2013 Detroit Lions

Time for my yearly prediction and yearly bet with the Lions and the NFL.  Let's start with my record prediction.  It is tough to predict as when I watched the Lions in pre-season their first team offense was terrible.  If I were to use that as my gut prediction, then I could potentially foresee another 0-16 year... but I think they will hit a stride, I just don't know when that will be.

Week 1: vs Minnesota Loss
Week 2: @ Arizona Win
Week 3: @ Washington Loss
Week 4: vs Chicago Win
Week 5: @ Green Bay Loss
Week 6: @ Cleveland Loss
Week 7: vs Cincinnati Win
Week 8: vs Dallas Win
Week 9: Bye
Week 10: @ Chicago Loss
Week 11: @ Pittsburgh Loss
Week 12: vs Tampa Bay Win
Week 13: vs Green Bay Loss
Week 14: @ Philadelphia Loss
Week 15: vs Baltimore Loss
Week 16: vs NY Giants Loss
Week 17: @ Minnesota Loss

Prediction is: 5-11.  Ug.  Makes me a bit sick in a way and while they always find a way to hang close, it really ends up being a shoot out in the end.  Even in the 0-16 season, most games were won by a touchdown or less.  They just manage to come close to winning without actually doing so.  But wins are all that really count, not close losses.

My bargain/bet... I will buy some Lions accessories as chosen by a friend of mine (not a Lions fan).

PAX 2013

PAX 2013 is now in the bag and I definitely had a lot of fun.  The transition to four days was a huge move that did well in terms of scheduling panels seemed more spread out.  This brings with it some problems as well.  Part of moving to 4 days was to encourage folks to get the days they want, allowing more people to experience PAX as the size of the convention center is a huge limitation.  In this case though, I think a lot of people travel in so not buying the entire weekend just didn't make much sense.  That said I talked to a lot of folks who just got a single day pass for whatever was available, so maybe it worked better than I thought.

I was able to attend all four days and had Jason, a friend of mine, along for the ride.  He did get sick from his plane ride and therefore missed Sunday and Monday, doing his best to recover.  Four days is a pretty exhausting and intense experience.  It doesn't help that I have been fighting some stomach issues all summer long so I was putting myself to the test on this one.

Friday I was able to hit the 13th Age 2 hour demo (which took 3 hours).  This was one of my top priorities for the convention as I really wanted to experience it as a player before I get to running campaigns in the settings.  Overall, I am impressed with its ability to tie the characters into the story and world.  In addition it provides some nice tools such as Icon relations and backgrounds to help kick off the GM improv thought process.  Afterwards, we grabbed some lunch and went to Patrick Rothfuss' panel.  Holy Poo that dude is fun to listen to.  He claims he doesn't have the speaking voice but it was totally engaging and covered a lot of fun questions ("3rd or 4th date" type questions).  Afterwards it was a quick run through of the expo hall and then off to see the WotC booth as I heard they were looking for DMs to help out.  I signed up to help run Confrontation at Candlekeep the next night and decided to play it so that I could be a bit more prepped.  In the end, it was about 6 hours of gaming and a couple of hours in line plus a expo hall run through.

Saturday, Jason abandoned me to stand in line at Cards Against Humanity booth where he scored the Bigger, Blacker Box as well as the core set of cards.  I made a couple passes on the expo hall where I played with the NVIDIA Shield which is just an impressive gaming device and I seriously want it.  In addition it was hooked up to the ScreenBeam by Actiontec to show it off on an HDTV with only 100ms latency.  Afterwards I was able to check out the action in Assassin's Creed: Black Flag in their private theater which was super nice and I have to say that I am excited for this to come out.  Jason and I finished by running through the expo hall and grabbing some food before sitting in line at the Acquisitions, Inc D&D live game.  Fantastic awesome fun.  While standing in line, Jason let me use his NVIDIA Shield which further cemented the fact that  I really want to own one and helped pass the 2 1/2 hours waiting in line.  We hustled out of there and grabbed some sandwiches so that I could scarf down some food before running Confrontation at Candlekeep.  The players had a good time and were really engaging.  We had some old hat players and even a player who had never played a pen and paper RPG before.  Got some hearty thank yous from the players as they left which felt good.  Jason did the intro to D&D Next while I was running that.

Sunday, I was running solo for a while.  I started by hitting the 6th floor of the Expo which I had missed as well as stopping off at the game shop booths where I was able to pick up Fluxx Boardgame, 7 Wonders, and FATE Accelerated. I also picked up a new miniature from Reaper to paint, given that I totally forgot to get a dragon in the Kickstarter.  Got a demo from Fantasy Flight Games for for Cyborg while I waited to run into Lindsey from work and then we ended up playing Flame War, Zombie Dice, Through the Desert, Tsuro, and some other games which was totally fun.  Lindsey and company took off, while I grabbed some food and went to be a player for the Mines of Madness DM Challenge in the Wizards' area.  Unfortunately they ran out of DM, so rather than call it a night (with like 20 folks still wanting to play), I volunteered to run the session cold.  It went fairly well and I think the folks had some fun even through the dungeon had its way with them.

