaustion, and being the last speaker of the day, I have absolutely sucked out loud. The audience has hated me, and some of them have walked out. I’m seriously thinking about doing us all a favor and just walking off the stage . . .

An experienced performer has a few jokes or stories that always get a good response. We call them “back pocket” material, and they are held in our minds for occasions like this. I decide to bring one of them out . . . but my mind draws a complete blank.

I have nothing, so I say, “Uh. Does anyone have any questions?”

I honestly expect someone to shout out, “How come you suck?” But nobody says anything.

I look at the crowd for a second, and I say with a smile, “Well then, I guess we're done here! Thanks a lot for coming, and have a great rest of the weekend!” I start to walk off stage, with every intention of continuing down the hall, and into the bar.

After a couple of steps, though, they all laugh. Hard.

What? That was funny? Okay, I'll take what I can get at this point. I relax a bit and begin to share my Star Trek memories. The crowd, which just moments ago was wishing their phasers were functional, warms up to me a little bit.

A woman dressed as Doctor Crusher stands up and says, “Say hello to your mother!”

“Okay . . .” I say, and turn to my real mom, Debbie, who is sitting on the opposite side of the theater. “Hey mom! Thanks for coming! Do I still suck?”

The whole room turns to find her.

“No. You're doing great, honey,” she says.

“Thanks, mom,” I say.

I call on a cute girl who wears a babydoll “Social Distortion” shirt.

“What was it like to kiss Ashley Judd?” she asks.

I smile broadly. “Come on up here, and I'll show you!”

Huge laugh. She stands up!

“Oh! No! I'm just kidding!” I hold up my hand, and point into my palm, “my ifeway isay inay the eaterthay!”

I glance at my wife. She's laughing and shaking her head, and she winks at me.

I feel good. They're laughing with me, and having a good time.

I call on an older man, who sits near the front, several bags of collectibles at his feet.

“Do you have a favorite episode of Voyager?” he asks.

“Well, The truth is, I've only watched Voyager a couple of times, and I really don't like it.”

There is a little bit of a gasp. Did Wesley just say he doesn't like Voyager?

I try to explain. “The episode was called Scorpion, and I watched it because my friend designed the monster that terrorized the crew for the entire episode.”

I hear angry sighs. People turn to talk to each other. Some of them leave.

What happened? All I said was that I don't like Voyager! What's the big deal? Lots of Trekkies don't like Voyager. Maybe I should have called it “V'ger.”

A guy waves his hand rather urgently, fingers spread in the Vulcan “Live long and prosper” salute. I point to him.

“What was your favorite episode of Deep Space Nine?”

“Well, the truth is, DS9 and Voyager just never appealed to me. The stories didn't interest me as much as the stories on Next Generation, or Classic Trek,” I say.

Big mistake. This is not what the fans want to hear. They want to hear how I love and care about these shows as much as they do, because that's exactly what they hear from the other actors. They get up on stage, and they give the fans exactly what they want.

Well, I don't do that. I tell them what it's truly like for me, warts and all. The truth is, sometimes being on Star Trek was the greatest thing in the world. Other times, it completely sucked. And, as blasphemous as this sounds, at the end of the day it was just a job.

But when all is said and done, I am still a fan at heart. I loved the original series. I am proud of the work I did on Next Generation. I cried when Spock died, and saw Star Trek IV in theaters six times.

I failed to mention all that, however. Without that information, it can piss people off that I don't have the same unconditional love for Star Trek that they do.

I look at my watch, and I have ten minutes left to fill. I have nothing to lose, so I reach into my back pocket . . . and find it filled with material.

“I have the limited edition Star Trek Monopoly game.” I say.

“Of course, it's a limited edition of 65 million. But it's extremely valuable, because I got a number under 21 million.”

They laugh. It's funny, because it's true.

I go one better. “Plus, it's got a certificate of authenticity signed by Captain Picard!

“Yes, that's right, my Star Trek Monopoly game, which I've rendered worthless by opening, comes with a certificate of authenticity signed in ink by a fictional character.”

I see a guy in the front row say something to his buddy, and they both nod their heads and laugh.

“Cool thing about the game, though, is that there is a Wesley Crusher game piece in it, and the first time we sat down to play it as a family, Ryan grabbed Wesley and proclaimed, as only an 11-year-old can, 'I'm Wil!! I'm Wil!! Nolan!! I'm all-time Wil!! I call it!!'”

I see some people smile. I start to pace the stage. I'm hitting my stride, and the stories flow out of me.

“One time, when we were renegotiating our contracts, we all asked for raises.

“We all felt a salary increase was appropriate, because The Next Generation was a hit. It was making gobs of money for Paramount, and we felt that we should share in that bounty.

“Of course, Paramount felt otherwise, so a long and annoying negotiation process began.

“During that process, the producers’ first counteroffer was that, in lieu of a raise, they would give my character a promotion, to lieutenant.”

I pause, and look around. I wrinkle my brow, and gaze upward.

“What? Were they serious?”

A fan hollers, “Yeah! Lieutenant Crusher! Woo!”

I smile back at him.

“My agent asked me what I wanted to do. I told him to call them back and remind them that Star Trek is just a television show.”

Okay, that was risky to say. It's pretty much the opposite of just a television show to a lot of these people, but I've gotten the audience back on my side, and they giggle.

“I imagined this phone call to the bank,” I mime a phone, and hold it to my ear. “Hi . . . Uh, I'm not going to be able to make my house payment this month, but don't worry! I am a lieutenant now.” I pause, listening to the voice on the other end.

“Where? Oh, on the Starship Enterprise.”

I pause.

