jesse leo dot com - 2010
Old junk, photos, etc. 2006 2007 2008 2009 Photographs E-moi: jesse at (duh)
Cat in da sun
3/9/10: -- The sibling side effect of autism, an interesting read. Mom stress levels are mentioned as well, but of course no mention of dads. Autism dads are apparently impervious to stress, it seems. Someone must've forgotten to send me that memo. -- MVY streaming the new just-released Hendrix stuff... -- Sweet, merciful 55 degrees yesterday and today. It's not supposed to last beyond tomorrow, but damn I'm so ready for winter to end... 3/8/10: -- Some other random Oscar regurgitations in no particular order: I'm craving all those old Brat Pack John Hughes movies all of a sudden. Such a great tribute. James Taylor doing In My Life for the in memoriam segment - more perfection (despite a few glaring omissions). District 9 was too good to get nothing. Kate Winslet gets more beautiful every year. Hosts Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin seemed to vanish for loooong stretches. And this was ok, hardly anyone noticed/cared. -- Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed The Hurt Locker, and who among us doesn't like to see David topple Goliath? But I think the Academy got it wrong this time, either Best Director or Best Picture shoulda gone to J.C. Just sayin'... 3/5/10: -- Watching Recount on HBO again, hoping this time around it will end differently... -- This is discouraging... -- Trying to look at the bright side of the amount of work I've been doing - if ever I'm captured by terrorists and subjected to sleep deprivation I'll be completely unphased by it... -- Might hit 50 tomorrow and Sunday, so ready for this. Promised H-Dawg we'd go hiking, if you see me this weekend make sure I actually do it. 3/4/10: -- Thieves abscond with almost 30 grand worth of Macbooks and Macbook Pros. Windows 7 laptops were apparently unharmed... -- A collection of cool Alice videos. -- So it wasn't an un-popped popcorn kernel afterall, our little guy's first tooth came out last night! 3/3/10: -- Ten reasons to avoid talking on the phone... -- So with the Vancouver flame sadly snuffed out (come on, these past Olympic games were awesome. Seriously.), our stagnant Netflix queue is back in rotation. And yeah, The Hurt Locker was terrific and gritty and praiseworthy... but was it the epic Avatar-dethroning masterpiece everyone was raving about? I just don't know... -- Did our day just get shorter? 2/28/10: -- $ to buy the Charlotte Bobcats. 2/26/10: -- Ebert remembers Siskel on the tenth anniversary of his death, a terrific read. -- Wired reviews Alice... -- Don't know which is more frightening - the fact that Apple's iTunes Store just sold its 10 billionth song, or the list of most popular songs downloaded (scroll down on the page a bit)... 2/23/10: -- Happy SIXTH birthday Aidan! I don't tell you nearly often enough, but you're the reason I get out of bed in the morning, and you make your mother & I better people every single day. We are extremely proud of you. 2/22/10: -- Took Jakey to art class on Saturday and fell in love with the place. While he was in the back working on a castle of some sort (haven't seen it yet!) with the other kids in the class, I was walking around the studio admiring the half-finished masterpieces in the making - to some these may resemble shapeless globs of nothing, but to their young creators these works are destined for the Louvre. And rightfully so! Can't wait to see our little guy's creation. Unlike his father, who has less than zero artistic mettle, I really think he's got a knack for painting/sketching/artsy stuff in general. Or maybe that's just the doting parent in me talking... 2/18/10: -- WSJ discusses Bioshock 2, which I have installed but have had just a few scant minutes to explore - this whole being a grown-up thing is a serious time sponge... -- Last night's Olympics went too well for the US. All of the heroes that NBC has been hyping way too much - Lindsey Vonn, Shaun White, Shani Davis - all took gold. It's a conspiracy, I tell you ! Rigged ! Payoffs, briberies, and overall bad form ! Obama needs to fix this. 2/16/10: -- New studies reveal that King Tut was probably miserable and in pain for much of his short life... -- Unbelievably awesome collection of Opening Ceremony shots from the Big Picture. 2/12/10: -- I stand corrected: Was planning on posting a rant about how pathetic the media is for obsessing over Lindsey Vonn's shin injury, and how no one would give a damn about her were she not supermodel hot. But then I took the time to actually check out her resume, and, yeah - the girl can flat out ski. Props. -- The Superbowl spot for Dante's Inferno was indescribably beautiful, such that it has me pining for an XBox 360... 2/11/10: -- A disturbing new batch of September 11 photographs was made public today... -- Anatomy of a denial... -- Caught myself feeling thankful that the blizzard missed us yesterday. I'm officially old & lame... -- Ebert reviews Wolfman... 