Monday was the day of exhaustion.  I again hit the expo hall early to see if there were things that I had missed.  Talked to the folks at GAEMS about their portable console system which looks nice but is heavy.  The screen on it is gorgeous and the speakers sounded nice.  Watched some folks play Formula D which looks like a fantastically fun board game and grabbed lunch with David from work.  Afterwards we played more Flame War and also Pompeii.  We also checked out WiHD which we found was pronounced Why HD.  This product sends HD signals over 60GHz sort of like wifi but has no lag or problems that I noticed which is impressive in the Expo hall given the amount of wireless stuff going on.  They also claim only 5ms of latency which if true is very impressive.

Overall PAX was fun, and gaming with strangers and friends alike really made the experience.

Green Mars and Blue Mars

I have just finished Green Mars (Mars Trilogy) and Blue Mars (Mars Trilogy) by Kim Stanley Robinson.  I would tack this up to two illnesses starting with Green Mars versus a stomach virus and then Blue Mars versus a head cold.  While I found Red Mars to be super dark and depressing, I did find that Green and Blue were much brighter.  That said, while I have found the interactions of the characters to be fantastic and the ability of the author to really dig into drastically different characters and deal with them in a very personal manner.

Now while I have really enjoyed the series, it feels that a lot of the world and how it plays out is driven by these smart, charismatic, slightly dysfunctional characters.  In addition, the antagonist is really played by all that is old in thought and motivation.  It speaks of a viriditas and how the world is shaped by a constant interplay of chaos and order in the galaxy.  Much of the book is fantastic.  I tended to lose interest in the long monologues where it goes into full on soapbox mode.

With all the things that occur in the books, I don't think I could really do justice in them by trying to provide a full on review.  I definitely think this is a book series that people should read, even if at times it can drag on.  There is definitely some moving moments that will be most poignant as I was wrapping up the final book.  It was super moving and done in a very classy way.

The most personal message that I am taking away from this is that our goals in life should leave the world better off than when we started.

Recently Completed Books

Firing up the rarely used blog to put down a few thoughts on a myriad of books I have completed recently...


Cold Days: A Novel of the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher was a fantastic read.  I have liked all the Dresden File books so far and as a writer, Mr. Butcher continues to get better.  The first few were definitely rough around the edges, but still contained interesting characters in tough situations.  With the most recent outing, we pick up at the end of Ghost Story and the return of Harry.  Again we watch as Harry is put into terrible situations where he doesn't have to good sense to end it all and manages to come out the other side, definitely worse for wear and with more burdens.  While all the books in the series follow this same sort of pattern, this one does a fantastic job of really opening up new realms of possibilities in the story line as well as expanding on the depth of his created world.  Just like a piece of candy, I really can't wait for the next one to come out.  Also kudos to Amazon for quickly replacing my first copy which had a printing error within a day of contacting them.


Red Mars (Mars Trilogy) by Kim Stanley Robinson is a book that my friends have been nagging me to read for quite some time.  While this falls under the category of hard science fiction, it also really puts a strong emphasis on the human and social aspects.  Even though this book came out 20 years ago, it still evokes the same fear of large powerful corporations who will exploit all to reaches higher into the monetary stratosphere.  It talks of people who try to work within that system to save humanity.  It talks of people bucking the system to save humanity.  It tells also of the futility of the effort and the mass destruction that people cause wherever they go.  The book's pacing is on the slow side and is definitely not for the faint of heart as this book is fairly massive, but I found it thought provoking and will be starting the next book shortly.


A Memory of Light (Wheel of Time) by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson finally completes the Wheel of Time series started in 1990.  The series itself has sort of a love - hate relationship with me as I truly enjoyed the first few books but at some point it began to drag and the number of side characters sort of exploded, only to be made worse that a lot of the side characters were more interesting than some of the main characters.  The final book is sort of a love fest for all the readers that have stuck with the series so far.  Some characters die and some live through the final battle and we really get a chance to have at least a paragraph with all of them.  This book is also massive and the last battle is a large chunk of the book, but most of the book is actually spent on 3 battles leading up to the last battle.  This choice was probably deemed necessary in the tale, but for me was just wasted space.  In the end of it all, I am glad to say that it is over.  I don't regret the love that I have for the first few books, but I can't say I have enjoyed the last half of the series.  What is made worse is that many of the characters in this book just don't feel like the characters that Robert Jordan would have written.  While the female characters finally get some depth, the male characters all go through a change that makes them feel just untrue to their origin as well as the experiences that they have gone through.


Sly Flourish's Dungeon Master Tips and The Lazy Dungeon Master by Mike Shea where some pretty good reads for the DM that wants to spend more time playing with his players than crafting an intricate story line.  I have spent a lot of time in the last 2 years trying to figure out the best to do collaborative storytelling.  I have read a lot of works and also gone about it from the player side.  I don't think I have the right answer, but a lot of the reading has definitely put me on a stronger path.  At some point, I will have to start putting down some of the ideas and approaches I have taken.  That said, I can definitely recommend these books in you are interesting in doing DM work as it works hard to take the work out and put more control back into the hands of the players.