“Enterprise D, yeah, the new one. Feel free to drop by Ten Forward for lunch someday. We'll put it on my officer's tab!”

Laughter, and applause. My time is up, and the promoter stands at the foot of the stage, politely letting me know that it's time for me to go.

The fans see this, and I pretend to not notice him.

“In 2001, startrek.com set up a poll to find out what fans thought the best Star Trek episode of all time was. The competition encompassed all the series. The nominated episode from Classic Trek was City On The Edge Of Forever. The entry for The Next Generation was Best of Both Worlds Part II. DS9 offered Trials and Tribble-ations, and Voyager weighed in with Scorpion II.”

As I name each show, various groups of people applaud and whistle, erasing any doubt as to what their favorite show is.

“Now, look. I know that Star Trek is just a TV show. Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure I just said that five minutes ago, but there was no way I was going to let my show lose. It just wasn't going to happen. Especially not to Voyager – er, V'ger, I mean.”

“So I went into my office, sat at my computer for 72 straight hours, and voted for TNG over and over again.”

The audience giggles.

“I didn't eat, and I didn't sleep. I just sat there, stinky in my own filth, clicking and hitting F5, a Howard Hughes for The Next Generation.

“Some time around the 71st hour, my wife realized that she hadn't seen me in awhile and started knocking on the door to see what I was doing.

“'Nothing! I'm, uh, working!' I shouted through the door. Click, Click, Click . . .

'I don't believe you! Tell me what you've been doing at the computer for so long!'

“I didn't want her to know what I was doing – I mean, it was terribly embarrassing . . . I had been sitting there, in crusty pajamas, voting in the Star Trek poll for three days.”

Some people make gagging noises, some people “eeww!” But it's all in good fun. They are really along for the ride, now. This is cool.

“She jiggled the handle, kicked at the bottom of the door, and it popped open!”

The audience gasps.

“I hurriedly shut down Mozilla, and spun around in my chair.

“'What have you been doing on this computer for three days, Wil?' she said.”

I look out across the audience, and pause dramatically. I lower my voice and confidentially say, “I was not about to admit the embarrassing truth, so I quickly said, 'I've been downloading porn, honey! Gigabytes of filthy, filthy, tentacled bukkake porn!'”

I have to stop, because the ballroom rocks with laughter. It's a genuine applause break!

“She was not amused. 'Tell me the truth,' she said.

“I sighed, and told her that I'd been stuffing the ballot box in an online Star Trek poll.

“'You are such a dork. I'd have been happier with the porn.'

“I brightened. 'Really?'

“'No,' she said. She set a plate of cold food on the desk and walked out, muttering something about nerds.

“I stayed in that office for another ten hours, just to be sure. When my eyes began to bleed, I finally walked away. It took several weeks of physical therapy before I could walk correctly again, but it was all worth it. Best of Both Worlds Part II won by a landslide.”

I pause dramatically, and the theater is silent.

“And it had nothing to do with my stuffing the box. It's because Next Generation FUCKING RULES!”

I throw my hand into the air, making the “devil horns” salute that adorns my satanic T-shirt, and the audience leaps to their feet, roaring with applause and laughter.

I can't believe it. I got them back. I say thank you, give the microphone to the promoter, who is now sitting on the stage pointedly checking his watch, and exit, stage left.

. . . for the record, I only voted once in this week’s Slashdot poll, and Next Generation is crushe(r)ing everyone else with 28788 votes. The closest is TOS, with 9107. As I said in 2001, it has nothing to do with my stuffing the box. It’s because Next Generation FUCKING RULES!

Wil Wheaton taught Karl Rove everything he knows about stuffing ballot boxes. Just kidding. Wil Wheaton hopes Karl Rove dies in a fire.

Last weekend, I went to Las Vegas for Creation’s annual Star Trek extravaganza. It’s the biggest Star Trek convention of the year, and the only one I’m aware of which attracts just about all the actors from each series, and thousands of devoted Star Trek fans.

As I’ve written before, I’ve been attending cons since I was a kid, and I’ve spent almost as much time standing in line to get autographs as I’ve spent sitting behind the table signing them. It’s given me a lot of perspective on why we go to cons, what makes cons good, what makes cons bad, and inspires me to do my very best to be a good guest when I’m invited.

I don’t go to nearly as many cons as I once did, but this summer I’ve appeared at more than usual, so making the convention experience awesome for fans has been on my mind. Here’s an incomplete list of things that have been on my mind this year:

Rule One: Conventions would not exist without fans.

I don’t know why this simple fact is so difficult for so many promoters and celebrity guests to understand: these people pay your fees and keep you in business. Jonathan Frakes bought his first house with money he earned at conventions. I’m putting my son through college the same way (well, first semester, anyway, we’ll do this one year at a time.) I know countless vendors who drive all over the country to sell their collectibles and crap (yes, there’s crap, and to suggest otherwise is, at best, disingenuous) to fans. We all have to understand that, without the fans who endure great expense and effort to come to the con, there is no con. Period.

Pay attention, promoters: you have no business without the fans who come to your shows. Don’t ever forget that, and respect them. I’ve personally watched promoters figure out that they could do something awesome for fans and earn nothing but goodwill for it, or alienate, exploit, and piss off fans to earn a dollar. Time and again, these people choose to earn the single dollar.

Rule Two: Conventions can not function without volunteers.

When you see a volunteer, thank them. They’re paying to be there just like you are, but they’re also volunteering their time to help make the convention run smoothly. Yes, some of them are power hungry jerks, but most of them are freely giving their time because they love the con and want to give something back to the community. They’re almost certainly being exploited by the convention promoter. They know this, and they do it anyway. The least we can do is thank them.

