I’ve blogged about this before, but ~10 years ago, news started flying around the (newborn) blogosphere that Wil Wheaton (best known, at that point, for Star Trek: The Next Generation) had begun a blog!  HA! So we all rushed over to laugh.

And … well, shit.  He was awesome.  Struggling actor; great stepdad; fucking awesome writer; even lived nearby.

His writing turned into book deals, which were even better.  His acting became more and more successful.  And he slowly moved from alt.ensign-crusher.die.die.die among geeks to Super Geek Overlord.

He’s been picking up great gigs — Eureka, Big Bang Theory, The Guild — and further cementing himself as geek idol.  He’s a fixture at Comi-Con.  He is super-humble — his normal response to his fame, he explains, is shock, because “I’m just this guy, you know!”  He’s also known for (further-)popularizing the phrase “Don’t Be A Dick”, which is a fine motto for life.

So it’s his birthday today.  On Twitter, where he has, by the way, >1.6M followers, stuff just — well, kept getting awesomer.  Awesomer and awesomerer.

ThinkGeek marked today as “Don’t Be A Dick Day”. Twitter users from John Hodgman, Peewee Herman, and the joke “Death Star PR” account, to NASA (yes, that NASA) tweeted him happies.  Apparently his birthday showed up on Entertainment Tonight.  Nathan freakin’ Fillion tweeted him wishes, adding “Stay shiny” (!).  People started making him shit, both physical and digital.  And this graphic was created — which, OK, to be fair, you’re gonna have to be a geek to really appreciate — and sent to him:

Another user started a #toastwheaton hashtag, urging people to raise a glass and take a picture (I joined.)

Wil Wheaton, for his part, chatted with people, was publicly thankful, and tweeted about the gifts from his family, including a vintage Casio calculator watch from his stepson (he exclaimed how awesome it was that the default year in the date setting was “1980″.)  He took a picture of the results of the first calculation on the watch.  Yes, 42.

Just wow.  Geek overload (the colloquial term is “nerdgasm”, for the record).  This might be my favorite birthday ever, and it’s not even my birthday.

Here is Wil Wheaton on Twitter.  And this search will let you follow more good @wilw birthday stuff.

If you don’t get why this is cool or funny: I’m sorry.  Sucks for you!