The Human Division #1: The B-Team, The Human Division #2: Walk the Plank, and The Human Division #3: We Only Need the Heads by John Scalzi are part of an episodic experiment in writing where the stories range from short story to novella in length released on a weekly time table.  The stories all take part in the "Old Man's War" universe and are told from the standpoint of a bunch of characters experiencing the universe after John Perry brings Earth to the galactic table.  While the "pilot" book felt a bit rough getting started, I have found that they are addictive and hard to put down (making their shortness all the more painful).  And while they are short stories, you can definitely see the pattern that is forming and the deeper story line emerging from the pieces.

Penny Arcade Expo 2012

Another PAX up and gone.  Given this was my 8th PAX I think that I have really hit my stride in managing my time there as well as any associated stresses of going.  There is just so much to see and do that you have to consign yourself that you are going to miss truly great events in favor of other truly great events.

Friday

For Friday, I did not have much on my plans to hit. I was interested in doing some D&D as well as hitting the expo hall and seeing what folks had brought in.  Instead of jumping into the queue line, I was happy to see that the Penny Arcade Merch line was already open and nearly empty, so I jumped in and got my yearly tee shirts and book.  After getting through the mega line (which I got to talk to two nice guys in the insurance business, seriously), I was able to check out the insanely crowded expo hall.  After quickly looking through the expo hall, I settled into line to watch the live play demo of Assassin's Creed 3 which was absolutely incredible.  Besides being blown away by the graphics, it was just incredible to see what they have done in terms of interacting with the environment.  When Connor was climbing a tree, it was not climbing a ladder or rope, he was moving branch to branch in a very realistic manner.  My friends went through earlier and mentioned that their playthrough included stopping to pet a dog in the street.  Just wow.

After meeting up with my compatriots outside the League of Legends tournament (which I hope is not part of PAX next year, but separate and nearby) and grabbing lunch, we headed over to the Annex and starting going through one of the special encounters where we all got to play evil drow.  The DM was a little distracted, but we still had some fun (got a free d20).  We realized that the queue line was nearby to try out D&D Next.

While in line we met some nice blokes from Canada.  One of the folks in the room also broke out Cards Against Humanity which was sick, disturbing and cool.  Basically I have been told it is similar to the game Apples to Apples where you basically do Mad Lib.  Cards Against Humanity contains only the most foul aspects of humanity to use in sentences that can only end horribly.  Once we got into the game, I was shocked at how well balanced the game felt and how much fun we actually had playing.  The story the DM put together was fun, and coming from the 4e perspective I was a bit skeptical of the characters with few abilities and few hit points.  But once we started playing, I saw that it was really a playground for the players and DM which required way less math and fiddly bits and focused on what D&D should be about, which is a group narrative that is fun and engaging.  For instance, one of the characters in the group was a priest of Lathandar, which could be done fairly dry and just playing the mechanics, but instead the player basically put life into his character where he tried to convert every creature he met to his god whether they be undead, animal, or person.  Plus he monologued... a lot.  Scott's character was a halfling rogue who used to be a chef, so when he got the chance, he backed some poisonous pies to feed some Orcs.  Just had a seriously good time.

Saturday

On Saturday, I had two things on my agenda: Acquisitions, Inc and the DM challenge.  Up until that point, I decided it was time to hit the expo hall again and time permitting, I would check out the board game area.  Well time didn't permit and we got sucked into all the cool games.  While the big triple A games were cool, what we came away with was how cool the indie games were, although part of that is probably that we could actually go play them and talk to folks working the booth as opposed to the big titles and companies were just overwhelmed with people.  I did get a chance to try out Doom 3 3D, which left me feel nauseous.  I was impressed by the look and how smooth it was, but felt like my eyes were about 2cm too close together for what they wanted to show.  Another cool one I saw was Hawken which had some awesome mech action coupled with neat visual cues on damage taken.  Also I got roped into trying a controller that attaches to Android devices via bluetooth called Moga which felt incredibly smooth and comfortable... if I had an Android device.

After lunch, we were able to get in another D&D encounter before we began the long line sitting exercise known as waiting for Acquisitions, Inc (and a blog that has good pictures as well).  While waiting we met a few groups playing Zombie Dice (best line game ever) and decided to join forces to have a bigger game, which included a couple from the UK named Ben and Jen as well as Dennis, a friend of Scott's and also Glen and Amy.  After that we switched up and played some Cards Against Humanity.  The D&D session had some incredible set pieces as some cool effects, but at its essence it is about watching Wil Wheaton, Scott Kurtz, and Mike and Jerry at their best.  It was fun, entertaining and loaded with butt jokes.

After that, Jason and I headed over to take part in the DM challenge while Scott went to the Avicii concert. Our DM had flown in from London and I was lucky enough to land again with one of the guys we had met the night before.  In addition, the DM from the challenge last year was part of our player party this time.  The encounter set was placed in Menzobarranzan with evil Dark Elves (a theme for them this year).  The campaign was pretty interesting and I can see what the DM was trying to do, but as normal players we didn't cooperate.  In either case, what he planned was super slick, but what ended up happening was also very interesting.

Sunday

Instead of waiting in line for the expo hall, I was ran into an interesting guy from California and we talked a lot about interesting games.  He headed onto the hall, and I learned that the Wil Wheaton Awesome Hour was already full up so I headed down to talk to the folks at Reaper Miniatures who put on one of the largest kickstarters of all time.  I took some time to paint a miniature of my own and found it super relaxing and fun. I am afraid I have found a new hobby.  Once I left, I headed for the expo hall to see some more of the indie games and get a chance to play Forza Horizon and another game from Dream. Build. Play.