Rule Three: Respect your fellow fans.

Treat your fellow fans with kindness and respect, especially when you’re in line. Keep a deck of cards, some dice, or this awesome game called Pieces of Eight, and use them to make new friends. I had a lot of fun at Comic-Con this year while I waited in different lines (even the 90 minutes I waited to get into the Futurama panel, only to get cut off by about 40 people) because the people around me were so awesome, especially when we saw the kid dressed up as Link with his MILFtastic mom who was dressed up in a skin-tight spandex Poison Ivy costume and riffed on it:

speaking of waiting in line, here is the most important note I can ever give my fellow fans: Take a fucking shower every day. If you get hot and sweaty in your costume (excuse me, uh, “uniform”) and it’s stinky, guess what? You don’t get to wear it until you’ve had it cleaned. If we can see the stink lines coming off of you when you walk into the con, we shouldn’t have to endure standing next to you for two hours while we wait in an autograph line.

Rule Four: A memo to celebrity guests who sign autographs.

If someone waits in line to meet you and get your autograph, give them a moment of your undivided attention, listen to what they have to say, and honor them. If you’re not willing to seriously interact with the people who are paying outrageous sums of money to see you, do us all a favor and don’t go. When I was at the Creation Con in Vegas last weekend, I heard horror story after horror story about people I consider close friends who simply didn’t treat fans well. I heard from one fan who waited in line for over an hour to meet a particular actor. When he finally got to the head of the line, this particular actor took a call on his/her/its cell phone, carelessly scrawled his/her/its signature with one hand, and didn’t even make eye contact with this fan who: waited in line forever, paid money to get into the con, and paid money for the autograph! As I’ve written before: It’s never about the autograph; it’s about the interaction. If you don’t get that, you shouldn’t be there. If you do get that and you still treat fans like they are nobodies on an assembly line, you’re an ass.

If you doubt how memorable and wonderful the autograph thing can be, witness this experience I had in Vegas while I signed autographs on Thursday:

It wasn't about the autograph, really. That 8x10, covered with eight different signatures in black and silver and gold ink represented a journey for her. I don't know what happened on the journey, but I was there for the end of it, and it was awesome.

Rule Five: Don’t be a dick.

This one is for fans and promoters and celebrities alike. If you’re a promoter and you’re just doing whatever you can to separate the fans from their money, you’re a dick. If you’re a guest and and you’re just there to take whatever money you can from the fans without giving them any of your time or energy, you’re a dick. If you’re a fan, and you’re determined to be unhappy no matter what happens at the show, you’re also a dick. There are always fans at conventions who will not be happy no matter what happens, and we’ve all seen them. I will never understand why someone will spend the time and money to go to a show just to be miserable and complain the entire time they are there, but they are certainly a square on convention bingo.

There was a time when the majority of conventions were essentially huge organized parties where fans could gather together, take over a hotel for a weekend, and celebrate the thing they loved, whether it was Star Trek, gaming, or just science fiction and fantasy in general. Somewhere in the last fifteen years or so, though, that began to change. Screening rooms where you could watch everything from a bootleg third generation VHS copy of Akira without subtitles to a Prisoner marathon were phased out in favor of more vendor space. Fans became segregated into “gold” and “silver” and “general admission” groups, with each getting different treatment and levels of access. Celebrity guests refused to pose for photos, and wouldn’t personalize their autographs. (I was once guilty of this, and I deeply regret it. I blame my youth, and I’ve been working to make up for it ever since). It was around 2001 that I noticed that most cons (certainly the Creation cons) had become giant autograph shows, which was great for collectors, but pretty disappointing for everyone else. I know I’m tilting at windmills here, but I’d like to see less gouging of fans and more celebrating with fans. I’d like to see more fan-run cons like LosCon or Penguicon, or shows lke Dallas Comic-Con, with organizers who put the fans first and only invite celebrity guests who have the same philosophy.

It doesn’t have to be all about squeezing every last dollar out of every last fan. In fact, that’s not why these things were started in the first place. Remember that this is supposed to be fun. We’re all here because we love [Star Trek | Gaming | Battlestar | Buffy | Dressing up like characters from Naruto | Comics] and we want to celebrate it with our fellow fans. If we can meet someone responsible for helping create the object of our affection, it’s that much better. But it’s a fragile ecosystem, and a finite economy. If we all of us – fans, guests, and promoters – play a small part to care for it, we’ll have conventions to attend for years.

Wil Wheaton don't use words like that, St. Louise is listening.

As I sat down to put together this week's Geek in Review, I was faced with a choice: scream and rant and rave and foam at the mouth for two thousand words about how fucking evil and stupid the RIAA is for effectively destroying internet radio, damning many of their artists to obscurity and alienating their customers in the pathetic effort to return the music world to the 1970s, or share an entertaining convention memory about signing autographs at the 35th Anniversary convention in Las Vegas which I first wrote about in my book Dancing Barefoot.

I don't want to go to this well too often, but since everyone seemed to enjoy last week's montage of convention recollections, rather than angry up the blood this week I thought I'd tell you all a story . . .

I meet up with a convention staffer and we walk together, past several hundred fans, toward a long service hallway, where several tables have been set up. I've done this countless times before, but I politely listen to her, as she tells me how I will be spending the next few hours.

"The fans will come into this hallway in groups of 25, and stop at each table for an autograph. We've asked them to move quickly, because there are hundreds of people in this line. If you need water or pens or anything, there will be several volunteers to help you out." She points to my table, which is about fifty feet down the hallway, near a fire exit.

