Sidecar – You Fucked It Up (The Nerd Rage Rap)

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“We’ll put on ‘Zeppelin and eat cheddar cheese.”

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Yes, we both have brown hair.
Yes, we are essentially the same height.
Yes, we both have been known to have beards.
Yes, we are on the geeky end of the scale.
Yes, we both have blogs that were surprisingly close in Alexa traffic and rank last year.
No, we are not the same person.

Wil Wheaton is a TV star (Star Trek), movie star (Stand By Me), and author who lives on the West Coast. I am a blogger, beardsmith, and man of leisure who lives on the East Coast. I am not a character written by Wheaton to test something different on a new audience. I’m not a marketing scheme. I’m a real person and I exist. I don’t understand why people would think otherwise.

“That sounds exactly like something you’d say to throw us off. Point out the glaring similarities between actor and character before we do, and then convince us that they’re insignificant and coincidental. To be a good actor you have to create a detailed character, and if he has some of your personality traits, it just makes it easier for you to portray him.

Once you get the framework created, you just need to add a few quirks to make him more believable. Maybe you give his girlfriend a geeky enough moniker that it could be part of a secure password. Maybe you make him do something that everyone dreams of like quitting his job. Maybe you create a little conflict with stories of a mysteriously never ending house renovation. Hell, maybe you even make him grow a crazy beard every year just for fun.”

Whoa. Those are real things. I do have #1GF!, I did walk away from my job for no good reason, and I have been growing an annual beard for a decade.

“Uh huh.”

Look, I will admit to reading Wil Wheaton’s blog, even though I make it a point to steer clear of blogs written by famous people. He writes pretty normally for a famous guy, and he steers toward geeky topics that I can relate to. He doesn’t write this blog though. In fact, I don’t think that Wheaton has ever read this blog, never mind written it. It’s doubtful that he knows this corner of the web exists.

“Well that didn’t take long. You worked a plug back to your own blog into the first three paragraphs of your denial. Nice job, Wil. Wooo Wooo! All aboard the self-promotion train. Next stop: Hollywood. Hey, I also noticed you featured a Star Trek shirt in one of the pictures on the beard quest page. It’s a classic shirt, but I imagine that it was enough to remind people about Star Trek. Did that help DVD sales at all?”

I wasn’t on Star Trek. Wheaton was. And I’m sure that he has people who have people who have interns who could think of more direct ways to make a plug than that. I just thought it would be a funny addition to the Federation Standard sideburns. I never had a reason to wear that shirt again because, like I said, I never appeared on the show.

“Sure, you didn’t. So, what’s Patrick Stewart like? Is he engaging? Bwah ha ha ha.”

I really have no idea. I don’t know Patrick Stewart. The closest I’ve ever been to the Star Trek bridge was a Riker magnet that I used to have on my fridge.

“I bet a lot of geeky computer types have those. Like maybe a former programmer and child star perhaps?”

What, did Wheaton work as a programmer or something?

“I think you know the answer to that.”

Ok, so programmers prefer Star Trek magnets and I have a Star Trek magnet, so I’m a programmer and Wil Wheaton? Is that the logic here? Seriously? You know if that were code, I’d just insert use strict; above it just to watch it implode.

“Speaking of which, it would be so awesome to have Wil Wheaton program my website with HTML or whatever. Would you do that, Wil?”

Ok. First off, HTML isn’t technically programming. And what the hell are you talking about?

“Programming. You. Wil the programmer. Childhood star and geek icon. Programming my website so that it absorbs every website on all three of the internets. Make it like the Borg of HTML. The tagline will be ‘You will be assimilated’ with the ass in all caps. This is going to be awesome.”

What? All three what now? I feel like I must be dreaming here. Listen. Let me straighten this out. I can build websites and I’m well versed with Perl and other scripting languages, but Wil Wheaton is a programmer, Jon Dyer is not. Jon Dyer is a scripter. Neither one is going to make you a website.

Jon Dyer eats Perl for breakfast. I pour milk on it, and throw it into a microwave that I built with Microwave::Perl that shoots tiny lines of Perl at milk covered Perl code to heat it up enough for me to eat from a spoon and bowl that are so obfuscated that it takes me a few minutes just to find in the cabinet. That’s how I start my day. Wheaton couldn’t possibly start his day that way because it would take him until late afternoon just to locate and load all the required CPAN modules. Oh, that, and Wheaton is a programmer, and not JAPH.

“Yes, but didn’t Wheaton once admit that he wanted to learn Perl in his geek code a while back? For him to create a character who is a Perl wizard doesn’t seem out of the ordinary.”

