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For the metallically inclined, Ronnie James Dio is a name which figures prominently, a sort of godfather of the whole strange genre. Among other (more musical) accomplishments, Ronnie is the man who created the “devil horns” sign (not a Satanic symbol, but actually his Sicilian grandmother’s ward against the evil eye), internationally recognized gesture of metalness.

And for fans of the actual music, Ronnie’s presence as frontman on three legendary records has forever cemented his position in the genre:

1. Rainbow Rising (1976)
2. Black Sabbath Heaven and Hell (1980)
3. Dio Holy Diver (1983)

Each of these three records proved both a milestone for each of those bands, and milestones for heavy metal / hard rock as a whole. (As a kind of rambling aside, ironically my favorite records of each of these three bands are instead: 1. Rainbow Long Live Rock n’ Roll (1978); 2. Black Sabbath Heaven and Hell (1980) — the same in this case; 3. Dio The Last In Line (1984).)

I’ve been listening a lot to Rainbow and the first two Dio (the band) albums of late, and boy have they weathered the test of time well. I’ve often wanted to write up a little post singing forth praise for these records, but have found no catalyst around which to write a piece. Until now.

Yesterday (the 30th of May) in the US (the 29th most everywhere else) Eagle Rock Entertainment put out an extremely inexpensive live DVD recorded at the London date of Dio’s tour of the UK in Autumn 2005. What makes this show so special, and so worthy of a DVD release, is that for these UK dates the band performed the entire debut album Holy Diver, in song order (preceded and followed by songs from other albums, to round out the set length), the first time they have ever done so.

For a DVD which is so surprisingly inexpensive (ten bucks at Amazon), the disc is surprisingly replete. DTS is offered in addition to 5.1-channel Dolby and a stereo mix, the entire contents are in anamorphic widescreen (and thus enhanced for widescreen displays), and a sort of casual interview short is offered as an extra. The performance itself is well-filmed on digital video (though not HD cameras, I’m pretty sure), and edited in a very straightforward, lucid way. I prefer live performances to be edited to offer as clear and detailed a look at the performances, rather than the arty-farty lightning-cut approach of amateurs trying to be MTV music video directors. Fortunately the editors of this disc chose the more subtle approach. There’s even a little photo booklet insert, with brief essay by rock journalist (and metal fan) Dave Ling, something I really didn’t expect given the low price tag.

And the performance itself? Dio, now well into his sixties, has lost none of his energy, enthusiasm, or vocal range. Truly, the man is astounding, bopping around on stage, matching the audience’s devil horns signs, and belting out the tunes with the abandon unmatched by people a quarter of his age. So many rock singers have lost their voices due to the ravages of time and dissipated living: Dio remains at the peak of his form, perhaps slightly more gravelly than on the 80s recordings, but just as impressive and full.

Quick aside: I just love that Ronnie rocks out with out any interest in retiring, flying in the face of any ageist comments, or the cries of “where is your decency?” from those who think that being older means putting on a tie and slowing down. Ronnie is still the diminutive little hippie with the long hair and the fun of rocking out with the headbangers, and for Ronnie, the number of years he’s chalked under his belt simply has no meaning. It’s all about attitude, it’s all about preference. It’s the way it should be, and I really honor him for it.

Current lineup: Simon Wright on drums (really doing a good job matching Vinnie Appice’s awesome, involved drumming style from the albums), bass legend Rudy Sarzo on, ehm, bass (thank god he finger-picks), enigmatic Scott Warren at keyboards, looking like a supreme gothic vampyre type (and the keyboards are doubly important here because there’s none of the guitar-overdubbing to fill out the sound as on the records), and, finally, Doug Aldrich, who looks like he just stepped out of a Z-Boys competition down in Dogtown.

Let’s talk about Doug for a second. Dio fans tend to be divided about whether Doug Aldrich or Craig Goldy is the “better” guitar player to be in the band. It seems that for most, either Doug is a god or he’s “totally wrong” for the band. Without any offense at Goldy, I’m one of the people who likes Doug in the band. His presence on Killing the Dragon for me was a major reason why it was such a return to the vintage Dio sound when it was released in 2002. He has this fabulous capacity to mix insane technical speed with bluesy, swaggery soul. The man is just on fire, and he both manages to recreate the spirit of original Dio guitarist Viv Campbell’s performances, while contributing his own personality. On this DVD, he’s in much better form than on Dio’s last DVD, “Evil or Divine”, and the sense of cameraderie he shares on stage with Ronnie is a treat to witness.