As I walk toward my table, I pass some of my longtime friends: Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis, Armin Shimerman. We share handshakes and hugs. It's always great to see them, and I wish that I could see them more frequently, instead of once a year at cons. I also pass some people I know only through these events: Rene Auberjonois, and some cast members from DS9 and Voyager who I know by face, but not by name. In fact, every Star Trek series and movie is represented in this hallway, including WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER, who is talking with Kate Mulgrew. I share smiles and waves -- and a polite nod with WFS -- as I pass. We're part of the same fraternity, and we all know what we're in for over the next several hours. This is an all-too brief calm before that storm descends, and everyone is making sure they enjoy it.

I get to the end of the hall, and sit at my table. I uncap my sharpie, and put on my game face. My pen hand is strong. I'm ready to be witty, charming and friendly. Although the actual number of autographs I've signed over the years is probably close to half a million, I am determined to make each fan I am about to see feel like the autograph I'm currently signing is the only one I've signed all day, maybe the only one I've signed in my whole life.

Over the years, I've learned something from being on both sides of this table: it's never about the signature. It's about that brief moment, that brief encounter with a Star Trek cast member, that is so important to the fans. That 30 seconds or so of hopefully undivided attention is what they're really paying for, and I always do my best to make sure they get their money's worth. Contrary to popular belief, sitting at a table signing hundreds of autographs for several hours without a break is hard. It's not just mindlessly scrawling my name; It's stopping and listening to the always excited, sometimes shaking, always sweating, sometimes scary dude who wants to know exactly why I did "X" on episode "Y" and would I please sign his picture in silver . . . because Marina signed it in gold and now I want the men in silver and the women in gold, and I hated your character and here are 25 reasons why and I expect an answer for each one of them and I'm not leaving until I'm satisfied.

This particular convention is epic, and has attracted one of the largest crowds I've seen since we sold out the Royal Albert Hall to the tune of over 5,000 Trekkies around 1997. I sure hope this doesn't turn into Altamont. Well, at least I'm close to the fire exit if it does.

The fans will come down what amounts to an assembly line, where they stop at a table, enjoy their 30 seconds of attention and trade a ticket for an autograph. They move to the next table, and repeat.

I personally think that this "assembly line" method, while the only one that really works -- especially for a huge crowd like this -- has the potential to totally suck for the fans: the first one hundred or so who come through the line will get to see a smiling, effusive, friendly actor, and will leave feeling happy and satisfied. Those unlucky ones who are at the end of the line risk seeing actors who are tired, with cramped hands and degraded signatures.

It is a challenge for me, but I never forget that not only have the last fans through the line have paid as much as the first fans, but they've also waited much longer, so they are the ones that I need to give the most attention to when I am the most drained. I know that as I get toward the end of the line, my humor slows down, and my voice fades. I'm sure I've let a lot of people down over the years, but I always do my best.

I think about all these things as I see the first fan walking down the hallway, trading tickets and getting signatures from actors. I watch her as she goes table to table. She's not wearing a spacesuit . . . that's a good sign. She has a witty sci-fi T-shirt on. Also a good sign. About 20 feet away, I still can't smell her. A VERY good sign.

She arrives at my table, and I cheerfully say, "Hi! How are you doing today?!"

"AWFUL! THIS IS THE WORST CONVENTION I HAVE EVER BEEN TO! I HATE DAVE SCOTT! I HATE LAS VEGAS! I HATE THIS CONVENTION!"

Oh boy. This is not the way I'd hoped to start out.

Though the promoter, Dave Scott, will eventually take a lot of money from a lot of people and make a lot of enemies on his way to Fandom Infamy (I believe there is a pretty serious and extensive lawsuit pending against him in Kansas, and he polls about even with Dick Cheney among Trekkies,) as of this moment, I haven't had any problems with him. As far as I know, he's a decent guy, so I try to soothe her. "Uhh . . . I think . . . that . . . this convention . . . just started . . . and . . . uhh . . . I'm sure that if you talk to Dave Scott, everyt–"

"DAVE SCOTT IS AN ARROGANT ASSHOLE!"

"Uh . . . yeah . . . well, you see, the thing is, I'm sort of not exactly involved in the planning of this convention, you know? I'm just, like, a guest . . . maybe you could try talking with som–"

"THIS IS THE MOST FAN-UNFRIENDLY CONVENTION I HAVE EVER BEEN TO!"

And she storms away, without an autograph, without another word.

I look at Marina, who's one table down from me, on the other side of the fire exit. Angry Fan has stormed past her, too. Marina shrugs, and I make the international sign for "crazy person" by twirling my finger near my temple.

Mid-twirl, I hear a man clear his throat, and I look up to see a smiling middle-aged face. He has a dark beard, and is dressed as Commander Riker. He gives his autograph ticket to the volunteer sitting next to me, and asks me to sign his model of the Enterprise D. He thanks me, shakes my hand and moves along.

And so it is in the world of Star Trek conventions. One person will scream at me, and the next will want to give me a hug. A person will walk up dressed in an elaborate Borg costume, and the next person will be dressed in a T-shirt and Dickies, quietly laughing at "all the weirdos."

For the next three hours, I sign pictures of the young, geeky Wesley Crusher. I sign posters of the teen heartthrob that I'm told I once was. I sign cast posters that I'm not even on, in silver because everyone else did, accepting the apologies from the poster owners that I'm not on the poster I'm currently signing. I always answer with the same joke: "That's okay, you just can't see me, because I'm on this planet here . . ." They laugh and feel good and so do I.