After lunch, I met up with Lindsey and her daughter, Sam.  We wandered about looking for a place to buy Cards Against Humanity but gave up.  I was surprised at Sam who at only 7 months was having the time of her life waving at everyone she saw and just being a bundle of smiles.

At this point, I am completely worn.  I find a nice quiet place to rest my weary legs and wait to have dinner with Amanda, Scott, and Jason.

2012 NFL Draft - How'd I guess

Well per usual, I did my mock draft 1 week ago just to see how my set of picks would turn out.  I have come up with my own scoring just to see how I did.  I score 5 points if I get the team correct with my guess and then 5 points if the location in the draft was correct but for every spot off, I remove 1 point.

Pick - Team - My Guess - Actual - Score

1. IND - Andrew Luck - Andrew Luck - 10
2. WAS - Robert Griffin III - Robert Griffin III -10
3. MIN    Matt Kalil - Trent Richardson (CLE) - 9
4. CLE    Trent Richardson - Matt Kalil (MIN) - 9
5. TB    Justin Blackmon - Justin Blackmon - 5
6. STL    Maurice Claiborne - Maurice Claiborne - 5
7. JAC    Quintin Coples - Mark Barron - 0
8. MIA    Ryan Tannehill - Ryan Tannehill - 10
9. CAR    Fletcher Cox - Luke Kuechly - 3
10. BUF    Michael Floyd - Stephon Gilmore - 3
11. KC    David DeCastro - Dontari Poe - 0
12. SEA    Riley Reiff - Fletcher Cox - 0
13. ARI    Mike Adams - Michael Floyd - 0
14. DAL    Melvin Ingram - Michael Brockers - 1
15. PHI    Michael Brockers - Bruce Irvin - 4
16. NYJ    Cordy Glenn - Quiton Coples - 0
17. CIN    Dre Kirkpatrick - Dre Kirkpatrick - 10
18. SD    Mark Barron - Melvin Ingram - 0
19. CHI    Jonathan Martin - Shea McClellin - 0
20. TEN    Courtney Upshaw - Kendall Wright - 0
21. CIN    Kendall Wright - Chandler Jones - 5
22. CLE    Luke Kuechly - Brandon Weeden - 0
23. DET    Stephon Gilmore - Riley Rieff - 0
24. PIT    Dontari Poe - David Decastro - 0
25. DEN    Nick Perry - Dont'a Hightower - 3
26. HOU    Stephen Hill - Whitney Mercilus - 0
27. NE    Chandler Jones - Kevin Zeitler - 0
28. GB    Kevin Zeitler - Nick Perry - 4
29. BAL    Peter Konz - Harrison Smith - 0
30. SF    Devon Still - A.J. Jenkins - 0
31. NE    Alameda Ta'amu - Doug Martin - 0
32. NYG    Coby Fleener - David Wilson - 0

91 Points!

So, I did get a bunch of misses, but overall I think I did better than in years pass.  Mostly it was the late rounders that I was able to either get the team right or hit on the pick.  Once you get later on it, it just ends up being really challenging.  Better yet, I didn't spend a ton of time working on this :P

So how did the Lions do?

Really it is the OT that was the big surprise of the draft and biggest break.  He was the second best OT and he was able to hang around for 23 picks.  We drafted a WR next that was probably too early for this guy.  He went out late last year (November) with an ACL injury.  Who knows when or if we get this on the squad.  Our next 6 picks were CB and OLB.  It's what we really needed to pick up and looks like they are grabbing a bunch to see which ones stick.  I am down with that as a strategy.  However I wish they would have went and grabbed a C in the second round.  There was a couple good ones hanging around at that point that would replace Dominic in a year or two and would give us a nice upgrade in terms of size.  Oh well.

Fan grading came out as a B, but I think that is a bit optimistic.

My take:
1st round: A
2nd round: F
3rd round: B+
4th round: C+
5th round: C
6th round: C-
7th round: C+

Overall, I think it is more of a C+ type of draft.  Missing our on C or on one more RB, was definitely a miss.  Picking a WR that is out, is another miss.  I saw a couple of good ones that would have made me happy.

Go Lions!

2012 Mock Draft

 Updated to include links to player profiles...
 

1. IND    Andrew Luck QB
2. WAS    Robert Griffin III QB
3. MIN    Matt Kalil OT
4. CLE    Trent Richardson RB
5. TB    Justin Blackmon WR
6. STL    Maurice Clairborne CB
7. JAC    Quintin Coples DE
8. MIA    Ryan Tannehill QB
9. CAR    Fletcher Cox DE
10. BUF    Michael Floyd WR
11. KC    David DeCastro OG
12. SEA    Riley Reiff OT
13. ARI    Mike Adams OT
14. DAL    Melvin Ingram OLB
15. PHI    Michael Brockers DT
16. NYJ    Cordy Glenn OG
17. CIN    Dre Kirkpatrick CB
18. SD    Mark Barron SS
19. CHI    Jonathan Martin OT
20. TEN    Courtney Upshaw DE
21. CIN    Kendall Wright WR
22. CLE    Luke Kuechly ILB
23. DET    Stephon Gilmore CB
24. PIT    Dontari Poe DT
25. DEN    Nick Perry DE
26. HOU    Stephen Hill WR
27. NE    Chandler Jones DE
28. GB    Kevin Zeitler OG
29. BAL    Peter Konz C
30. SF    Devon Still DT
31. NE    Alameda Ta'amu DT
32. NYG    Coby Fleener TE