I could go on, but there’s not really any point, except to say that if you’ve never experienced Dio before, or if you’re intimidated or hesitant about trying out classic heavy metal with lots of hard rock vibes, this is a fabulous place to start, and to witness one of the genre’s elder statesmen at the supreme height of his creative and artistic powers. If you don’t want to buy it, stick it in your Netflix queue — it’s worth the look, I warrant you.
We rock!

As David Markland pointed out to me, and which is now all over the web, the much-anticipated original theatrical editions of the Star Wars trilogy to be released in September (in two-disc editions with the 2004 versions on disc one and the original editions on disc two), should be anything but anticipated.

The grim details can be read here.

This also makes my very early post about fan editions (read it here) all the more poignant, even ironic, for me.

I still maintain the statement in my recent post that being a Star Wars fan has become a political thing, making something which once was pure entertainment and imagination now complicated and partisan (love the prequels/hate the prequels, love Lucas/hate Lucas, etc). The dismissive and unsympathetic treatment we fans now almost daily get at the hands of Lucasfilm only makes the politics more intense, more upsetting.

Lucas has complained in recent years (sorry, can’t provide a citation offhand) that he feels he’s become the very disembodied corporate tyrant he once rebelled so passionately against.

George, I couldn’t agree with you more.

So I ended up giving the site a facelift after all. I call it version 1.5, since it still essentially uses the same color scheme, typefaces, and image source material.

There’s still lots to be done under the surface: the contact page is ghastly, there’s some PHP auto thumbnail stuff I haven’t finished, the sidebar is atrocious; the list goes on.

Since I see that none of you are interested in those changes which I have done, I thought I’d spend a moment discussing them.

First and foremost, the site is fluid-width. I’m amazed by how many of the blog sites I visit are fixed-width, and since my metrics are telling me that I get visits from people with monitor widths as great as 1920 pixels, it seems rather unfair on them to have to view a web page that’s just 720 pixels wide or something (can you imagine the side margins they must have?!). I have however slapped both a min- and max-width on my wrapper div, at 768 and 1500 pixels respectively. Hopefully this will keep the side margins on you 1920-pixel guys at more respectable levels, while at the same preventing the lines of text from stretching clear across the Atlantic (although, actually, I personally think they’re getting a tad long even by 1500-pixels, though you can always increase the text size to compensate — more on that in a sec).

The main portion of the blog is about as simple as things get. div#content, where the actual posts are displayed (aka the main column), is set at 65% width, while the sidebar column div is set at 30%. You math geniuses might notice 5% has gone missing — this is a very easy way to create a gutter between the two columns, since using fixed padding on percentage-width columns will break the layout. Block elements within each column are then given their own pixel-based padding. div#content and div#sidebar are floated left and right, respectively, using the so-called Opposing Floats method. This method is very well-suited to fluid width layouts, and is the most bulletproof to browser hiccups and the most efficient in terms of CSS of any approach that I know. If you know an even simpler method, I’d love to hear it. If it breaks in your browser, I’d really, really like to hear from you.

Other tried-and-true CSS methods are in use elsewhere. h1 is knocked off the page using text-indent, and replaced with a background image (my logo) set at an explicit pixel height. If memory serves, this technique was pioneered by Doug Bowman and is one of the cornerstones of CSS design. Unlike last time, the logo is a part of the background image rather than floating on top as a separate PNG with transparency, as I did last time, which was then served only to contemporary browsers that understood the direct descendant selector in CSS; the rest just got plain browser text (because they weren’t going to be able to understand the transparency in the PNG). Since there’s not really any reason to have an independent floating logo over my banner now that the logo is anchored to the left, I’ve gone equal-opportunity by using simple technology that most modern browsers understand: one jpeg image comprising logo and banner that replaces the h1. Of course, in keeping with blog traditions, it’s also an anchor with a display: block rule that will send you to the homepage if you click on it.

As for the ul list comprising my highly-rudimentary navigation bar, I’ve simply given it a position: absolute, and stuck it a few pixels away from the top right of the browser window. Each li element then is rendered with display: inline, some padding to separate, and finally a 1-pixel thick left border to make a simple divider. It’s probably not the most attractive or elegant nav bar you’ve ever seen, but then, it’s probably not going to get much use, either. Given its relative lack of importance in the functionality of the site, I didn’t feel compelled to build an elaborate nav bar into the whole graphical scheme, complete with rollover buttons and the like; I figured simple was better and probably more appropriate.

