San Diego and The Legend of Neil

So last night I was writing up a blog about my embarrassing adventures out at San Diego Comic-Con. It was a good blog, chock full of me making an ass of myself.

Then, just as I was finishing it, my computer decided that 3:00 AM is the *perfect* time to auto-update. Shutting down and erasing the blog and several e-mails I was in the middle of.

Needless to say, I quickly became a pillar of incandescent rage. I’m glad nothing else was going on at three in the morning because this was the sort of anger that easily could have led to an Ovid-style metamorphosis. I was so angry that if something would have bit me during that first fifteen minutes, I would have manifested super powers and gone on a fucking rampage.

Eventually that blog will rise from the ashes, but for now the pain is still too close to the surface. So instead, I’d like to share one of my current geeky pleasures with you.

Ready? Here we go.

There were a lot of things I didn’t get to do out at Comic-con. I didn’t get to see Neil Gaiman or Joss Whedon. I didn’t get to see the preview of the new Tron movie or go to any of the Firefly panels. Those panels were too full, and I’m not cool enough to hang with the beautiful people.

But I did have a good time. And one of the main things that made the trip worthwhile was the fact that I got to touch base with Felicia Day and the rest of the cast of The Guild as shown here in Exhibit A:

(Click to Embiggen)

It’s well-known that I have a bit of a fanboy crush on Felicia Day. But that’s nothing out of the ordinary. Any proper geek is morally obliged to have feelings for her. Aside from the fact that she was in both Dr. Horrible and Buffy, Felicia writes and produces The Guild. Plus she’s good with math. And a gamer. And a musician. Anyone who claims they don’t have a bit of a crush on her is just a fucking liar.

That said, the subtle subtext of this picture is harder to see. Specifically, it’s the fanish crush I have for another member of The Guild cast: Sandeep Parikh.

(That’s supposed to be a heart, by the way.)

For those of you are tragically out of the loop, Sandeep plays Zaboo in the Guild. But not only does he possess brilliant comedic timing and an enviable magic carpet. He writes and produces his own web series: The Legend of Neil.

Anyway, the story goes like this. Sunday I hit The Guild booth to buy some signed copies of season 1 and 2 to use for prizes in this year’s Heifer Fundraiser.

Felicia recognizes me, smiles, and introduces me to everyone as that author guy who wrote that book. (I’m paraphrasing here, she was much more eloquent.)

That’s when Sandeep looks up at me and says that he really liked my book. I look at him and I tell him that he is seriously funny and that I’m a geek for Legend of Neil. (I’m paraphrasing here too, I’m pretty sure I cussed a bit for emphasis. )

Our eyes met. Everything went quiet for a moment. We had a magical moment of shared geekery that might have eventually led to a hug…. but unfortunately there was a table in the way. Plus the two of us might be too manly for that sort of thing, anyway.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love The Guild. But in terms of pure irreverent humor, The Legend of Neil is hard to beat. Plus Felicia plays the Fairy in episode three. Even if you never played Zelda, you’ll laugh your ass off.

Seriously. Check it out. Here’s a link. (Get it? Zelda? Link?)

More convention stories soon…

pat

This entry was posted in Felicia Day, my terrible wrath, recommendations, The GuildBy Pat40 Responses

40 Comments

  1. Tyson
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 12:30 AM | Permalink

    Hm, never heard of The Guild. Did I just lose my geek card?

  2. Lexinatrix
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 12:41 AM | Permalink

    I seriously adore The Guild. I was playing WAY too much WoW when I discovered them, and it was terrific to be able to laugh at the whole hardcore thing.

  3. Kathleen
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 12:59 AM | Permalink

    Awesome…awesome awesome.

  4. Ankara Evden Eve
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 1:35 AM | Permalink

    wonderfull

  5. jdcb
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 2:47 AM | Permalink

    Will check out the link tomorrow, I just got finished posting blog post, read yours, and am now proceeding to bed.