As part of my normal tradition, I am putting up my take on the upcoming NFL draft.  Since last year, my picks were so awful, I am not spending time writing up my take on each of the picks.  The overall feeling I get this year is that more teams are willing to stick with their existing postitions.  I don't expect a lot of upward movement even though some teams in the middle would consider moving down, I don't see a lot of teams willing to spend the picks to move up.  Even your talented teams have many needs that they will want to fill in the draft.  I think Kansas City did the best job in situating themselves to move up or down if the mood strikes them.

Review: Synology 212j

I ended up picking up a NAS. I found that I was doing a lot more transferring of files around my house and after a number of hard disk failures, I decided to add a little bit of redundancy into my life. After a lot of research and some feedback from my friends, I picked the Synology DiskStation 2-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage DS212j (White) along with two 2TB Seagate drives.

The drives and NAS showed up last Tuesday. I dropped the drives in and had the power on to the device in a couple of minutes. I was then left with a "now what?" moment. I tried connecting via IP address and got nothing. I finally gave up and installed the Drive Assistant that came on the disk. This basically told me the NAS didn't have any firmware on it. Whoops! So I dropped the v3.2 DSM on the device and went from there. Once that was installed I was connected to a very slick UI all delivered from a webpage. I noticed that it was already provisioning the drives, but I prefer to have a little bit of input on this, so I cancelled the formatting and set it to create a RAID 1 volume instead of the Synology Hybrid format. 4 hours later, it was done, but I was already in bed.

The next day, I installed DSM v4.0 the next day was very happy to see that I did not need to redo all the permissions I had setup. The upgrade went smoothly and I was able to setup all the shared folders and setup permissions. Next up I have applied encryption to the documents shared folder which went smoothly so far. I then started to backup my laptop and showed Michelle how easy it was.

At this point, I will need to decide what is going to get backed up to S3 and also to learn if it is encrypted when it is backed up. So really I am completely sold on this device. It is awesome for the things that I am using it for.

Given I have two Seagate drives that are greater than 1TB, I do have some concerns about drive health. The number of ECC errors that Synology is reporting is quite high. I do have them in Mirror so hopefully that is sufficient for my data redundancy needs.

NAS indecision...

So I have been researching NAS software and solutions. For years I have got along with burning to CD/DVD and removable, portable hard drives. Data though keeps getting larger and I find that I am doing more and more work from different machines which makes the movement of data suddenly something I care about within the house.

So far the biggest thing I have come across is FUD. Lots of complaints about little things in each of the various solutions that are out there. And when digging into freeNAS to run on an older desktop, they are suggesting things that this desktop can't even do. 8G of RAM? 1TB of HDD? Although I do frequently deal in very large files I just don't know what I will need.

So where does this leave me?

Well, I don't know. I would like to pick up a NAS as I don't think my old desktop is the right solution. Now I need to figure out which one is going to do what I want which is ridiculously simple:

1. Save data over the network easily from Windows and Linux
2. Be secure
3. Be quiet
4. RAID 1... I need mirroring.

Maybe this: Buffalo Technology LinkStation Duo 4 TB (2 x 2 TB) Network Attached Storage LS-WX4.0TL/R1

Or maybe this: Synology DiskStation 2-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage DS212j

I just don't know...

Start of NFL season 2011

Well, I was pretty sure that there would be no football this year after the contentiousness of getting a new CBA setup. I was wrong and really it just turned out that there was just too much money on the table for something to not get worked out. That said, the shorter camp lead to a bunch of injuries that I don't think would have happened if there was a full time period to train and get prepared.

So a couple of predictions on the year. I think that the Bengals are heading to the first pick in the 2012 draft, but there are a couple of teams nipping at their heels such as Seattle, Tennessee, and Buffalo. Although with the NFL, you never know what will happen. On the other end of the spectrum, NFC champs will likely be either the Eagles or the Packers, but I put my money on the Packers as I expect them to be much more consistent, while I think you will see bigger wins and bigger losses from the Eagles. On the AFC, I think you will see either the Patriots or the Steelers at the top of the pile. Between the two, I expect the Steelers to do better just with more experience on defense and the magical Mike Wallace.

That aside, I fully expect the Lions to go 8-8 this year. I am fully prepared for a terrible season though. Or at least that is what I am telling myself. I need to come up with a bet again. I think this year I will keep it simple and say if the Lions go double digit wins or a player on the team gets offensive or defensive player of the year, I will pick up a Jersey.

And really, I just happy that football is starting soon.

PAX 2011

Another year of PAX gone, and at some level I miss it, but boy did I need sleep afterwards. This year I was joined by my former intern, Scott. He definitely is more into the video game scene than I am. So last year, I did a lot of the talks. In other years, I've done more time on the exhibition floor or in the board game rooms. This year I decided to go a bit more low key and reduce the amount of time I sat in lines and also avoid the exhibition hall as it was an absolute zoo, probably because of the fake badges.