The header and footer graphic are both 1600 pixels wide, to accomodate the fluid layout when viewed at different screen widths, and they were designed very much to “work” no matter how much of their width was visible.

Another important factor for me when designing a dynamic-layout site like this is ensuring that 1) the layout doesn’t break if the user increases or decreases the text size in his/her browser, and 2) it looks good at any size. I’m really of the opinion that most sites should be designed to be as flexible and adaptable to the end user’s needs as possible. The portability of HTML was one of its original design concepts, and I think flexibility in web design is a good thing. If I’ve done my work properly, hopefully you should be able to increase or decrease the text quite a lot before the layout begins to collapse, if indeed it ever does. (The navigation bar does start to look a little strange at huge text display sizes as it begins to dwarf the logo, though …)

Oh, and if you ever find yourself designing a fluid-width blog one day, do yourself a huge favor and slap an overflow: hidden rule on whatever container your site has for the actual blog posts. Doing so prevents large images and other fixed-size elements included in your posts from potentially wreaking havoc on your layout when visitors with narrow screen resolutions visit (especially when they’re using IE6.0, which does not understand the min-width rule). Browsers need guidance in being told how to contend with wide images that won’t fit in the column width containing them, and my preferred method is the overflow: hidden rule, which simply cuts off any of the image which would push beyond its container’s width.
For this go-round, the CSS is tremendously lean, almost frighteningly so. To choose sturdy simplicity requires lots of confidence, and I’m not very confident. We tend to feel that whipping up complexity around our projects is like safeguarding them against failure, against ridicule, but the best CSS is the CSS that uses as little as possible.

I’m much happier — at the moment — with this design than the last, which I thought was dreadful, and didn’t degrade very gracefully in IE6.0. Also, aesthetically I think this design is a bit better, a bit clearer, a bit roomier, and all that fantasy hoo-hah has been toned down, abstracted, zoomed in, giving the texture and nuance and feel without being as distracting as before.

And a month, two months, from now? I could despise it.

Photographic credits used in this design (same as before): castle elements culled from photos by Mayang Murni Adnin. Knights on horseback (detail) photo by Jeff Gynane. Both of whom own the copyright on their respective photography. Used with permission in both cases.

Pay no mind to this post (or do, if you want to).

I’m just testing how super-big images affect the fluid-width layout.

I’m going to be tinkering under the hood on this blog today and possibly into tomorrow. I don’t know if I’ll be emerging on the other side with a new look and layout, or if the alterations will be confined to behind-the-scenes type stuff, but please be advised that there may be oddities and strangeness when viewing the site over the next day or so. Water and electricity may be unavailable for certain periods of time.

I haven’t posted since Saturday. Why? It’s been a difficult, stressful, shitty week. And I don’t want to share it with you. That would be icky.

In fact, I’d much rather write about geeky things right now. Like dorky boardgames, dorky video games, dorky movies, and dorky books. Dorky is good. Dorky is geeky, only with a “d”.

It is time to find geeky stuff which is dorky again, which this crap week has kept from me. So I’ve wrapped an old rag round a chunk of wood, dipped it in kerosene, and lit it using my flint pack, and now I’m venturing forth in the dark, waving the torch round, looking for veins of dork.

I just hope I haven’t lost the two of you who read this lame blog in the meantime.

Also noticed: the first four paragraphs of this post begin with an “I”.

Also: there will be no Oblivion dominoes here. Sorry.

Lots and lots of you out there use TiVos and you think they rock. RIght on. If that’s your speed that’s great.

But my own approach is somewhat different and, for me, much more rewarding.

Before I get to that approach, though, I think I’ve mentioned on this lame little blog that I have this completely awesome recording exchange thing with a good friend of mine in Oxford (that is, that town with the university located midway between London and Cardiff), Danny. We’ve been perfecting it since 1999, the grim dark times of … [shiver] … tape.

(I won’t go into the cost and inconvenience involved in mailing packages of VHS cassettes back and forth across the Atlantic, but suffice to say we didn’t request as much programming of each other then.)

Then came the light. The light of recordable DVDs. We began to request more shows from each other. Digital frisbees were hurled from Los Angeles to Oxford with happy abandon. Good times were had by all. Postal costs were reduced practically to nonexistence.