  6. Tom Crosshill
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 2:49 AM | Permalink

    Sing, goddess, the rage of the Rothfuss/
    and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the software developers,/
    hurled in their multitudes to the house of Vista strong souls/
    of auto-update coders, but gave their bodies to be the delicate feasting/
    of dogs, and of bloggers, and the will of the Beard was accomplished/
    since that time when first there stood in division of conflict/
    The computer, betrayer of men, and Rothfuss, he of the Beard

    I couldn’t resist. . .

  7. Skyler H.
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 3:29 AM | Permalink

    I’m sure if you’d have brought up the idea, Sandeep would’ve followed through on the idea of your beard having its own character. The Legend of Neil…and the Beard of Rothfuss.

  8. AndyB
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 5:10 AM | Permalink

    You lost your blog post. Were you typing it in a web browser? If so, do you use Firefox? If so, run, don’t walk, to get the Lazarus add-on. It auto-saves forms as you fill them out in your browser. If you navigate away from the page or your browser crashes, you just go back to the page and have Lazarus bring your form data back from the dead. I can’t tell you how many hours it’s saved me at work.

    getlazarus.com

  9. Pat
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 6:56 AM | Permalink

    Tyson: Yes.

    Tom: Cool.

    Andy: Thanks.

  10. Captain Joe
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 7:00 AM | Permalink

    Heh… link.

  11. Anonymous
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 7:11 AM | Permalink

    Did you see Amanda Palmer?

    I heard she was there too and she is almost as cool as Neil Gaiman.

    Neil seems to think so too.

  12. marky
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 11:44 AM | Permalink

    Have they not offered you a walk on part in The Guild?

    You have to be their biggest fan, so I’d say you deserve it.

    Also, you really smoulder on camera. ;-)

  13. Teri
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 11:56 AM | Permalink

    switch to mac and that will never happen to you again!

  14. Susanne
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 12:41 PM | Permalink

    Aaaahhh jealous. I also love The Guild very, very much, both as a WoW gamer and because I have an enormous girlcrush on Felicia Day – who is, by the way, almost single-handedly responsible for my picking up The Name of the Wind. She’s on goodreads, you see, where we can stalk, er, follow her book reviews.

    Lucky you for getting to meet them all!

    PS Please to be disabling auto-update feature. It’s a b*st*rd.

  15. Susanne
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 12:52 PM | Permalink

    PS: I just went and checked out The Legend of Neil? OMG awesome. Thanks for the tip, Pat!

  16. Jay Belt
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 1:15 PM | Permalink

    I have enjoyed both The Guild and Legend of Neil. But between the two shows, I anticipated the second season of Neil about 100x more than The Guild.

    Legend of Neil has been one of those shows I’ll happily share with my friends but attach the NSFW in the subject line. And I would NEVER, EVER share Neil with my mother… Oh no.

  17. Vulpes Fulva
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 1:20 PM | Permalink

    The guild is hilarious. I had no idea that Sandeep had his own series, too. I’ll have to check it out.
    Yes, Tyson, your geek card has been revoked. You may never be able to reclaim it. I would suggest watching all of The Guild back-to-back-to-back until you finish it. Then MAYBE you can touch your geek card again.
    Kathleen: that was a wonderful post.

  18. Anthony
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 1:57 PM | Permalink

    jeez! Just got done reading your blog, not just this entry…the whole thing. I hate to admit that I found this site while searching feverishly for the release date of your second book.
    After becoming totally hooked on the first book I’m sorry to say I was chomping at the bit to get my hands on the second. Your blog made me realize that you DO have much more going on in your life than just pumping out best sellers.
    Great to hear you had a good time at Comicon, and I look forward to reading many more updates here in the future. Hope all is going great with Oot too!

  19. Marcus
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 2:04 PM | Permalink

    Hay Pat, you made Real Life Comics, http://www.reallifecomics.com/archive/090730.html

    I actually read that right after reading this and worked out it was you before Greg said your name. :)

  20. Carolyn
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 2:17 PM | Permalink

    Felicia Day’s website suggested your book, which is where I first decided to pick it up (I bought it alongside The Blade Itself, which I vaguely remember you mentioning before alongside wanting to un-pretty Abercrombie’s face).
    I have such a girl-crush on her and am jealous.

