Jesse Ross | jesseross.com

18. The only thing that would make you happier than the demise of IE6 is world peace.

I did a little illustration for my buddies Ensemble Productions and their latest performance, Seven Santas. Jeff Goode, the playwright, liked the image so much, a theater troupe he’s associated with based in LA picked up the image for their own performance. And you know what? A Metromix posting for the play called my image “the best poster ever designed!“. Woohoo!

Saudades starts after I wake up. What is Saudades, you ask? Well, check back soon for the first installment…

or…

Subscribe to the Saudades feed in advance.

Since Tanya just yelled at me for only posting the drawings that I did on my Zaurus, here is her beautiful sunset:

I’m about to install a new OS on my Zaurus, so I went through and transferred all my drawings over to my main system. Here’s a collection of a bunch of random things I’ve drawn over the past year:

My life is pretty cyclic. Oh, that could be a can of worms… let’s rephrase:

My hobbies are pretty cyclic.

I find that I get really obsessed with one thing, go crazy on it for a month or two, then jump to something else. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

It’s a pretty consistent cycle, though, so I can probalby start to anticipate when I’m getting bored and start picking up the next thing… let’s see:

Comic Books > Illustration > Interface Design > Operating Systems > Dynamic Languages > Real Time Communications (Instant Messaging) > Web Design > Movies > Comic Books

Now, I could have started with anything, but comics seemed like as good a place as any. And, speaking of comics, buy Demo. It’s simply amazing. It’s hands-down one of the best new-ish comics I read in a few years. (Oh, and Heroes totally ripped off the Demo story “Emmy” with this comic… jerks.)

From Ben Krull at Space 150:

Hey, thought you and the people that think you’re del.icio.us might be interested to see a site from your alma mater, CVA. It is called “How is this art?” and has funny videos of “up and coming” artists Paul Billows, Mosaic Mary, and The Clay Elk.

Check it out at http://www.howisthisart.com/

Enjoy!

Thanks, Ben!

Put simply:

Nintendo got it. Apple don’t.

I got to try two new toys today: The MacBook and the DS Lite. I stopped off at the Apple store today on my way home from work, mostly since I hadn’t had a chance to see the MacBooks up close yet. And, let me just say, I was not impressed. Previously, I had been drooling over the black MacBook, and was even considering getting one, but now that I’ve looked at it, I’m reconsidering. The new keyboard doesn’t bother me — it’s a bit weird, true, but it’s not uncomfortable. But it really isn’t that attractive. The black plastic looks cheap — the ThinkPad I’m writing this on right now is of a much higher quality. Maybe if they had gone glossy with it, like the white MacBooks and the iPods, it would be a different story. But the matte black just doesn’t work. My other big complaint is the screen. Why, oh why, did they go glossy. The colors may be brighter, but at the expense that the screen reflects everything. It’s bad both functionally and aesthetically; it really does serve to cheapen the perceived quality of the machine from me, and makes it feel just like every other PC laptop out there. I don’t know what Apple is thinking, but I hope they don’t continue this trend.

Nintendo on the other hand is doing awesome. The DS Lite is simply amazing. I’m getting one the first chance I have. The case is simple beautiful — I read a comment by someone today that it looks as if it had been designed by Jonathan Ive, and it really does. It feels like Apple hardware. And, as icing on the cake, I got to try it for the first time while playing the New Super Mario Bros. There’s nothing like feeling like you’re 7 again to give you the warm fuzzies about a device.

What’s new since last we chatted?

…Been doing a lot of freelance… I guess that’s not really new. Oh, but I am working on two sites in Rails right now, and I love it. It’s freaking amazing how productive I am with it, mostly because the environment is so well thought out (Ruby is a damn fine language, too). One site is for a personal project, and the other site is for a buddy of mine, Peter. I can’t talk too much about either right now, but I think Peter’s should still launch some time this year… mine may be quite a bit later than that.

…Saw X-Men 3 — and I was entertained. Obviously operates in a totally different universe than the canonical timeline, but it was still really enjoyable. Not as good as either 1 or 2, but still a good summer action flick with some characters I really dig.

…Weather’s been really hot up here. Almost Florida-like, actually. God I hate summer.

…I’m in a really bad mood at the moment — trying to prevent that from corrupting all the good things that have been going on lately.

…Saw Imogen Heap the Tuesday before last. Super, super fun show. I highly recommend her, as well as the Varsity Theater now. It’s a really nice venue I hadn’t been to before — very atmostpheric (if not a tad too non-air-conditioned), and decent sound. Also, it’s right next to the Loring Pasta Bar, which is the ultimate first date restaurant.

…Got my student reviews/evaluations back the other day. They had some very nice things to say, and, all in all, it was very positive. They want me to give them a bit more (or a lot more) detailed information in grading their projects. I promise I’ll work on that… wait… what is that smell? Do I sense another Rails app in the works? (Yeah, like I need another project…

…Taught Cristina and Juan Antonio some HTML and CSS goodness — they are super, super awesome people, by the way…

…Why are there no good, small, inexpensive, color, touch screen LCDs? Is that so much to ask for? (Apparently yes)

…I also promise to put some more art up too… but for now, you can watch my adventures into creating artificial fire (ah, the magic of Photoshop and a Wacom tablet).