UPS and FedEx are both terrible. They know how to make themselves very convenient for businesses to deal with. If you're an average person and they've messed something of yours up, you are just SOL. They do not care and they won't even try to make it better. They are infinitely worse than the postal service in my opinion. In my apartment complex (a solidly middle class kind of place) they just don't deliver to apartments. Their drivers both lie and say they attempted a delivery and then they deliver to the rental office. I work from a home office. I've taken to having important packages labeled as "perishable" and having the shipper ask that it be delivered to my apartment for signature. Anything less than both of those steps and I'll never see it and never even know they've delivered to the office.

The world has changed. Technology has changed. Where you might be running into a slight fallacy is in the notion that the way things are right now won't change. Maybe you'll never feel the need to blog about your life again. Maybe you will. We move in and out of different phases of our lives. It's not necessarily a linear progression of static-->change-->static-->more change. I know that I started reading your blog somewhere between December of 2001 and February of 2002. If you never move back into a phase where you use this platform to write about your life, then it was a joy and an honor to watch this journey of yours over the last decade.

@Dave, airport screening is a joke. We have fake security for show so that our government can look like it's doing something to fight terrorism. It's not like China where their regime has a need for drastic internal security. That said, if I were a terrorist and you told me that you weren't going to screen children's underpants, you'd bet I'd find a way to get a bomb in some kid's underpants and take them on a plane.

It's not silly to say it out loud, Wil. I think that the fact that you don't take it for granted, that you're grateful for the specific opportunities that you've created in your career in recent year is one of the things that your fans love. If you were a dick, you couldn't create what you do, whether that's on the stage or on the page.

I worked for a tech company that was based in downtown Vancouver for several years. They were bought by a bigger company that was then bought by a huge company. The former Vancouver HQ continued to be one of their largest north American sites. I got to go Vancouver, usually for 5-7 days at a time on several different occasions over the years. It's such a wonderful city. I'd love to find a way to have someone else pay for me to visit it frequently again. :)

Wil, one of the things I love about Stephen Colbert is that he has used his current fame to do all sorts of really cool stuff. He did a Christmas special with Elvis Costello! Every time I see him singing a song with some famous performer or flirting with Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda or having a species of spider named after him, I think "there's a guy who is using his fame in a really cool way". Your stuff with Nickelodeon back in your early teens is in the same book to me.

That floor is awesome. I think it's so cool that you've pulled a recurring role on a show that's the closest thing to D&D on TV. :)

I totally got a tear in my eye reading that.

The contest and the benefit and all of that really are just the cherry on top of this little slice of wonderful. That is my new desktop background at work and will be for a long, long time.

Great post, Wil. As flawed as the shuttle program has been, I have loved it for a variety of reasons. One of the strongest is that presents the kind of illusion of a big plane that just takes off into space and lands on a runway. A future where man is at home among the stars is one of my fondest hopes. I think more than anything (with its form and its routine of missions) the shuttle program has put the vision of that future as a truly viable one into people's heads.

I have a memory of him as Bob from one of the two parts of "Hurricane" that I think is the funniest thing ever on Night Court. But since I probably haven't seen that episode since it first aired (when I was like 12), I have no idea if my memory is accurate. I definitely need to track down some Night Court episodes.

Wow. For just a second, I was right back in the convenience store where I used to play Spy Hunter and Karate Champ in middle school in the mid 80s.

More crybaby stuff from the right wing. Their representatives have used far harsher rhetoric than that since the mid 90s. Democrats have cowered in the corner insisting we shouldn't get in the dirt with the GOP. Grayson is just hitting back. He's the first Florida Democrat since Lawton Chiles to have a bit of spine.

If there are time stamps in your sales data, I bet we could set up some staggered time series columns and use Xcelsius to create some sort of race like visualization of the data. It wouldn't have the race horse, though.

I'm in the opposite boat, Wil. I'm 36 and there are almost no pictures of me from the mid to late 80s. I really wish I had photos of some of my more "totally awesome" outfits.

I'm in the opposite boat, Wil. I'm 36 and there are almost no pictures of me from the mid to late 80s. I really wish I had photos of some of my more "totally awesome" outfits.

I think you're wrong about her motivation. I was an Edwards supporter who never took to either Obama or Clinton. Perseverance has always worked for the Clintons. People thought Bill Clinton was done after Iowa in 1992. People were saying his presidency was over when the Monica Lewinsky stuff came out. The Clintons have always kept at it when the conventional wisdom has told them to give up. I think that's what she's doing here.

I think you're wrong about her motivation. I was an Edwards supporter who never took to either Obama or Clinton. Perseverance has always worked for the Clintons. People thought Bill Clinton was done after Iowa in 1992. People were saying his presidency was over when the Monica Lewinsky stuff came out. The Clintons have always kept at it when the conventional wisdom has told them to give up. I think that's what she's doing here.

Congrats for you, but this sucks for me. :) When you announced the date that you were taking orders, I knew I wouldn't get one. I was scheduled to be in the air all day today, which I was. My first plane boarded before you were taking orders and my second one unloaded after you were sold out. Waaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!

Congrats for you, but this sucks for me. :) When you announced the date that you were taking orders, I knew I wouldn't get one. I was scheduled to be in the air all day today, which I was. My first plane boarded before you were taking orders and my second one unloaded after you were sold out. Waaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!

Congratulations, Wil! That's awesome.