Geek Code? GEEK CODE? Is this 1997? Is that still around? In any case, would Wheaton write this Jon Dyer character to have used several revisions of LINUX over the years, but switch back to Windows because he likes it better? Would Wheaton write a character like that?

“No, but who would? If you were real, Jon Dyer, I’d come over to your house and slap the shit out of you for saying something like that. That’s just not right. Minus 42 geek points for your Jon Dyer character, Wil. Next you’ll be saying that you’re not down with D&D style games.”

People of Irish descent make reference to boiled dinner, but it doesn’t mean that they actually like eating it. Boiled dinner is part of the culture. Yea, I’ve been known to make references to D&D style games, but I’ve only played half a round of D&D in my entire life. Once I realized that the whole game was controlled by a fat ass dungeon master who made me lose if I made fun of his cape or questioned his power, I gave up and went back to copying programs out of computer magazines into my C-64.

“Wheaton had a C-64 and copied programs out of magazines.”

Who didn’t do that in the 80′s? Anyway, I think he had a Vic-20.

“Aha! How would you know that if you weren’t Wil Wheaton?”

Wheaton puts stuff like that in his blog. He liked Final Fantasy on an NES and he had an Atari 2600. Whoopdiedoo. Google it. I never had either of those systems, anyway. I had Colecovision and Vectrex for a while there, but not a 2600 or Nofriendo. And don’t get me started on the Final Fantasy franchise. It made me so angry that you had to wait your turn to kill something that I gave the game away to one of my friends who liked D&D. In a video game, I want shoot, run, die, shoot, run, die. I have no time for hit, wait, do math, get hit, wait, talk to characters, fall asleep, drink a “die of boredom” potion… Would Wheaton say something like that? I don’t think so.

“Wil, this character is an odd mixture of attracting and repelling geek values. He’s so… complex. Let’s get down to basics. When did you first start writing him?”

2001. Wait me writing, or him writing me? Or me as him who is me? What the frack is going on here? He’s not complex. Gah. I’m not complex. I am not Wil Wheaton.

“Uh huh.”

Listen, listen. I mean Wheaton has a penchant for poker, right? I never play poker. I prefer non-money card games like 1kbwc, Lost Cities, Fluxx, Guillotine, and even Uno if I’m allowed to tweak the rules.

“So you don’t like poker. That doesn’t prove anything. Are you really trying to defend yourself here? Because it seems like some of these paragraphs aren’t amounting to anything more than character building exercises.”

No, they’re not a character beubi myaa myaa myaa myaa. Fine. Let’s go big ticket and hit a taboo like politics. From what I’ve read, Wheaton seems to believe in the political process and is very prObama. I believe that the American presidential elections are like being given two piles of dog shit and being asked which you’d like to step in. No matter which way you choose, you still end up with shit on your shoe. Would Wil say something like that? It doesn’t seem like something he’d say. Would Jon Dyer say it? I think I just did.

“‘From what I’ve read…’? That’s awesome, Wil. Nice attention to detail. How did you get Jon on Revision3? Did you call up one of your buddies to get the character on there, or are they still in the dark that Dyer is one of your longest running hoaxes?”

Wheaton worked at Revision3?

“Don’t play dumb.”

Does he still work there?

“You know he doesn’t.”

Hey, I appeared on Revision3 as a fluke because of my beard pages. If Wheaton doesn’t work there, then how could he have engineered getting me on there? I was surprised as anyone to be named an Internet Superstar, but you can’t say it’s because Wil Wheaton pulled any strings. You can’t take that away from me. Revision3 could, but not you.

“Wow. Didn’t mean to touch a nerve there, “Jon”. Will you be using this new internet superstardom as a topic in your next book?”

I haven’t written any… damnit, you’re talking to me like I’m Wheaton again.

“I call ‘em like I see ‘em.”

Wheaton has written a few books that people talk about. I have talked about writing a book a few times. That’s where the similarities end.

“Well, not really. It’s interesting that you both have beards. And if “Jon Dyer” is so famous for his beard, I find it interesting that no other blogger anywhere ever said that they ran into him at the mall or at one of the home improvement stores that the character claims to frequent. Oh, that’s right: He’s unemployed and slightly reclusive. That’s a pretty convenient back story. When and how do you think he’ll develop super powers? Can you tell me if they will be beard related?”

Yea, in 2009, I’m going to be bitten by a radioactive hobo that will allow me to store all kinds of incredibly large things like tanks and bazookas in my beard. It’s mapped out to be a combination of Captain Caveman and the A-Team, but without the phrases, “unga bunga” or “you crazy fool”. It’s going to appear on ABC in between the All-Star Laff-A-Lympics and The Krofft Supershow this fall… Are you kidding right now?