2/9/10: -- First Lady to take on childhood obesity. A worthy endeavor, but she'll have her work cut out for her - the only muscles kids seem interested in working these days are finger muscles on Wiimotes. -- Sketchpad is a cool free online app for drawing and such, Jakey's gonna like this... -- A collection of gloriously creepy critters. Just don't ask me to translate whatever the hell language that is... 2/8/10: -- When squid attack... -- Who doesn't like cheering for the underdog? The first & last football game I watched this season didn't disappoint, and there was even a decent commercial or two (though no classics, that's for sure). Come on, the Google spot got to you, too, don't bother denying it. 2/6/10: -- People sure make funny faces when they're upside down (via Kottke)... -- A roundup of life expectancy in the US by state.. Yet another reason to move to Hawaii... -- "A disgusting, drooling, foul-smelling creature with a big filthy body and the squashed, teeth-baring face of a rabid bulldog." So says Disney describing this awesome-looking beast from the upcoming Alice in Wonderland... Starting to get siked about this movie, but let us say cautiously siked, in some ways the buildup reminds me of the weeks leading up to Tim Burton's 2005 Wonka remake - a disappointment on many levels. 2/5/10: -- 20 to watch for in 2010. Topping my list are Bioshock 2 (in just a few days!) and the Super Mario Galaxy sequel (for Jakey of course)... -- If you too are on neverending quest for browsing bliss, Chrome is worth a try... 2/4/10: -- Great read from Gary Kasparov, arguably the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) in the world of chess. Kasparov seems to have thrown in the towel and concedes that with modern hardware/software, "Man vs Machine" is a thing of the past. Though to me it's still astounding that something capable of calculating millions of possibilities per second - even an old clunker from the 80's - could ever have lost to us measly humans... 2/3/10: -- So just how smart are octopuses (octopi?) anyway? -- Interesting read on Apple's stubborn refusal to support Flash, even after all these years. -- Sorry Mother, but it appears as if I was right all those years... 1/29/10: -- True story: last night I dreamt I was at some geeky event, a Comic-Con of sorts, and Katee Sackhoff was totally hitting on me. Did NOT want to wake up... -- Look skyward tonight, folks... -- So yeah, I watched bits and pieces of Obama's State of the Union speech on Wed. Whatever, it's all showbiz anyway. Many folks view year 1 of his stint as a letdown. I say it's too soon to judge, but with such lofty expectations how could it be otherwise? Here's what I find most disappointing, and I suppose it's unfair to blame this entirely on the president: the rift between the two parties is so laughably evident, and zero progress has been made in that area. We were promised an end to the partisan bickering, instead we find it worse than ever. Every Republican to a man (or woman) votes along party lines. Same for the Dems. At select times during the speech (too often IMHO), every Dem would leap out of his/her chair and applaud enthusiastically, while every Repub remained seated and grim-faced. And Dems are just as guilty in past speeches when a Repub president has delivered this address, sitting stoically and ignoring the jubilation on the other side of the chamber. Stand for what you believe in, people. We don't elect you to behave like rank and file automatons. You're making the entire two-party system seem so infantile... 1/28/10: -- Send it down, Terrence Williams (whoever you are) !! -- Cherished tech writer Andy Ihnatko weighs in on the iPad... -- A sneaky snow "squall" as they're calling it hit right as the rush hour commute began - spinouts, accidents, and general mayhem ensued. Is it May yet? 1/27/10: -- Wow. iPad is glorious and Apple has once again raised the technlogy bar a dozen notches higher. Can't wait to see all of the "me too" implementations other companies will be churning out in the coming weeks. It's something that I would absolutely love to have (my birthday is right around the corner!), but probably not something I would actually go out and buy for myself. For me I'd probably try to scrape together a few extra bills and get a sparkling new Macbook. That said, damn if that thing isn't sexy as hell... -- Ok maybe the 80's weren't a total bust music-wise (see below), FUV just played the B-52's and the Stray Cats back to back... -- FUV is doing a "five decades" thing for their pledge drive, basically each day they're playing hits from a different decade. 60's and 70's were terrific, today is 80's (so if you had to skip a day, well...). Love that station! -- Apple's much (overly?) hyped big announcement today, wouldn't it be funny if it's not a tablet computer afterall? Liveblog here starting at 1PM EST. 1/26/10: -- Took in Legion the other night. The concept of God finally throwing up His hands in disgust and sending his minions to eradicate mankind (heck, at this point who could blame Him?) is interesting, and there are creepy-cool zombie effects aplenty. But those aside the movie is pretty meh. -- I've never laughed so hard while reviewing proper usage of semicolons... 1/22/10: -- Siked for the Caprica premier tonight! -- So let me get this straight - it just got EASIER for big corporations to buy politicians? This is a joke, right? Someone? Anyone? -- Not the biggest fan of magician David Blaine's goofy stunts and parlor tricks, but it was interesting to hear how he trained to hold his breath for 17 minutes. A bit long-winded (hah! get it?) but worth a listen. Clearly a side effect of oxygen depravity to the brain for that long is monotone speech... 