It's uneventful for awhile, until a group of very attractive German girls comes over next, and two of them tell me, in broken English, how much they love me. I think to myself, Oh yeah, tell me some more, baby. Tell daddy how you love him. Ich bin ein sexmachiner!

What?

Oh. That. Sorry. Moving along . . .

There are also two dozen Japanese twenty somethings who have all come over together from Tokyo. Every single one of them is excited, and clearly having a great time. I watch them come down the hallway, talking excitedly among themselves between explosions of laughter and peace-sign poses for pictures. The girls ask me to write their names on their picture when I sign it, and they giggle and bow and blush and thank me, over and over. They may not love me like the Germans do, but they are insanely hot in their schoolgirl outfits and Linn Minmay costumes. For a second, I feel like a rock star.

One of the Japanese group is a boy, about my height. When he presents his Wesley Crusher action figure for my signature, he tells me, "My friend all say I am you twin!"

They all nod in agreement and he smiles proudly. "We look just the same!"

Last time I checked, I wasn't Japanese, but I'm not about to tell him that. I look at him for a moment and reply, "Dude. You are so right. It's like I'm looking in a mirror!"

He turns to his friends, says something in Japanese, and they all share an excited murmur, followed by the now-familiar explosion of laughter. I pick up my pen, and write: "To Hiroyuki, my long lost twin brother: Don't Panic! -Wil Wheaton."

He thanks me over and over. His smile is so huge, I fear that his face will turn inside out. As he walks away from my table, I feel happy – I've brought joy into this dude's life, just by signing my name and being friendly. It's one of the few perks (or responsibilities, if you will) that comes with celebrity that I truly enjoy.

A bit later, about 200 or so people into the line, I have one of those memorable "battlefield" experiences that we Star Trek actors share during at an airport bar in Chicago, on our way home after a convention in Cleveland.

I've just finished signing a poster for a 40-ish man who is wearing a spacesuit that is a little too tight across the waist. He's painted his face blue, and donned a white wig topped with antennae, like the Andorians from the original Star Trek. The next person in line is a woman in her 30s, dressed conservatively.

I say hello, and she smiles at me . . . until she sees my T-shirt, and becomes hysterical. She points at it and screeches at me, "You are going to hay-ell! You are going to hay-ell!"

"Why am I going to hell, ma'am?" I ask, trying to figure out if she is joking. I am wearing a black T-shirt with a cartoony picture of a hand throwing the goat. Beneath it, it says, "Keep Music Evil." I think it's very funny, and it's a nice counter-point to the squeaky-clean image of Wesley Crusher that is so indelibly burned into these people's minds.

"You're wearing that shirt! And that shirt promotes SATAN!"

Okay, she's definitely not joking.

"So . . . I'm going to hell . . . because I'm wearing a shirt? Is that right?" I ask her, patiently.

"Yes! You! Are! Going! To! HAY-ELL!"

"Well, as long as I'm not going where you are, ma'am."

And she leaves, but not without getting my signature, on her collectible plate, in gold ink, not silver, because John DeLancie signed his in silver, so now silver is the color reserved for "Q." Nobody else can sign in silver. Not even a captain. Well, maybe Captain Picard, but not Captain Janeway.

I am able to contain my giggles until she is out of ear-shot.

"Is it always like this?" the volunteer sitting at my table inquires.

"Oh no," I say. "Sometimes it gets weird."

We laugh, and the signing goes on.

And on.

And on.

Wil Wheaton is looking forward to seeing you all in HAY-ELL! Have a nice day.

There's this great xkcd that illustrates how you can start reading about the Tacoma Narrows Bridge at Wikipedia, and three hours later find yourself with William Howard Taft and Wet T-Shirt Contest open in two tabs. It's funny, the saying goes, because it's true.

I mention this as an introduction to how I came across this rather embarrassing but hilarious photo earlier this week, while looking for "zombie wil wheaton" on google images. (The entire story behind that little affair is in my blog, if you're interested.)



I had completely forgotten about it, but the photo is from 1987 or 1988, when I made my very first official Star Trek convention appearance at a little indie con in Florida (Tampa, I think it was.) I was just about fifteen at the time, and such a nerd.

In addition to the normal convention things, they asked me to play Star Trek Jeopardy. Being fifteen, and a total nerd, I couldn't just stand up there like a normal person. Oh no. I had to walk into the dealer's room, and pester (I would have insisted that I just asked, but if I recall anything about myself at fifteen it's that I had two settings: annoy and sulk) the hapless dealers for the various bits of costume and makeup to turn myself into "Mr. Schlock," who you see pictured here.

Overcome by nerves and a lack of hardcore Star Trek trivia knowledge (I was just a kid, after all,) I did very poorly at the game, but I think the audience was entertained, even when I got the class of the Enterprise-D – that's my Enterprise, for those of you keeping score at home – wrong. I believe I said, in my most serious and Mr. Spock-like voice, "What is 'Superhyperreallyfast Constitution Awesome Class, Vince?"

The funny thing is, until I typed those words, I didn't remember that the promoter's name was Vince, but when the sound of my fifteen year-old voice spoke to me across twenty years of memory, it sort of opened a flood of memories about my years on the convention circuit . . .

If you're unfamiliar with Star Trek conventions, this primer from my book Just A Geek may be helpful:

The first time I was on stage at a convention was in Anaheim, right around the time Next Generation started. I wasn't there "officially," but my friend and I had gone to check it out, so if I was asked to attend cons in the future, I'd know what I was getting into.

The promoter found out I was wandering around the show – I'd paid to get in and everything, so it would be on the down low – and offered me the glorious sum of one hundred bucks – in cash! – to speak for an hour. To a 14 year-old, a hundred bucks sounds an awful lot like a million, and without knowing how badly I was being ripped off (the average person who speaks at a convention earns between five and ten thousand dollars for their time,) I gleefully accepted the "generous" offer and did my best to answer questions for an hour.

