Just Say "No" to Trading

Every year after the NFL season has come to an end, along with the Sunday afternoon malaise, we get lots of media coverage of the NFL draft. I have paid careful attention to the NFL draft since 2000 when the Cleveland Browns did the stupidest thing they could have done and drafted Tim Couch number 1 overall. With Ditka as coach of New Orleans, he was offering a king's ransom in draft picks for the right to draft Ricky Williams. An extra 3-5 early round draft picks would have been exactly what the doctor ordered for a starting franchise. Alas, it was not to be.

Fast forward 12 years and we're at it again.

Should the Browns give up several early round draft picks for the right to select Robert Griffin III?

The answer is categorically: NO.

The reason the would say yes is born out of a skewed perception of value, the reason they should say no is simple math. In December, before the bowl games, most scouts listed RG3 as the third best QB in the NCAA, well behind Andrew Luck. Pundits reasoned that he would go in the late first or early second round. Since that time, RG3 has played exactly one game, and suddenly he's vying for the top pick alongside Andrew Luck.

What a league!

RG3 needs to thank Cam Newton for having such a great year, because that's the guy to whom he draws comparisons.

Physical talent is measurable. Gameday ability is not. Bottom line is this: an NFL prospects height, strength, speed and athletic ability matter only to a small degree. All the players are fast, big, strong and athletic. The only thing that matters is how they played. RG3 played well in college and won the Heisman trophy, but in the end, he's just another prospect. I'd rather have three or four good prospects than just one.

Lebron is listening!

About a year ago I posted this blog to Lebron James: http://leftsideofnowhere.blogspot.com/2010/12/another-love-letter-to-lebron.html

In it I outlined how Lebron could fix his shattered image after dumping Cleveland for the glitzy shores of South Beach. At this point he's done just about all of the items I outlined. This past week he emphatically embraced point 7.

He made such a strong suggestion that he might one day return to the Cleveland Cavaliers that fans of his current Miami team felt suddenly worried. Even his current teammates weren't laughing off the statement. Lebron was forced to make another statement saying he was focused on helping Miami win a championship. It was exactly the same statement he made many times during the last couple of years he played in Cleveland.

Then there's this article: http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-wojnarowski_lebron_james_opt_out_cavaliers_gilbert_021712

One thing we know is that Lebron loves the spotlight, so it's no surprise that he wants to repair the burned bridges and look to regain his status as most loved NBA player.

As the Miami Heat thunderwumped the Cavs on Friday, the boos for Lebron weren't quite as loud. The hatred not as palpable.

So would Cleveland take him back. Absolutely. There might be a faction that says, "No. We don't want that traitor back!" But once he drapes the Cavs jersey back over his shoulders, 95% of the Cleveland fans will be screaming with delight.

Two years Cleveland fans...two more years...

Artwork for my book!

My cousin Michael Robinson crafted this excellent cover for the beta reader version of First Act of War.

This is a  scene from the book. Stephen Blackstorm is the character in the front. Melia Strindshiere is flying behind him.

I'm still going to be submitting the book to regular publishers, but it's great to know that I have an outstanding cover if I go the self publishing route. Michael is also one of the beta readers and is looking for another scene that he feels he can capture.

The image is painted in photoshop from nothing more than a few descriptions that I gave him. He captured my thoughts perfectly. More of Michael's work can be seen on his website: www.mikerobinsonart.com

Review of: Chronicle

After seeing the advertisements for the movie Chronicle, I admit, I was intrigued. I was further intrigued when many reviewers said it was a movie worth watching.

A few friends were going this past Saturday, so I latched on.

The positive reviews are all categorically wrong. Chronicle was not a good movie. It was a great idea, with a very poor delivery.

Why?

1. The hand-cam filming was quaint at first, but it quickly became difficult to manage as the action scenes ramped up. This is evidenced most severely when the camera angle cuts to that of a grainy black and white security video with no sound, then back to a camera being held by a news crew.

2. I don't know what high school you went to, but my high school was nothing like that depicted in Chronicle. Now I understand that Hollywood will glorify certain aspects to such a degree that thousand-year-old vampires will want to spend their time going through high school again (shame on you, Twilight for assuming ANYONE would want to spend an extra week in high school, let alone decades!), but with hand-camera filming providing realism, 30-year-old "seniors" really stole the authenticity.

3. I get that an adolescent with repressed anger issues could go berserk, especially if pressed with too much negative stimulus, but that also assumes that same adolescent would remain in his crummy condition upon discovery and mastery of a ridiculous power. From the commercials, you can see that the boys learn how to fly and crush cars with their minds. This opens all kinds of doors that are quite thoroughly (and I think accurately) explored in the movie Jumper. Not so much in Chronicle.

4. The movie dragged. No excuse for this one. It was not a long movie, and it felt like it lasted forever.

In summary: the movie tries too hard to hard to give realism to the awkward nature of adolescent boys, and doesn't catch the imagination of what super powers of this magnitude would generate. It ended up a cute/sad story, and it should have been much more. Skip it.

Quality: 2
Watchability: 2

Book Review: A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge

I haven't reviewed a book in awhile, but I just finished an interesting one, and thought I'd update you all. In case you're unfamiliar with my rating scale, here it is: http://leftsideofnowhere.blogspot.com/2010/11/is-there-scale-for-that.html

There were many things that I liked about the book. First, it was well written. The prose didn't feel labored, nor did he bore me with lots of speculative science. I liked the POV of the spiders, that was interesting. I also enjoyed some of the concepts of space-fairing cultures that he explores. His idea that all human planetary cultures eventually fail and are reduced to a middle-ages state of technology is a little unbelievable, but reasonably acceptable for the sake of the story. "Focus" was a very interesting form of slavery.

There were some technical aspects of the book that I felt showed some flaws. First, I thought the book was far too long. The beginning and ending were snappy, but there was a long trek through the middle that I almost didn't make it through. His action sequences were very non-visual. He didn't successfully lay out the action. I had a difficult time figuring out what was happening, and had to reread sections. Action scenes are not my strong suit either. I had to really work hard to bring my action scenes up to par in the 7th revision of my book, so Vinge's short suit in that area was really obvious to me. The big surprise at the end came off flat in my opinion because he went too far in disguising it. I felt like he was purposefully misleading, and as a result I figured out the big reveal . I didn't think the surprise was good enough to warrant the story being told from secondary sources. I would have rather had some direct insight from more main characters near the end of the book.

There weren't too many things I just flat out didn't like. The biggest thing was Vinge's penchant to repeat himself. He gives the same personal insight from the characters several times, and I felt like there were a lot of wasted words as a result.  

All in all, it  was a good read when it wasn't a slog. The characters were vibrant, even if the villains were a bit too perfect. Brughel in particular is a psychopath and would have demonstrated further shortcomings I feel, but he wasn't on screen  as much and he did have Nau holding him back. Nau was delightfully evil, all the way to the end.

I would have liked to learn more about the on-off star and why it was an on-off. I would have liked to see the humans try to uncover the truth about Arachna's past. I think there were some archaeological things that the humans would have been quick to start uncovering. They are hinted at twice, and there's an untapped goldmine there. Probably enough for me to want to read a sequel!

Bottom Line: Readability - 5, Quality - 6