Day one, I tried to hit the keynote, but no luck. I heard it was good along with the Q&A. Instead I started out in the exhibition hall wandering aimlessly seeing anything that would catch my fancy. There was definitely a ton of cool looking games there. Seems like the biggest booths belong to the AAA games and MMOs. Does that mean that MMOs are flush with cash? Either way, it was pretty amazing. I would say that "All Orcs Must Die" is the game I was most surprised by. AssCreed:Rev looked amazing and Skyrim and Lego Harry Potter 2 and ... you get the picture. After wandering the hall, I went and stood in line for Wil Wheaton's talk. Scott decided to bail as he expected to get in later and headed back to hall. As such, Scott missed out on another great Wil talk. Heh. After than I made my way to the Wizards D&D floor. I put in a couple of dungeon delves and I was hooked. It was great fun.

Day two, I did some more D&D and exhibition hall prior to seeing Wil, Mike, Jerry, and Scott doing Aquisitions Inc with Chris Perkins after a 2 and half hour wait in line. I was super impressed by the set they had built and with Paul and Storm with their minstrel prowess. Chris built an absolutely incredible story, but Jim Darkmagic is just a ... supporting humor character and the result was that what could have been an incredibly interesting story was a little bit flat and completely filled with fey guy jokes and dick jokes. That said, the guys are still super entertaining and Wil and Scott's interplay is fun, but we needed more Jerry. We checked out Halofest which was a little disappointing. I am not sure what I was looking for but it just had this weird Museum vibe to it with way more people. Some of the content was very cool, but was just left wanting more. Afterwards, I convinced intern Scott to visit Wizard land again (I said I was hooked right?) and we were right in time for the DM challenge which is where a DM puts together a 3-4 hour adventure and we the players rated him. Kudos to the DM we had as he put together a fun story.

Day 3, I was exhausted and checked out the expo hall again but with an eye towards picking up something for Miranda as well as checking out some of the weird and less well traveled. I did a little more D&D and also wandered through the board game area. Definitely was exhausted at that point.

Overall, I had a great time again. I met a lot of interesting people and played games and listened to some fun talks. There was some incredible cosplay going on and most folks were just super cool. I don't think you can really say that about most large gatherings. I will be going again, and hopefully I can get some more friends to go as it is just a good time to be had.

Dear NFL, re: Free Agency

Dear NFL Owners and Players,

This off season has been a bit tumultuous and I am sure that it has not been fun for you either. What has surprised me is just how fun it was once the season got underway. The accelerated free agency turned what is normally a very stately and boring section of the season and made it compressed. Suddenly the fans were much more excited about players they normally would not have noticed.

What might be interesting for next year would be to open free agency 1 week prior to the Draft next year.

Thanks, and don't lockout/strike again.

Draft Lions done

Alright... The draft is over and I proved once again that I have no idea who the team would pick. Maybe I will tally up how I did later, but it was bad enough that it can wait indefinitely. On to how the Lions did...

Most the draftniks think the Lions did a terrific job. The players they got are generally highly regarded. The main thing is that they did not really address any of their team weaknesses. Mayhew has been talking about building up your strengths similar to what the Colts did when they went with Manning and continued to draft offensive weapons and protection. I am still a little boggled that they continue to ignore the fact they have a 33 year old, undersized center, one of the guard positions continues to rotate and rotating the right tackle position. Backus is getting older too on top of it. Couple that with guys at CB and OLB that didn't even make the training camp cuts for other teams. That said with all of that, they did go 6-10...

So onto what the Lions did for a draft:

1) Nick Fairley, DT, Round 1, Pick 13: projected as one of the top 3 DT in the draft who has flashes of brilliance but inconsistent play brought on by inconsistent effort. There is not a lot of data here as he only started 2 seasons and only his second season did he produce any results. I don't like this because at the same time, you could have had one of the top-3 OT at that time or one of the top-3 CB at the time. All those had first round grades.

2) Titus Young, WR, Round 2, Pick 12: A WR?! The basic analysis on this guy is that he is a poor man's DeSean Jackson. Under 6ft, with 4.3-4.4 speed. No reports on his hands, but the main use it seems would be the bubble screen and then stretching the field to push the safety's back. Not so sure on round two with a WR. At this point they could have had the 2nd best OG in the draft. If you want short speed, there were lots of guys that would fit that bill.

3) Trade alert: Lions trade a boat load of picks to move back into the second round with the Seattle Seahawks. Basically we trade all of our picks in the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh round for the Seahawks second, fifth, and seventh. Lions management is filled with retards.

4) Mikel Leshoure, RB, Round 2, Pick 25: 2nd best RB in the draft, but the draft was very deep with good RB. Great pick if it were not for the trade. There was no reason to move up to get one though as there were plenty. Leshoure is a big beefy power back. Seems to have good hands. Single cut type back.