1/21/10: -- The Fuhrer reacts to the recent political news out of MA... 1/20/10: -- Training for a road race. Though it's doubtful that I'll make if off the beach... -- Top 10 creepy ghost photographs... -- MA voters made a statement last night to the other 49 states: "We're content with our state-run healthcare plan, so the rest of you guys can go F yourselves..." Thanks Massholes. -- Way to go, Fisk! 1/19/10: -- Spent more time than I care to admit last night trying - and failing miserably - to master Do You Want to Know a Secret on Beatles: Rock Band. Pathetic when you consider the simplicity of the chords. Not going to even bother attempting anything along the lines of Revolution for quite some time... -- Dude's got mad skills... -- Not since the days leading up to the original iPhone launch has the Apple hype been at such a fever pitch, the web is buzzing about the Tablet device Steve Jobs' crew will supposedly unveil next week. Heck, Gawker was even offering cash prizes for information about the device. But here's an interesting take - what exactly to do with the darn thing? Potentially a 'tweener' in size and power, what crowd will this device appeal to? -- Gratz to my cuzzy and her man for delivering the handsome eight-pounder pictured here! We visited over the weekend - APL at first showed no interest in his new cousin until we asked him to hold him, his expression changed to pure delight. And I've never seen him so gentle! 1/18/10: -- Let's lump as many beautiful people as possible together for a 90-minute span, concoct some pointless story with a bunch of cutesy dialogue, release it on 2/12 and call it Valentine's Day. Like the Jessicas (Biel and Alba) would ever have a hard time finding dates... -- During Mimi's birthday lunch yesterday at Olive Garden Aidan sat (relatively) well-behaved and consumed about 1000 calories worth of food. No tantrums, no fussing, no knocking things over. Perhaps there's hope afterall, the key is to starve him beforehand... 1/17/10: -- Extra special birthday wishes to Mother for the big Six-Oh! We love you ! 1/14/10: -- A cute take from Across the Universe on one of my all-time fav Beatles songs. Very pissed that this one isn't available in Rock Band Beatles by the way... 1/14/10: -- Wonka's kids, all grown up... 1/13/10: -- Did you see the mystery object go whizzing by this AM? -- Truly disturbing images coming out of Haiti... -- Never watched a single minute of the Conan show, but gained worlds of respect for him upon reading his statement... -- Study concludes that Sir Mix-A-Lot had it right all these years... 1/11/10: -- McGwire admits to doing 'roids, gee what a surprise. Where are the goofy man-hugs and chest pounds with (fellow juicer) Sammy Sosa now? Strip him of his homerun record and boot him outta baseball, so says I... -- Oh hellz yes - RELEASE THE KRAKEN! As an avid fan of the 80's cheese-fest that was Clash of the Titans, I am majorly pumped... -- A collection of the top 40 Sesame Street guest appearances... 1/8/10: -- When I'm wrong I say it. Well, sometimes. Avatar is every bit as good as everyone raves, and then some. Worth every molecule of the hype and every dime it rakes in. It's a game changer in the same way that Star Wars was. No, seriously. See it at once, preferably in 3D. 1/7/10: -- My birthday is still quite a ways off, but for all you early shoppers out there - click here! -- Google's sexy new phone (iPhone Killer?) is getting all of the buzz of course, but Philip K. Dick of Blade Runner (novel) fame is none too pleased about Google's name choice... 1/6/10: -- Java art, I know you'll like this a latte (nyuk nyuk)... -- Ten words to stop misspelling in 2010... -- As seen in Inglourious Basterds, the Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda proudly presents Nation's Pride. Tarrantino went to a lot of trouble for a movie within a movie... -- I'm not even a big college hoops fan, but who can resist a classic buzzer-beater? 1/5/10: -- Apparently after all these years IT doesn't exist. This definitely calls for some independent research... -- So Sullivan has already been pinging me asking if we want to reserve Shipley again in Sept 2010. Apparently the owners like our propensity for cleanliness, and would like to lock us down as early as possible. Don't they know how broke we are? Trouble is, thoughts of Block Island release a chemical in my brain that overwhelms reason and logical thought. If we skipped it, the money would probably end up going towards a Zoloft prescription and/or a shrink. BI is the carrot dangling in front of my nose that keeps me sane through these frigid, miserable months... 1/4/10: -- Man it feels strange writing/typing 2010, it's a year that seems so Buck Rogers... anyway, no floofy overly-optimistic New Years Resolutions to report this time around. 2010 will be about survival. I mean yeah, becoming a better dad/hubby is a perpetual goal, and getting back in shape is on the permanent list as well. But damn if last year didn't kick everyone's collective ass... Holidays were fun though! Lots of fatty foods and laughter to go around. We welcomed in the New Year clutching our plastic Wii Band Hero instruments close to our hearts and playing with everything we had.		Some sites I hit: Slashdot Boing Boing Me on Twitter! MVY Radio WFUV BBC News Galactica Watercooler Slate Waxy dooce ars technica On St. John TUAW National Geographic Monty Karen Cheng Daring Fireball Jason Kottke WaPo IDEAS Wired NPR Wikipedia Starbucks Gossip MacNN