Which leads me to my version of TiVo: HDD/DVD recorders. I have a Panasonic DMR-E85 with a hard disk that can record up to 54 hours of content (at SP mode). That content can reside on the hard drive as long as I wish it to, during which I can edit it, give it a name, choose a thumbnail still, and other rudimentary editing tasks. Then, when the fancy or whim strikes me, I can blow it over to a DVD-R, which can burn up an entire 2 hours worth of SP content to an 8x disc in a bit over ten minutes. Or I can choose to add shows to discs one at a time; I needn’t do it all at once. Then when the disc is full, I finalize it (which takes just under two minutes), and it flowers into a fully-compliant video DVD which will play in every DVD player I’ve tried.

You see, it’s that last ability where my system leaves TiVo behind, and why I don’t understand TiVo’s popularity over HDD/DVD Recorders: portability. With TiVo, you can watch to your heart’s content — but only on the television to which the TiVo is attached. You cannot archive the programming, send it to others, free up the hard drive, share the love.

Or send it to your friend across the Atlantic.

And thanks to the modern miracle that is HDTV, my friend has the pleasure of receiving widescreen programming recorded off downconverted HDTV with picture quality far greater than would be had from standard definition signals (the greatly reduced digital artifacts alone make a huge difference).

While the UK is only just now about to launch into HDTV themselves, they’ve had 16×9 widescreen for about five years now, which means that 98% of the content I receive from Danny is anamorphic widescreen, making the experience much more cinematic and dramatic than conventional 4×3 pictures.

This is going to sound corny, but what is so rewarding about my exchange with Danny is that I know the stuff I send him is going to blow him away, and he’s getting to see these things months in advance of his peers. A couple weekends ago, for example, he finally blew out his hoarded backlog of Season 2 Lost episodes in one twelve-hour geekout, bringing him up to about the early April broadcasts. Conversely, Season 2 of Lost only just recently debuted on Channel 4 (in other words, episodes broadcast in the States way back in October last), meaning that Danny can strut about, smugly proclaiming that he’s long since seen episodes others will have to wait weeks or even months to see. That rocks.

Okay. You can bittorrent them, or get them off the usenet. But there is nothing like the sheer pleasure of receiving this enticing parcel in the mail, with a mysterious customs label affixed to it, and then ripping it open to discover a heap of recorded joy within. Believe me. And the whole meaning of our exchange is that I do all the work to put together his shows, and he does all the work to put together mine, and it’s complete reciprocation.

Anyway, in a very roundabout way, my point is this: if any of you don’t yet have a TiVo and are considering buying one, do at least consider the possibility of an HDD/DVD Recorder instead, such as my Panasonic. I’ve never regretted not being part of the TiVo crowd, because I think my HDD/DVD Recorder takes it one step better.

Time to go burn some discs for my friend.

Technorati Tags: DVD, TV, DVD Recorders

Gargantuan world success of groups like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest aside, heavy metal as a genre is by definition a cult, niche musical style, most of its contributors forever relegated to obscure or rare status.

I have a personal list of the thirty essential heavy metal releases that I draw upon to make recommendations to the casual listener, or the cautiously curious. Obviously, there’s no shortage of big names among that list — which would appear in anyone’s heavy metal list — including the aforementioned Maiden and Priest, and other biggies like Black Sabbath and Metallica.

But many — perhaps most — of the releases are what could easily be described as obscure, certainly to the general public, but even to many who already consider themselves heavy metal fans.

Towering high among that collection of obscure essentials is Hawaii’s Sacred Rite.

Do you remember that classic Powell-Peralta skater video “The Search for Animal Chin”? Remember the Hawaiian segment, where they skated down the canal before relaxing at a Hawaiian restaurant? If music could be said to capture the ambiance of that whole world at that particular moment in time, Sacred Rite composed it.

Like so many others at the time, the four members of Sacred Rite were high school buddies who kicked together a band to jam out their favorite AC/DC and Sabbath tunes at local parties. But unlike so many others, they leaped startlingly quickly into composing their own material, while at the same time driving each other to achieve the highest level of musicianship they could possibly muster.

Very quickly they were in the studio cutting a demo tape, which equally quickly led to a deal with local label Rendezvous and produce Pierre Grille, and their debut self-titled album, released in 1984. Second album “Ritual” followed in 1985, and the third, “Is Nothing Sacred”, in 1986 (on Medusa records).

Then things turn sour. Sacred Rite, feeling that continued residence in Hawaii was limiting their potential for success, relocated to … Tulsa. A small development deal with Polygram during which they had recorded limp commercial tunes as a demo had led to nowheresville, and it wasn’t long before financial desperation and lack of interest fragmented the band, forever. (I often wonder what would have happened had they remained in Hawaii, where for a time they had the honor of being that State’s most famous rock music group).