5) Doug Hogue, OLB, Round 5, Pick 26: More of an athlete than a plug in OLB. Was a RB, but converted to LB his Junior season. Did well with the conversion. This is more of a special teams pick, but could be a starter in a couple of years. In the 5th, this is a pretty solid pick. However we could have had Greg Jones, LB MSU who could have started near about immediately but has low upside...

6) Johnny Culbreath, OL, Round 7, Pick 6: Have no idea. Seriously. The guy is good sized but I have never watch South Carolina State play...

Just disappointed overall. They picked good players but it feels like stafford will get killed again and we will get burned in the air again.

Bears drafted well taking a T then DT in the first two rounds. Both should contribute immediately. Packers drafted well by focusing on all the points of need and doing them in rounds that make sense, and they got good players at the points of time they were picking. The Vikings are just pants on head retarded. They took a QB way too early in Christian Ponder. They took a TE next when they could have grabbed one later. Just weird.

The basic feeling I got from the draft was that there were fewer super star type players, but more guys in that mid range. Looking at most player grades, you usually have 3-5 who grade out in mid to upper 90s, but the highest this year was a 86. This is across several boards. The patriots did another superb job grabbing good people and getting picks next year. Sigh.

Mock Draft 2011

Per usual, I am going to put together my mock draft. Last I think I got 5 teams right which is pretty terrible. Hopefully I a bit better at guessing this years teams, but really it is difficult with trades and all the smoke screens that teams put out. Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier to predict who will be good, but then I remember how many busts there are in a year.

To make matters worse, this year there may not be football which means the draft, instead of being an interesting thought exercise, turns out to be a colossal waste of time. Although me doing this is :)

What should make it easier is that there will be no trades that include 2012 draft picks. This means there will be a lot less trades as trading players will also be difficult because of the lack of a CBA. So my guess is there will be less trades than last year, but will still be a few.

1 CAR	Marcell Dareus	So many needs for Panthers...
2 DEN	Von Miller	Most needs on defense, likely to grab a safety in the second round.
3 BUF	Blaine Gabbert	They could go OT here, but think they will grab one of the top 3 QB.
4 CIN	Da'Quan Bowers	Could also go OT, but likely will grab in start second round.
5 ARI	Cam Newton	WTF
6 CLE	AJ Green	This doesn't feel like something Holmgren would do...
7 SF	Nick Fairley	Lots of pressure to take a franchise QB here...
8 TEN	Patrick Peterson	Another need for a QB here...
9 DAL	Tyron Smith	Best OT to protect the QB and push the line edge for runs
10 WAS	Mark Ingram	Hello Shanahan.
11 HOU	Prince Amukamara	Houston continues its attempt to shutdown then Colts.
12 MIN	Muhammad Wilkerson	Could trade up to get one of other DT, but this is definitely a need. Could also grab Locker.
13 DET	Anthony Castonzo	A year without Stafford injured, not including the lockout?
14 STL	Julio Jones	St. Louis continues to build a football team.
15 MIA	Robert Quinn	Could go Locker...
16 JAC	Cameron Jordan	Picking Jacksonville, impossible.
17 NE	J.J. Watt	With two first round picks... who to go after first...
18 SD	Gabe Carimi	Could also go with DE Kerrigan here.
19 NYG	Nate Solder	Protect that Manning
20 TB	Ryan Kerrigan	Between McCoy and Kerrigan, someone should be free to get a sack.
21 KC	Corey Liuget	Versatility seems to be the new KC.
22 IND	Derek Sherrod	Protect that Manning
23 PHI	Mike Pouncey	Might go for a linebacker here...
24 NO	Adrian Clayborn	Maybe less blitzes this year?
25 SEA	Jake Locker	I don't agree with my own selection, as I don't think Pete will go this way... probably wants an OT for depth.
26 BAL	Jimmy Smith	Winning on D will continue, but more time with Flacco and his receiver crew will pay dividends this year, if they play.
27 ATL	Aldon Smith	Gotta put pressure on Aaron Rodgers somehow...
28 NE	Akeem Ayers	I expect more O-line in round 2.
29 CHI	Danny Watkins	Give Cutler a little more time, but round 2 will see either a LB or DT.
30 NYJ	Cameron Heyward	Would hopefully grab some double teams to open up better blitzing paths.
31 PIT	Marcus Cannon	Does Big Ben need to run so much?
32 GB	Mikel LeShoure	Another year without a running back is not acceptable.

We'll see how I do this year...

Month of March

Been watching the fight over the NFL season continue. Normally we would be in the thick of free agency with some prep for the draft period. Now we have the draft coming up but a near guarantee that there won't be a season for the rookies to play in. What a pain.

Recently had a birthday, where I turned 33. Hoping it will be a good year.

Also prepping for Miranda's birthday. Mostly preparing myself for her birthday and any sort of party/celebration that happens.

Random bits and pieces

Currently I am hiding away from Miranda. She has a cold and things at work are hectic enough that I am hiding away so I don't miss work or have to work from home. That tends to make things much more difficult and then I just end up working more. Christmas has come and gone with us still meaning to finish our Christmas thank yous. I feel like I should call and thank you since I prefer to have that type of two way communication. Or maybe it really means that I am too lazy to lick a stamp. That said we always appreciate the love of our family.