“That just sounds like awesome! Thanks for the exclusive. Back to my point, though. Don’t you think the character’s reclusive nature is more than a little convenient and less than believable?”

Again. I’m not a character, and I’m not a recluse. Ok, I might come into contact with more seagulls than people on a given day, but I’m not reclusive. I have been in a couple of newspapers. The Sun and the Financial Times ran stories about my beards. I mean, don’t you think that they’d at least fact check to see that I exist before running a story about me?

“Overseas newspapers pick up this remarkably odd beard story, but not a single paper in your home country picks it up. Hmm. Why would that be? Everyone in the world knows that Santa lives at the North Pole, but people in The North Pole have never heard of him. Seems sort of similar, doesn’t it?”

I am not Wil Wheaton. Or Santa Claus.

“You Hollywood types are so quirky when you’re method acting…”

Fine, if I am indeed simply just a fictional literary character, then where do all these beard pictures come from every year? Huh?

“The rumor is that you pay a homeless guy in Venice Beach who goes by the name “Beardo Roboto” $50 a year to pose for the annual beard pictures.”

Are you kidding? I do NOT. Wil does not. Nobody does nothing not. What the hell? I’m real. I take the pictures with a cell phone camera of my own beard every year. There is no Beardo Whatevero guy. It’s me. And me is not Wil Wheaton. I don’t know Wheaton, I’ve never talked to Wheaton, and I’m not a fictional fracking figment of Wil Wheaton’s wild imagination. I read his blog, but that’s as connected as I am to the guy. He is not any sort of puppet master…

Wait a minute… What about my accent? Anyone from Boston can tell you that a Boston accent is nearly impossible for a Hollywood type to pull off. Even the good ones sound wrong to someone who lives here. Wheaton is West Coast born and raised. I’m East Coast born and raised. He’s all, “Carrrrr,” and I’m all, “Cahhhhhh.”

“We’ve never heard this Jon Dyer guy’s accent. It’s all tick tick tacking on h’s instead of r’s on the keyboard.”

Fine. Maybe if you saw Jon Dyer doing a Boston accent, then you might believe he’s… I’m real?

“I might, rabbit. I might.”

Fine then. Let’s see if this does the trick…

Proof: I. Am NOT. Wil Wheaton.

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Instead of testing my widgets live, I test the underlying PHP in a designated test area that his hidden from regular readers. That way, if PHP barks at me for missing an underscore, it’s more of a private message to me, and not a public broadcast to all of my readers.

Creating a WordPress test area is a simple addition of a page template and test page to your WordPress theme files. Any PHP that you put in the test template can be executed by refreshing a draft preview of the page assigned to it. Because the test page is never actually published, there’s no possibility of it reaching your readers and interrupting the flow of your site.

Want to set up your own WordPress PHP test area?

Using A WordPress Page Template As A PHP Test Area

1. Put the following into a text file and save it as phptest.php:

   <?php
   /*
   Template Name: PHP Test Template
   */
   ?>
   
   <?php get_header(); ?>
   
   <div id="content" class="narrowcolumn">
   <h2>This is a test File</h2>
   
   <?php
   //PHP test area
   ?>
   </div>
   
   <?php get_sidebar(); ?>
   
   <?php get_footer(); ?>

2. Upload the file into your current theme. These are typically located in /wp-content /themes/ [theme-name]/ under your WordPress installation directory.
3. Go into your WordPress admin panel and click Editor from the Appearance menu on the left. Make sure that you can see the PHP Test Template listed on the in the template list on the right hand side. If it’s not there, you might’ve uploaded the file to the wrong theme directory.
4. From the Pages menu in the left side column of your WordPress admin panel, click Add New.
5. Title the page something like “PHP Test Page” and leave the post area blank.
6. On the right hand side, under Attributes / Template, Select PHP Test Template from the drop down menu.
7. Click Save Draft.
8. Click Preview.
9. Now go back to the PHP Test template in your theme by clicking Editor from the Appearance menu on the left side of the admin panel.
10. From the list on the right, click PHP Test Template.
11. Add your PHP code to the line of the test template that reads //PHP test area.
12. When you’re done, click Update File.
13. When you refresh the preview of your draft PHP test page (that you opened in step 8), any PHP that you put in the template will execute.

Once you’re satisfied that the PHP has been tested, it can be moved out of the test template and into a production template or widget with the confidence that it’s going to behave within the WordPress framework. You can clear your test template and leave the test page dormant until your next idea comes along.

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Now, a lot of these were a little too obvious, but I have to say that General Zod and the Yamato were closing in on the Sleestaks for the final cut.