The cool Sentinel Steel label out of New Jersey re-packaged, remastered, and re-presented the band’s entire catalogue (including demos, minus embarrassing disco tune made for band member’s brother) in a two-volume set entitle “Rites of Passage”. Thanks to the quality of the remastering (performed from the original master reels) the presentation is nearly as good as any recording heard today, and significantly less “doctored”, thanks to the originals’ lack of Protools and other computer trickery.

It is through these that I know and love Sacred Rite. And when I say love, I mean adore.

Musically, you have a foundation of the most classic of heavy metal type sounds: semi-epic, semi-progressive galloping tracks very much in the 80s tradition of Iron Maiden at their most classic. Yet on top of this solid foundation, Sacred Rite seduces you with an extraordinary palette of eclectic sounds, the most powerful of which is, of all things, very groovy funk. This is most obvious in the guitar solo department, where twin lead guitarists Mark Kaleiwahea and Jimmy Dee Caterine fearlessly meld the style of 80s hyperactive madmen like Van Halen with the lilting, swimmy funk grooves of the Seventies grandmasters.

This delightful melding of sound styles is not limited to the solos, though. Kevin Lum’s unique drumming and Peter Crane’s prominent bass playing (which is an extremely strong presence on the songs, much like Steve Harris’ work for Iron Maiden) also create very groovy, swaggery rhythms that break Sacred Rite’s compositions out of the confines of traditional heavy metal and into something new, broader, funner.

The best way to show what I mean by all this funky groove business is for you to hear it. Check out this two-minute excerpt from 1984’s “The Executioner”:

(click to listen to an MP3 excerpt from “Executioner”)

There’s lotsa funk going on there, beneath the sort of classic metal sounds, particularly with Peter Crane’s bass antics.

Another great aspect of Sacred Rite is the surprise breaks and interludes peppered through their music, thusly:

(click to listen to an MP3 excerpt from “I’ve Seen the Wizard”)

Not bad for a gaggle of high school kids. And, come to think of it, maybe the single most-compelling reason to listen to Sacred Rite is how fun they are. Their youthful exuberance, their sense of adventure and excitement, and the sheer enjoyment you can hear in their playing — you just can’t help but crack a smile and be swept away from all the shit of the modern world, and your modern role as a so-called adult in this modern world. Like the fantasy realms they sing of, you are swept away by their optimism and enjoyment, caught up in the infectiousness of the sheer joy they feel at jamming big time on their instruments.

If you have even the slightest interest in trying classic heavy metal, you could do a lot worse than picking up one of these two volumes. Fun is good. Optimism is good. Sacred Rite serve them both up in spades.

(Image via Sentinel Steel Records) 

Technorati Tags: heavy metal, Sacred Rite, 1980s

Lately, in my rather pathetically narrow windows of free time, I sometimes try to get a few moments in with Oblivion, or X-Men Legends II. But because of the scope of these games, snatching a few minutes here and there is neither particularly rewarding or fruitful. Especially with Oblivion, it takes time to sync up with the alternate world and become productive with your alter-ego, the whole point of the game. Playing for just fifteen minutes is more frustrating than fun.

So you know what I find myself constantly returning to? One of the simplest computer games ever created, and still one of the best: Asteroids.

Asteroids is one of the great pillars of video games, one of the archetypes on which all subsequent games must build their own strengths. Released in 1979, with sequels in 1980, Asteroids showed how addictively fun a game with the most apparently simplistic of concepts could be. For me, Asteroids is one of the “perfect few”.

Take a look at the screenshot above for a second (and yes, it’s actually Asteroids Deluxe — more on that in a sec). Look at how almost pathetically simplistic it is. While Oblivion threatens to overheat my GPU chip with millions of texels, live lighting effects, complex physics calculations, and butterflies, Asteroids is nothing more than a handful of vector lines arranged into simplistic geometric shapes. So simplistic, in fact, as to be abstract. I mean, look at that screenshot: your spacecraft, composed of about eight straight lines, is being menaced by a handful of hollow arrowheads. Ooh. I’m wetting myself with terror.

How can a twenty-seven year old game with monochromatic graphics and extremely limited gameplay compete for my attention with a modern, cutting-edge game like Oblivion, where I can explore a whole virtual world? That’s the question I pondered this morning as I sat down to write this. And the answer, I think, lies in the deceptive promise of technology.