  21. Sarah
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 3:02 PM | Permalink

    The Legend of Neil is so funny!
    I think I’m gonna go and make some Heart Cookies right now~ x3

  22. Aerron
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 3:17 PM | Permalink

    I first heard of Felica Day through your blog and after much berating by my wife I devoured the Guild and then Legend of Neil.

    Fantastic!

    Wouldn’t it be awesome if you submitted some material for Legend of Neil!

    After you’re done with Wise Man, of course!

  23. Christy
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 3:34 PM | Permalink

    I LOVE The Guild :)

  24. Anonymous
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 3:46 PM | Permalink

    I hate the 3 AM reboot too! Especially if you’re rendering in a graphics program — poof! All gone! And if I have an external hard drive plugged in it wants to default to that and I get a black screen in the morning. Last time that happened I went to the auto update and set it to ASK before installing the updates.

  25. Jennifer
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 4:09 PM | Permalink

    I think you just turned me on to several series that could be born as new favorites in my heart. THANK YOU! Looking forward to checking out The Guild and The Legend of Neil, which sounds perfect for me.

    Also, I think you should have been able to do all that you desired at this Comic-Con. If you can’t manage to meet Neil Gaiman, etc, how can I expect to?

    Fellow geek and big proponent of your work (many of my friends are too mainstream for anything fantasy/sci fi related, but I’m working on them!),

    Jen

  26. Nicholases
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 7:59 PM | Permalink

    OK big problem. As per your recommendation I took a glance at The Legend of Neil (because you turned me on to Dr. Horrible which is awesome) and it is hilarious. The problem however, is that I’m at work and have now gotten in trouble 3 times today for watching The Legend of Neil and not working. Although it’s almost worth seeing my boss’s face when he comes in to see me with headphones on laughing histarically at my computer and not a shred of work has been done. But still keep on giving me stuff to enjoy please. I bow your wisdom and your Beard (in your case thats a proper noun) Lord Rothfuss The Impeccable.

  27. Pat
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 8:05 PM | Permalink

    Yeah. I had the auto-updates turned off. But when my hard-drive crashed a couple months ago, that must have been one of the things that got reset. You can bet that I’ve turned it back off now…

  28. Julienne
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 8:22 PM | Permalink

    And now I love you even more! I too have a fangirl crush on Sandeep and Felicia. I absolutely love Legend of Neil and The Guild and am so impressed with both of their creativity and ability to make it happen!
    My husband and I are reading your book now (almost done) and LOVE it!

    (oh, and Link…just awesome)

  29. maarten
    Posted July 30, 2009 at 10:44 PM | Permalink

    Zelda… Link… I got it!

    Yeah, it’s actually funny.

  30. arcaneja
    Posted July 31, 2009 at 7:09 AM | Permalink

    I love The Guild too! Ah. Wil Wheaton is going to be in Season 3! If only you [Pat] were there too, it would be the perfect collection of all my little fangirl worlds.

    … on that note, I keep thinking that what the Wise Man really fears isn’t Folly, but wearing a belt. ( http://www.wowhead.com/?item=4786 )

  31. Anonymous
    Posted July 31, 2009 at 2:05 PM | Permalink

    Being a devout reader of both this blog and Wil Wheaton’s, I’ve always been waiting for the day when you guys meet at one of the many conventions you both attend, fall in love at first sight, and… excuse me, sorry.

    You get the idea, though. There are like .5 collective degrees of separation between ya’ll, but apparently someone needs to be more proactive to make my bloggy dreams come true.

  32. logankstewart
    Posted July 31, 2009 at 7:32 PM | Permalink

    Such a beautiful pun, Pat. It made me chuckle with delight. Sorry about the crash.

