Fri, April 23, 2004

Howdy, Sev'sketeers! Guess what? You can kiss this website goodbye starting at 2:00 pm GMT this Sunday! pH7media.com will be taking a well deserved week-long break, just enough time for you to forget all about me and find other ways of amusing yourselves, never to return again. (But try not to, because then my life would be, like, meaningless or something.) Sadly, it isn't me who's getting a vacation, it's just the server. Kinda silly, in a way. Robots don't need rest! But, too late, plans have been made, non-refundable deposits deposited, we're past the point of no return now.

Once we reach the other side – exactly 2:00 pm GMT on May 1 – the site will be back again with a bunch of kickass improvements. In fact, I'm betting you won't even recognize it, except for the familiar acerbic style of the cruel and sociopathic rants that show up every day or two. Y'see, we here at pH7media.com are participating in a little something called the May 1 Reboot. (For you non-technical people, "reboot" is a term used to describe the process of kicking your computer until it stops beeping.) For more details, you should feel free to visit may1reboot.com but it basically boils down to this: a bunch of websites around the world are launching newly redesigned versions at exactly the same moment on May 1. I think it's supposed to make a point about global synergy or... something. I'm just in it because I was planning to overhaul the site anyway and this gives it a nice solid deadline.

The fine folks at May 1 Reboot thought it would be cute if all of the participating sites took a week of downtime before the big event so that the simultaneous launch has more meaning (a week of nothing... then, something!). In order to show our solidarity, we'll all be sporting a snazzy Flash animation which states, in a minimalist sort of way, the participation in the M1R project. (It'll be the first Flash you've seen on this site in its nearly five-year history, and it'll probably be about another five before you see more Flash.) It's just our luck, this animation features a fun dandelion which you can play with all week long, to fill the time you would've been reading my treatises on Bush, Survivor, and the Olsen twins. It's an odd sort of cosmic coincidence, because one of my random sketches was featured in my high school literary magazine senior year, and it was a drawing of – a dandelion. About three years later, just before this website was born, there was a good chance that it would be Dandelion Productions instead of pH7 media. I even storyboarded an animated logo for the company (you know, like the Universal globe or the flying filmstrips of New Line) – I must have been so bored in history class! Here's a peek at a few frames from the storyboard. (This will all be explained more carefully in May – I'm planning a spring-cleaning tour of the pH7 archives.)

The point is, the dandelion? Is fitting.

So, enjoy the dandelion next week. I'll be burning the midnight oil, putting the finishing touches on all the lovely surprises that await you on the other end. And, don't worry, this time the changes will be for the better.

I'm really looking forward to it, and I hope you'll be pleasantly surprised.