Some years ago, I was browsing in a bookstore when I overheard two of the store’s employees discussing e-books, which at the time were a fresh new buzzword. Essentially they assumed that the advent of e-books meant the death of the printed book. In a matter of years, they assumed, the printed book would be dead, bookstores would be a relic of the past, and we would all be reading on our computer screens.

Flash-forward to now, and, while e-books — or downloadable books — are still in existence (I’ve never used them) they’ve hardly outmoded the printed book world.

I’ve heard similar proclamations about video games wiping out the traditional board game or pen-and-paper role-playing game. While video games are certainly a vastly more lucrative industry, I’m happy to report that the printed game world is alive and well.

The answer these examples reveal is that greater technology does not necessarily produce a greater quality experience. A super-duper high-tech 3D game which sucks to play is still a shitty game. A game with rudimentary sounds and graphics which is a delight to play is still a kick-ass game.

Don’t get me wrong: Oblivion fucking rules. It’s the best CRPG since Baldur’s Gate II and perhaps my favorite CRPG since Ultima 7. And comparing Oblivion to Asteroids is like comparing a Dodge Charger to a Ferrari Enzo. They’re just different beasts. It’s the very fact that Oblivion is so fabulous that makes Asteroids’ enduring interest so intriguing.

Full disclosure: most of the time I prefer playing the much less-successful sequel to Asteroids, Asteroids Deluxe, which altered a handful of features from the original, including replacing the “teleport” button with the more-useful “shield” button. And those arrowhead villains (new to the sequel) in the screenshot are known as Killer Saucers, which start as a clump, and then break off into fragments which attempt to ram into your ship. The asteroids also spin as they career across the screen, which somehow renders them more impressive.

And while we’re on the subject of cool effects, who doesn’t love the totally awesome zero-gravity movement of your ship, as you hit thrusters and then drift? It’s surprisingly realistic, and surprisingly effective in telegraphing a sense of floating in the cold, inky void of space.

To turn full-circle, and try to lend this post some kind of coherency, the reason I often wind up with Asteroids rather than Oblivion is that, suitable to its original destiny as a quarter-chomper in laundromats and pizza parlors the world over, Asteroids is just as entertaining if you play it for 30 seconds as 30 minutes. In this respect, it’s like high-concept screenwriting: it’s gotta have a compelling enough premise that the concept can be sold — and told — in a flash. Asteroids is incredibly simple to grasp — you just spin around and pulverize asteroids, trying to stay alive — and it sucks you in immediately to your role, and your goals. Arcade games of the Golden Age lived and died on how arresting were the simplest of gameplay concepts, and thanks to its insta-concept, Asteroids not just lived but flourished.

In the end, games work because of how compellingly they use the technology at hand to craft the best possible experience. Whether that’s with the gobsmacking complexity of Olbivion’s 3D virtual world or Asteroid’s simple-but-silky-smooth vectors, these games took what they had and delivered something awesome. It’s just that, with Asteroids, it fits very nicely indeed into a fifteen-minute coffee break. Oblivion demands more the scheduling of a seven-course meal.

Nearly thirty years on, it’s still just as satisfying to pound spinning hunks of rock into non-existence.

As a final note, according to Wikipedia, in November 1982 one Scott Safran achieved the still unbroken world record score in Asteroids, a staggering 41 million points.

My high score? I set it last week. 26 thousand points. I wrok.

Technorati Tags: Asteroids, arcade games

Yesterday Wil Wheaton, fourth Earl of Pasadena, posted this message about Spring here in Pasadena. His cheerful disposition reminded me that I should probably have more of a cheerful disposition; sometimes I’m so wrapped up in the shit I’m dealing with that I forget to step back and appreciate what I have right in front of me.

I’ve been living in a house that I’ve been remodeling from a dump into, hopefully, a work of art. It’s been cripplingly expensive, miserably unhappy, and immensely difficult to work on. Essentially, I’ve done all the remodeling alone with my brother without any help, including plumbing, electrical, structural, woodworking, tile-laying … and landscaping.

And landscaping must surely be one of the most rewarding. I’ve planted salvias, vines, lavenders, hibiscus, tons of roses, and on and on, and it’s unspeakably gratifying to see a plant you’ve planted and nurtured grow and mature into something truly spectacular.

But I can lose sight of that. It’s been such a royal pain in the ass living through this project, and it’s so often jeopardized so many other aspects of my life, that I can lose sight of what I’ve accomplished here. So it’s a nice thing to have my consciousness jogged a bit now and again, so I can step back and look at the fruits of my labors and think, “yeah, I fucking planted that.”

(click image to biggify lots)

And the hummingbirds love me.