We find ourselves gripped in winter again. A couple of cold days have found their way to Seattle. I thought when I came here that we would not see so much cold weather, but it turns out that you should see about 1 week of nasty cold a year. This year we got about 2 weeks spread over 3 instances. But Miranda got the snow she wanted... of course she is sick and can't enjoy this round.

Football is done. Sad the Steelers couldn't win. Happy the game was fantastic. Right now though, I am pretty sure with the current labor negotiation that we will not see football until late next year or maybe not at all next year. At some level, that is fine. I will abandon the sport if it decides to abandon its fans. Or maybe I switch over to college ball. I am not blaming either side of the disagreement, but get this damn thing fixed.

Work is work. I have spent a lot of time doing operational work for the team to make sure everything is in tip-top shape and cleaning up some old code. My latest passion which probably marks me as sick in the head is efficient web service wire protocols. It is amazing how much efficiency is lost by making something flexible, I wonder if there is not some happy medium that can be achieved. Wish I could expound more but really I need to do some research to exactly layout what is seen in Apache's web service framework and other web service frameworks. That said, we moved from the old, beloved PacMed building to our new digs on the Amazon campus. I have to say that I am not totally digging our new digs.

The things I like about it are that we are on campus and it is easier to meet with teams and there is an interesting Amazon vibe. I honestly am looking forward to seeing what that looks like this summer when folks are more likely to be outside instead of tucked away in their cube farms. Now as for the specific space that I am in... we I am not digging it so much. It is a team room without the room, which means we are just in a wide open area next to the elevator and that means noisy and high traffic. I am currently working on some ideas to make it more ... personalized. I spent part of the morning pricing out a mini project to create a 4 ft by 4 ft beaded curtain with the p13n robot design on it. Well it is looking like it will be both expensive and time intensive when I was really just aiming to only be time intensive. A glass bead curtain of this design will cost about $1000 and a plastic version will be about $300. I am not sure what I was expecting when I needed about 10,000 to 15,000 beads to do the curtain. So now that is up in the air. Maybe a gigantic poster of Frank will be enough.

Last year, some of Ben's friends from high school and another guy and I started doing a D&D4 campaign online. We tried to get Ben to join in, but it was getting really difficult to do tasks involving communication. But after a time we decided to give it a whirl and it has been fun. For the first 6 months, Nick DM'd the adventure and we spent a lot of time learning the rules and playing with Google Wave (which is going away at some point) and using Skype. Starting about 1 month ago, I agreed to give Nick a rest and whip up a couple of adventures so that he could play on the Character side of the game. So far so good, as it seems like all involved are having fun. I have enjoyed the character side as it was interesting (and less work) but the DM side is great as you are putting together an outline of a story and letting your friends create the dialog and specifics. Really you are just telling each other a story and it feels very much like Improv.

On the Improv front, my old group, MTU's The Troupe, is celebrating 20 years of storytelling. But along that front, they are announcing that they are disbanding the official school group. It has been hard since the mother of the Troupe retired but they have had many years of alumni support and great shows as well. But it seems that it is getting harder to find faculty resources and keeping organized. There are 2 things in college that I look back and deeply love and that The Troupe and Student Theatre Association. It seems that there is less time for those outlets in college than their used to be. But I am glad for all the skills they have taught me and the friends I have from them.

The Lions are killing me

Geez.

Last week, I wasn't really expecting a win heading into the weekend. But the Lions really put on a show. They just couldn't hold on when they lost their starting quarterback. I don't think they had more than 3 first downs without him. And without him, they went from a resounding win against a good Jets team to a loss that stung from the hope that was dashed.

Fast forward to this weekend where I though that they had a chance to put together a win on the road (it has been a few years since we had one of those) but alas they still couldn't put it together till the very end but then it was too little, too late. I was shocked to listen and hear what a conservative game plan they had put together. Was it that Shaun Hill was just back from a broken arm or what, but it felt like they could have moved the ball if only they risked some shots down the field.

Maybe next week will be better.

Political season almost over...

Just thought I would mention that we have received 15+ calls today. On Friday, we had 13 messages on the answering machine, and who knows how many just hung up when they got the machine. Ah, irritation.

Political Grumblings

This year's ballot felt more painful than previous ballots. Usually we have one or two initiatives and then a handful candidates to look through. This then takes about an hour to sift through the initiatives and then look at the history and credentials of the candidates. This year however we have a plethora of initiatives. Plethora! Luckily for me, the candidates made it a little bit easy for me in their selection. Basically if they called me, I didn't vote for them. I would rather write in myself than to vote for someone that has some frakkin' recording call me just to smear another human being.

Seriously don't call me. I vote and I can do my own research. Our phone normally receives one call a week. In the last two weeks, we have received 18 calls.

Nothing new on the home front

September is finished and I am trying to get back in the habit of blogging. Seems that I knew this would happen at some point, but really not much I can or care to talk about. Work is work... and I can't talk about it. Home is good, but I don't feel like talking about it. Many of my hobbies feel pretty small potatoes (gaming and music) and therefore haven't got any writing time. Same goes for football (other than my pain of being a Lions fan).

So that does not leave me with much. Maybe I will find some inspiration to actually put some meaningful words on paper.

On other notes, if you are interesting in writing a novel, November is nanowrimo. It is quite the challenge if you haven't tried.