If you think it went well, you haven't spent any quality time around a fourteen year-old (geek or otherwise) recently . . . but I had my one hundred bucks, which I spent on books and props in the dealer's room. If this sounds an awful lot like my short story The Trade, it's because I apparently learned nothing about negotiation and money management between the ages of eight and fourteen.

Things were really different back then, long before Creation pretty much forced everyone else out of the market and eliminated a lot of the individuality of regional conventions. Back then, there were as many convention promoters as there were Holiday Inns around the country willing to host a few hundred Trekkies for a weekend, and every single con had its own unique feeling.

I remember going to a convention with my mom in Philadelphia, where she got food poisoning. I don't remember a thing about the convention, but I can still see and feel the waiting area in the emergency room ,dark wood on the walls, old magazines on the tables and chairs, ugly white and yellow linoleum tiles on the floor, where I spent the entire night playing Tetris on my Gameboy and listening to The Final Cut on my Walkman, trying not to be too freaked out that my mom was in the hospital and we were a million miles from home. ("A million" was the default value for "a lot" when I was a kid.)

When I was 18 or 19, I learned that even if the microphone really looks like a Magic Wand massager, it's probably not the smartest thing to tell the audience, "Wow! I'm talking into some sort of marital aid!" when you're in the middle of the Bible Belt.

I remember flying to New Jersey to do a convention with Marina Sirtis, and playing head to head Tetris on our Gameboys the entire flight. I had a massive crush on her back then, and though the thought crossed my mind for most of the trip, I didn't have the courage or the nerve to suggest strip head-to-head Tetris when we arrived. In my sixteen year-old mind, it totally would have happened if I had.

Once, in Oklahoma, I was a guest at a dinner where I sat with a few other Trek actors while some Boy Scouts served us. The menu had barbecued chicken, beef, and bologna.

"Wait," I remember telling the kid, who was about the same age as me, "barbecued bologna?"

"Yeah," he said, "it's center-cut."

Neither one of us knew what that meant, but I'd grown up white trash enough to know that bologna was not something I wanted to eat, even – no, especially – if it was barbecued. The problem, however, is that barbecued bologna was a local delicacy, and I was seated at the head table.

I ate it, pretended to like it, and until today, nobody was the wiser.

At LosCon in Pasadena, right after I'd gotten my driver's license and first car (1989 Honda Prelude si 4WS, which was unintentionally one step better than Patrick Stewart's and the subject of much backstage teasing) I met my first Science Fiction idol, Larry Niven.

The meeting went something like this:

Me: Oh my god, you're Larry Niven!

Him: Oh my god, you're Wesley on Star Trek!

Both: What?

Both: Can I have your autograph?!

Both: Yes!

Both: COOL!

I still have my copies of Ringworld and Ringworld Engineers that he signed for me.

They weren't all good times, of course; while most of the cons were fantastic, and run by guys like Vince who really cared about fans and wanted them to have a good time, others were pretty awful, run by complete con artists who just wanted to take their money and get out of town before anyone figured out what they were up to, like a couple of guys who still owe a lot of fans and actors money that we'll never see.

I remember one of those guys (in the pre-internet days) convincing 16 year-old me that it was a "short drive" from Amarillo to Denton, and not having the good sense to look on a map for myself, I agreed to do two different cities in two different days. As the drive across Texas entered its third hour, I learned an important lesson about not ever trusting anyone.

On countless occasions, someone would tell fans one of us was coming to a show, take their money, and then claim that we'd canceled at the last minute. Of course, the only time any of us had heard about the show was when an irate fan wanted to know why we'd backed out of it.

For you damn kids today who have always had e-mail and the Internets and cell phones, it may be hard to picture a world where a Gameboy was high tech, but it's where I came of age. That world seemed bigger than it does today, and from time to time, I miss driving straight from Paramount to LAX on Friday after work, and falling asleep on the red eye somewhere over New Mexico while still wearing Wesley's helmet hair.

It was a lot of work to travel the country every weekend, and over the years the Holiday Inns all bled together like a smear of Sharpie ink across the heel of my hand after a marathon autograph session, but there were many more good times than bad. It was fun to see so many different places and people, all united by their love of this thing that I was lucky enough to be part of – at least until the alt.wesley.die.die.die thing really got rolling.

There are still a few regional gaming cons and comic cons and Linux cons and cavecons every year, but not a lot of purely Star Trek conventions exist any more, as far as I can tell. Part of it has to be economics, and how hard it is to compete with Creation, but I also I blame The Powers That Be for making several years of sucktastic Trek that wasn't worth watching, much less traveling to a Holiday Inn to celebrate.

Over the last couple of years, I've begun attending conventions again, but now I go as a fan. I'm glad that I stopped going to cons for work, because I don't think I would have ever been able to appreciate how fun they are when you're just there to geek out. Those of us who will cram thirteen of our friends into a hotel room for a weekend to geek out together have a place to go where not only will we not be laughed at for dressing up but encouraged to do it (except the furries; those weirdos are on their own.) We can invade a hotel for a weekend, pretend it's like the cereal convention in Sandman, and recover enough hit points to survive our real lives until the next one.

The world has changed a lot in twenty years. Star Trek has been taken off the air as a first run series and, as Ron Moore said, "returned to the care of the fans," who kept it alive with conventions and the like from its cancellation in 1969 until the movies started in 1979. Gameboys and Walkmans have been replaced by PSPs and iPods, and indie cons which were once scattered across the country have been replaced by a handful of bigger cons in major cities, run by Creation.