I know there are better jokes out there though, so I thought I’d provide a template in case any of you can provide a geekier alternative. What do you think? Are you up for a little geekery?

Damnit, I can’t believe I forgot The Herculoids and Dr. Who. Gah. So many options…

Good luck.

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Me: Hey, there’s a picture of Star Trek on that wall.
#1GF!: [turns] Yes, I agree.
Me: And there’s a Yoda head there, too.
#1GF!: [turns and turns back]
Me: You don’t know who Yoda is.
#1GF!: Uh… E.T.?
Me: [thumps head on table]

#1GF!: [laughing] Are you going to leave me now?
Me: [whips out notebook to transcribe conversation for internet]
#1GF!: OH COME ON.
Me: [puts notebook away] I’m making you watch Star Wars when we get home.
#1GF!: You made me watch Star Track.
Me: Please tell me you said that on purpose.
#1GF!: Maybe, but you made me watch it.
Me: No, I never did.
#1GF!: You did. There was a ship and it was going to crash into the mothership.
Me: [amused that #1GF! used the word "mothership"] Never.
#1GF!: You made me.
Me: Wait. Are you talking about Lord of the Rings?
#1GF!: No, I slept through that. This was a whole series.
Me: ?
#1GF!: [as if my testicles were suddenly beamed off the planet] There was a love interest…
Me: [staring]
#1GF!: [staring]
Me: Wait, you’re not talking about Battlestar Galactica…
#1GF!: You’re right. I am.
Me: [whips out notebook again]
#1GF!: You might as well keep that thing out because it’s not going to get any better.

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DJ Spock

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There are a lot of ways to do mouseovers, but I use a javascript one liner because its simple and portable between different blogging systems. I can’t really take credit for writing this code because similar ideas have been floating around the web for over a decade.

All you have to do is paste the following code into your web page, taking care to replace the one instance of original.png and two instances of retouch.png with the locations of your own photos. If you want the mouseover to link somewhere, be sure to replace the # with a valid link.

Simple Code For A Javascript Mouseover

<a href="#" onMouseOver="document.the_image.src='original.png';" onMouseOut="document.the_image.src='retouch.png';"> <img src="retouch.png" name="the_image" /></a>

The code above uses the_image as the image name, which works fine for a single image, but if you want to use show multiple mouseovers on the same page, copying and pasting the code above several times won’t work without a quick modification. Because each image needs to be named independently, you would need to change the three instances of the_image in the second copy of the code to something like the_image2. The third would have to be changed to the_image3, and so on.

Multiple Javascript Mouseovers On A Sigle Page

<a href="#" onMouseOver="document.the_image.src=original1.png';" onMouseOut="document.the_image.src='retouch1.png';"> <img src="retouch1.png" name="the_image" /></a>

<a href="#" onMouseOver="document.the_image2.src='original2.png';" onMouseOut="document.the_image2.src='retouch2.png';"> <img src="retouch2.png" name="the_image2" /></a>

Javascript Mouseover In Action

Hold your mouse over the “Geekantium” image to change it.

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Here’s a picture of Alicia Silverstone that I retouched. To see the original from Top Socialite’s Celebrities Without Makeup Page, hover your mouse over the picture

I’m no pro and Ms. Silverstone can afford way better retouchers, so I gave up with a “good enough” before I wasted too many hours on it. I’m trying to learn how to retouch things while preserving natural skin texture, but the original photo was a little too pixelated to get any real detail out of even if I had the skill. You can see where I gave up near the hairline, but I think the eyes, eyebrow, and that little bit of hair over the ear show that I’m making progress.

Can You Help Me Out?

Retouching celebrity pictures feels pointless because it’s unlikely that they would ever see the results or care if they did. If I know that someone is going to see the result, I’m more likely to spend time on it, so I’d like to ask a little favor:

If you have a photo that you would let me take a shot at retouching, I would really appreciate the practice.

This is free, and the worse the photo, the better the practice. I know it might be embarrassing for some of you to send me bad pictures of yourself, but I wouldn’t think of putting the results on my site without your permission because I respect your privacy and recognize you as the owner of your pictures. You would be doing me a big favor by helping me to learn how to enhance photos, and hopefully you’ll end up with a picture that you really like.

If you’re game, drop me a comment or use my contact page. The best photos to send are the ones where you think, “This would be a great picture if only [insert issue here].”

And you know that I think your fine just the way you are.

Thanks for your help.

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After watching it a few times, I’m not so sure that I should’ve included it. The tones of the bottles during the test runs at the beginning of the video really don’t match with the tones when the theme is playing, making it seem like it might be a hoax.

What do you think? Is this a fake?

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