It really is that simple. I love the man.
Why? Because he’s an incredibly good writer? Well, yeah; his blog is hysterical and his sense of comedy is great. Because he was on Star Trek, and I’m a huge geek? Well, duh.
But these pale, pale I say in comparison to the main reason I will always love this guy: he shows exquisitely good taste. He plugged my blog on his vidcast InDigital! It’s a good ‘cast, where he and two other technerds review cool gadgets. In the linked episode he reviewed the Celestron SkyScout, a portable planetarium thingy (which I have heard quite a bit about but have not yet used). At the end of the ‘cast, talking about astronomy, he goes way out of his way to plug my own humble (cough cough) blog:
Wil, since you you read this blog, let it be hereby known that you are way kewl. If you’re ever in the Boulder area, you are invited to stop by and have some of the best cookies you’ve ever had in your life (Mrs. BA is a genius at cookies). And then, weather permitting, we can haul out my telescope and take a look around the sky. I promise, you won’t need that Celestron gadget; I am a walking planetarium program.
Tip o’ the VISOR to Mary Jo Kelleher for alerting me to this!
June 5th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
After Picard and maybe Worf, Wesley was probably my favorite character in ST: TNG.
It’s so weird finding out that actors are real people.
June 5th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
And he likes The Smiths, too! You’re right, he rawks!
June 5th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
Awww.. Phil and Wil, sittin’ in a tree.
I just mooched “Just A Geek” from someone on bookmooch last week, currently waiting for it to arrive. Wil’s great. I love his writing style and his knowledge of pop culture nearly rivals Family Guy’s writers.
June 5th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
His writing is awesome. I’ve seen him around teh intarwebs. He seems very down to Earth, which I really enjoy. Seems only natural that he would plug you.
June 6th, 2007 at 12:08 am
I always thought his Wesley character on Star Trek TNG was just getting interesting when the series ended. His character was getting fed up with the goody-two-shoes attitude of Star Fleet the crew treating him like the boy genius. Wesley was turning a little edgy and rebellious.
June 6th, 2007 at 2:46 am
He also plays D&D!
RAWK!
June 6th, 2007 at 3:00 am
Also a regular farker, great guy
June 6th, 2007 at 3:23 am
I’m going to chime in here and agree that Wil is a very kewl guy. I’ve read his blog off and on for a few years and I love his books. He seems a real down to earth fellow.
June 6th, 2007 at 3:49 am
Hey, I just wanted to chime in to confirm that his plug did indeed work! I am a long-time reader of Wil’s blog, and I came to this site yesterday after seeing his mention of it on InDigital. So far I really like what I see, and I expect the site to become a regular part of my morning routine. =)
June 6th, 2007 at 5:17 am
Lets not forget his performance in “Stand by me” , one of the best films ever!
June 6th, 2007 at 6:41 am
Wil is a fine young actor. I look forward to his future work. Isn’t it encouraging to see really talented people who are NOT woo-woos?
Gary 7
June 6th, 2007 at 6:47 am
Nice to see that he has grown up to be an intelligent, articulate, skeptical adult
June 6th, 2007 at 7:22 am
I didn’t particularly care for the ‘Wesley saves the day” episodes (or the Troi falls in love/etc. either), but I have come to like Wil for his LINUX geekiness. Plus, when TechTV’s The Screen Savers moved to LA from SF, Patrick Norton suggested Wil as the replacement host.
J/P=?
June 6th, 2007 at 8:24 am
I just can’t get past the whole “Wesley saves the Enterprise” business of TNG. I think that will always poison my view of him.
June 6th, 2007 at 9:17 am
I also liked his turn in “Toy Soldiers”. Getting machine-gunned is pretty cool.
June 6th, 2007 at 9:25 am
I don’t know how I forgot this (okay, up at 4AM and haven’t finished more than one pot of coffee…) but Wil appeared in a movie that - oddly enough - preceded The Core (see BA’s comments elsewhere about that).. called Deep Core. Also had Terry Farrel (ST: DS9) and Bruce McGill (MacGyver/Airwolf/Quantum Leap). Ironically, it is EXACTLY the same plot as The Core - almost point for point. However, IMHO, it is actually better.
Deep Core on IMDB
2000 compared to 2003 for The Core
J/P=?
June 6th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
His best role by far was in the movie, “Stand by Me.”
June 6th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
[…] Wheaton likes the Bad Astronomy blog. The Bad Astronomer loves Wil Wheaton. […]
June 6th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Gee, “studpuppy” has changed (that was the nickname for his character on Star Trek my friends and I gave him).
June 6th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
Ok, I have to play devil’s advocate here. I couldn’t STAND the Wesley Crusher character. Way too cutsie and goodie goodie for me to stomach. I like characters with a bit more self-interest I guess. My fave character on TNG was Guinan (Woopie) followed closely by Data. I also kinda liked Tasha (Denise Crosby) even tho her time on the show was short. I bet she still regrets that decision, huh? I thought the eppie where she got all hornified and snagged Data to be her man-substitute was terrific :o)
I do promise to check out Wheaton’s blog tho. If you all think so highly of his writing, it has to have some merit. (See, I do have an open mind hehe)
June 6th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
MMM. He is pretty.
June 7th, 2007 at 3:47 am
Thank you, DenverAstro, for stating the obvious: I don’t know if it was the writers or really bad acting, but I just can’t stand most of the episodes that featured Wesley. Too much whining, god that kid needed a good face slap from his mother. OK, the last episode with him was decent, but I wonder if that’s because I knew he’d probably never be back again in the show.
June 7th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I’m glad he was on the enterprise, I didn’t like how they made him into a hyperspace traveler prodigy though that never seemed like his forte.
Glad he is such a cool (or uncool depending on your perspective) guy!
June 8th, 2007 at 10:24 am
DenverAstron, DennyMo, a little poking around will turn up some reviews that Wheaton has done on Next Gen. He has some rather critical remarks about the writers and their use of Wesley. I think he agrees with your assessment.
June 8th, 2007 at 10:29 am
One of my favorite episodes where Wesley saves the day involved some computer game that was actually a mind control device taking over the crew. What I liked was the ending had Wesley running around the ship being pursued by the crew to prevent him from escaping and subverting them, and they succeed in catching him, and then Data bursts in and sets off the device that breaks the hold of the mind control. Data had been turned off earlier in the episode because he wasn’t susceptible to the mind control. Wesley knew he couldn’t do it alone, but instead set himself up as the decoy so Data could work on the rescue device without being discovered. I thought that was a brilliant storyline variation for Wesley. The audience wasn’t aware of the decoy plan, so the drama of Wesley being the sole resistance, and then getting caught, was pretty tight.
June 28th, 2007 at 8:06 am
As a kid watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, I always hated Wesley. He was just so smarmy. Then I found out what an awesome guy Wil Wheaton is, and my mind exploded. His reviews of some of the episodes he was in are absolutely hysterical:
http://www.tvsquad.com/bloggers/wil-wheaton
July 10th, 2007 at 11:02 am
And let’s not forget “The Curse”!