The last few shows I attended as a guest felt more like marketplaces for completists and collectors than real parties for the fans, but now that Trek has been given back to them, I suspect that will slowly change. And with that in mind, one thing remains unchanged in twenty years: as a speaker and as a fan, taking that Friday red eye sounds like a pretty cool thing to do.

Wil Wheaton won no awards for his portrayal of Mr. Schlock, and the role was quietly replaced by Poochie in 1989.

Of all the things I do that make me a geek, nothing brings me as much joy, or has eaten up as much of my not-as-disposable-as-it-once-was income as gaming. In fact, in my teens, while a lot of my peers were busy trying to fit in and be cool, I was painting 40K figures, designing Division 20 vehicles for Car Wars, and making back room deals in Diplomacy.

But as I've grown older, and taken on more adult responsibilities, finding time to game with my friends (who have also have mortgages and families of their own) has become really, really hard. Finding time to go to a convention? I may as well find time to build and pilot a rocket ship to the moon.

But this past weekend, when I discovered that the Southern California incarnation of the mother of all gaming conventions, Gen Con, was happening in Anaheim, I came up with a fiendish plan to spend the day there on Saturday: I'd play some games, surround myself with geeks, and write about it for the Geek in Review.

I believe this is called "living the dream" . . .

After I picked up my badge, I wandered around for a few minutes, stunned at the volume of collectible card game players. There were hundreds of them, mostly pre-teens playing Yu-Gi-Oh!, occupying about a third of the entire convention floor. Was this what the whole con was going to be? Had CCGs taken over gaming? Not entirely, I realized, as I passed an area of networked computers, where teens played CounterStrike, and World of WarCraft. Just down the hall from them, other teens played Xbox and PS3 games. I pulled out my notebook and wrote, "Things have changed. The cut-out turning key for Deluxe Car Wars is no longer state-of-the-art. The Wheel of Time keeps turning."

So-Cal Gen Con was in a huge hall at the Anaheim Convention Center. It was harshly-lit, and felt cold and cavernous, more like Comic Con than the more intimate gaming cons I remembered as a teenager. I felt intimidated, and wondered if it had been a mistake to come.

I kept walking, and looked for the exhibitor's area. This was always my favorite part of the con, where I can get demos of new games, maybe pick up a nerdy T-shirt or two, or find an out-of-print sourcebook that the completist in me simply must have. (Because, you know, it really makes sense for me to buy GURPS Humanx. I may need it for that Steampunk/Supers/Horror/Humanx campaign that everyone's been dying to play for the last, well, never.)

I stopped at a T-shirt booth, and laughed really hard at an "Arkham Ambulance and Catering" design. I made my save vs. "I really want it" roll (+5, for Fear of Wife's Wrath) and moved on. Just past the end of the aisle, I happened upon a booth where a vaguely familiar game was about to be demoed. It looked like one I'd played before, but something wasn't right.

"Is that Kill Doctor Lucky?" I said.

"Yes, it is," the guy running the demo said. "Have you played it before?"

"I have," I said, "but seeing it in color, with its own pieces and in a strong large box that could actually withstand some abuse is a little . . . well, actually, it's a lot disturbing."[1]

He laughed. "Would you like to play a demo?"

"Yes. Yes I would." I pulled out a chair, sat down, and the con truly began for me. I was gaming, and nothing else mattered in the world. For the next twenty minutes or so, did my best to kill Doctor Lucky, which I managed to eventually do, cracking jokes and befriending the other players as we played. I was in my element, back among the nerds, and I was as happy as I'd been in weeks.

When I finished, I got a copy of the new version of Kill Doctor Lucky, walked down the aisle, and stopped to admire some impressive (and expensive) armor and weapons. While I looked at a replica sword from Lord of the Rings, a guy tapped me on the shoulder.

"I don't want to make a scene," he said, "but I wanted to tell you how cool I think it is that you're a gamer."

I smiled. "Thank you, man," I said.

"I don't want to bother you, but I just wanted to say hello, and I love your blog. Have a good time." He vanished into the crowd before I could say anything else. Before I could move, another guy walked up to me, and told me how much he and his wife liked Star Trek, and that he didn't understand why people gave me such a hard time about my character. What a change it was from the last time I was at a gaming con eighteen years ago, when I was surrounded by "Kill Wesley" stickers and buttons, and a lot of my fellow gamers thought it was really neat to be so cruel to me, I left games after just a few turns. (Okay, so not all progress is bad.)

For the next two hours, I slowly wandered the exhibitor's area, stopping to check out new games, fondly looking over old ones, and making several "save vs. I want it" rolls. Eventually, I decided to head out of the convention center to a hotel across the parking lot, where a bunch of movies were being screened. I wanted to see a mockumentary about Star Wars nerds called A Great Disturbance.

On my way, I got lost. I found myself upstairs in the convention center, where some brilliant convention center management people had booked a loud, evangelical revival for Spanish teenagers across the hall from the rooms where most of the RPG's were set up. It reminded me of that old Far Side where the day care is built next to the dingo farm, and the caption reads, "Trouble brewing."

I walked back downstairs, and across the parking lot to the hotel, where I got lost again. This time, I found myself in some sort of holiday purse sale on the second floor, then at the Council on Indian Medicine's annual meeting on the third floor. I went back to the lobby, where I found a guy wearing a Gen Con badge.

"Do you know where the movies are?" I said.

Not only did he not know, he only spoke German. At this point, I began to laugh so hard at my predicament, it attracted the attention of a passing group of gamers.