  33. Anonymous
    Posted July 31, 2009 at 8:47 PM | Permalink

    Wow, this is one of those strange coincidences in life.

    I had heard about The Guild several times and then found and bookmarked the page a week ago. I just finished watching S1 Eps 1-3 for the first time ever and they were pretty good, but I didn’t want to watch it in it’s entirety in one sitting. So I thought to myself “Hm, I haven’t looked in on Patrick Rothfuss’ Blog in several weeks, I wonder if anything new has been put up?” And I came here straight from there only to find…more Guild.

    Apparently I shall be heading to the Legend of Neil next.

  34. Adee
    Posted August 1, 2009 at 3:18 PM | Permalink

    Haha, I think one of my ultimate geek moments is watching the entirety of The Guild while pulling an all-nighter on a costume for an anime convention.

  35. Chandrapore
    Posted August 1, 2009 at 10:39 PM | Permalink

    Some advice that I rarely follow myself:

    Writer’s-block?: Apple+S
    Finish a complete thought?: Apple+S
    It’s been 5 minutes?: Apple +S
    Taking a pee break?: Apple+S
    Taking a pie break?: Apple+S
    Being attacked by wolves?: Apple+S

    Substitute Ctl+S depending on computer preference.

  36. AndyB
    Posted August 2, 2009 at 1:24 AM | Permalink

    There have been a few people suggesting Macs as a solution for Pat’s problem. That won’t really work in this case. First of all, Pat fears and loathes change. Seriously. Any change in his computer setup (new keyboard, upgrading from Win 98 to Win XP, etc.) probably delays his writing by months. He’s a little pathological about it.

    Second, while Macs don’t automatically reboot at 3 a.m. without prompting you, they certainly do lose form data typed into web pages. Trust me, I am a Mac user and I have lost a lot of time to that exact problem. Firefox locks up, Firefox crashes, I accidentally navigate away from the page I am typing in, OS X crashes, etc.

    My suggestion of combining Firefox with the Lazarus add-on is one way to minimize the potential data loss that works on (almost) any platform.

    The Command/CTRL-S suggestion has merit. Unfortunately it won’t save form data on websites either. Sometimes I will type my post into a dedicated word processor type thingie and then past it into the web page when I am done. It’s usually easier to edit in a word processor interface and you can save it while you are working on it.

  37. Madeline
    Posted August 5, 2009 at 4:19 PM | Permalink

    I find thatwhen I embark on writing a large piece of text, either a comment on a blog, or a forum, or whatever, the computer will, without fail, screw me over somehow.
    Ie, log me out of the website;
    refuse to go to the next webpage and so when I go ‘back’ it decides “fuck you man.” and all the fields are empty, etc.

    I FEEL YOUR PAIN.

    Thanks Andy xx I love you man.

    Um, I’ve made mine un-auto-install, cause windows wants me to install alot of stuff I really don’t need or want :/

    Also, my dad recently had fun with his laptop. He decided to rebuild it.
    He decided to back it up on an external drive.
    He decided that once backed up, yes it is a fabulous time to rebuild.
    He decided to unback it all up onto his new shiny laptop.
    He found out it had decided to completely shit itself.
    Unhappy. Unhappy.

  38. Anonymous
    Posted August 11, 2009 at 4:30 PM | Permalink

    Anyone know where to get a DVD of Legend of Neil? I gotta send this to my sister who’s deployed in Iraq. After all the years I kicked her butt on Zelda it’s the least I could do.

  39. hookedonmonix
    Posted August 17, 2009 at 4:31 AM | Permalink

    there are few things more satisfying than knowing you share a fandom with one of the objects of your fandom. I mean, for us average, awesome-deficient geeks. I can only imagine that reciprocated fandom is far more satisfying. Which is something I’d really like to experience firsthand someday.

  40. Bills Martin
    Posted April 9, 2022 at 5:46 AM | Permalink

    Hello.
    I hope you are feeling well. I’ve just read the blog. Its very concise blog about neil.

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