"Hey," I said. "Do you know where the movies are?"

"Yeah," one of them said. "It's across the street."

He pointed out the door, and across the street, where a steady stream of geeks in capes, pirate outfits, trench coats, and various sci-fi costumes moved like a trail of ants from the convention center into a different hotel.

"Ah," I said. "I went to the wrong hotel. Thanks!"

I made my way over to the correct hotel, and finally felt like I was at one of the cons I remember. It was intimate, dimly-lit, and packed with people in costumes, people playing games, people napping on couches, and people doing the things that geeks do. I passed one guy gloating into his cell phone, "So, I guess you're not picking up your phone after that humiliating defeat?" He was cleaning up the aftermath of a Magic: The Gathering duel. A pair of men passed me, heavily engaged in conversation. One of them said to the other, "Not only is it a valid thought, it's a valid line of discussion!" I have no idea what they were talking about, but it certainly seemed, uh, valid to them. Four teenagers (two boys and two girls) walked in front of me as I crossed the lobby, one wearing a Cthulhu backpack. All of them were dressed in black pants, the boys with the obligatory flannel shirts unbuttoned over their T-shirts.

"Wait," one of the boys said to one of the girls. "You got up at seven?"

"Yeah," she said. "I had to, so I could take a shower."

The boys barked out the geek laugh, the one that is sort of like a cough and an airhorn.

"What? Don't you get up to shower in the morning?" She said.

"No way, man!" The boy said. "I just get up and go!"

Walking behind them, I could confirm this fact.

They went left, toward the elevators, and I went right, toward the True Dungeon[2] and the screening rooms, where I discovered that I'd missed the movie. So instead of A Great Disturbance, I ended up watching The Gamers: Dorkness Rising in the room next door. The movie is hilarious, and if you know why it's funny for a Bard to have twenty ranks in seduction, you'll love it. Imagine watching Waiting for Guffman with community theater nerds who all have a sense of humor about themselves, and you'll know what it was like to watch this film, about gamers in a d20 adventure, surrounded by gamers who just came from playing a d20 adventure.

When the movie ended, I walked back to the convention center, but there really wasn't anything left to see. I took a few pictures, bought a couple of new games, and made plans to attend for more than just one day next year, and maybe even do something I've never done, and travel to a convention for fun, instead of work.

Throughout the day a lot of people stopped and talked to me. They all had kind things to say about my blog, my books, even the column I briefly wrote for Dungeon magazine in 2005.[3] I realized that their kindness, their camaraderie, and the feeling of acceptance I got when talking with them is a huge part of why I love gaming, and why I miss gaming with my friends so much now.

Games are more than just rolling polyhedral dice and shouting, "Huzzah!" The games we play are an excuse to get together and escape the mundane reality of our daily lives. When we play RPGs, we make up a story together where we're heroes, our kids don't talk back, and we don't have to sit in traffic. When we play a miniature wargame, we're just recreating the games we played with green plastic army men when we were young, only this time we have bolt guns and blast templates. Whatever we play, it's more than just a game: it's quoting movies and giving each other shit and debating the best Batman actor (Michael Keaton), the worst Batman film (Batman and Robin), the best Lord of the Rings (Two Towers Super Extendo-Director's-Cut version) and the inevitable Star Wars argument. It's talking about our kids and hoping that they grow up at least Neutral Good. It's about making time to do something we love. Some people play softball on the weekends; we play Settlers of Catan. In the end, the result is the same: we all end up drunk and happy, with scrapes on our elbows that we can't explain.

Gen Con's website says, "Thousands of gaming enthusiasts gather together and celebrate 96 hours of what we do best: Play hard. Create worlds. Think brilliantly. Be our heroes. Be ourselves." I love that. If you're a geek, and you've never been to a con, I highly recommend making it a priority to attend one before you're too buried by responsibility to really blow off everything and just play games, watch movies, and wear a Storm Trooper costume without anyone looking at you like you're insane. Gamers should check out Gen Con Indy, Gen Con So-Cal, Kubla Con, or any of the Strategicons. Non-gamers or multi-class gamers who have one or more ranks in Sci-Fi may like Penguicon, Linucon, or LosCon. These are places where it's not just acceptable to embrace your inner geek, it's required.

But take a big Bag of Holding; you're not going to make all those save vs. "I want it" rolls, and you'll need a place to put your loot. Trust me, I'm the voice of experience on this one.

Wil Wheaton has this great Steampunk/Supers/Horror/Humanx campaign ready to go, if anyone is interested. Or we could just play Devil Bunny Wants A Ham.

[1] For the non-gamers or proto-gamers in the audience: Kill Dr. Lucky is published by Cheapass Games, a wonderful little company who made a name for themselves releasing fun games without any pieces. They figured that you already had a lot of pieces from other games, so by just shipping the rules, and simple black-and-white boards and cards, they could sell them for less. Hence the name Cheapass. They have won a pile of awards, and publish some of my favorite games of all-time, including the aforementioned Kill Doctor Lucky, and the cardgame Gimmie The Brain.

[2] True Dungeon is a d20 variant that is like Live Action Role Playing, but totally not lame. I've done it once, where I was killed by a giant spider. I didn't do it this year, because I didn't have any friends with me, and lost my nerve to join an adventuring party by myself.

[3] The column was short-lived because I wrote about more than just D&D (sort of like what I do here,) and a lot of readers decided to hate whatever I wrote, because I played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek nineteen years ago. They wrote lots of letters, sent lots of e-mails, and spent a lot of time and energy freaking out in message forums. Ultimately, it just wasn't worth the headache, and we ended it after less than a year.