Tabe

This one has been sitting in my Netflix Instant Queue for a long time. Finally decided to give it a look last night, which brings us to... Dear Zachary - This is an absolutely gut-wrenching documentary. It is basically a video "letter" from the filmmaker/narrator to the newborn son of his recently-murdered friend. The kid was born 5 months after his father's murder so he never got to meet him. Complicating things? The killer was the kid's mom. The director learns that there was a major part of his slain friend's life (photography) that he was unaware-of so he decides to drive from California to Newfoundland (where the guy's parents live), interviewing people along the way to learn as much as possible about this friend he'd known for 20+ years. What emerges is that this guy was a great guy. No, a GREAT guy. As in he had something like 7 friends that wanted him to be best man at their weddings. Intermixed with that journey are updates on the case against the mom. The murder took place in the US but she'd fled to Newfoundland with their son. We get updates on the maddeningly-slow extradition process. The guy's parents moved to Newfoundland to be near their grandson and to push for custody. They are saints of the highest order, acting normal around this psycho who killed their son, jumping through all of her hoops, whatever it takes to meet with their grandson. As a movie, all of this works really well. The story is engaging, heartbreaking, and well-told. And here's where I spoilerize the rest of my review... Anyway, this movie is great. Highly, highly recommended. 9/10.

Congrats man. That sure as hell isn't a job I could do so big props to ya.

The Richardson trade was a great one for Cleveland. Yeah, they'll screw up the pick but, like FSW said, they got a 1st rounder for a guy that is a complete bust. He's been awful in Indy. Remember how the line in Cleveland was that he sucked because they had terrible QBs so people just stacked against the run? Well, they have a pretty good QB in Indy and he's still awful. Benched for a long section of the Denver game. Now, will Cleveland do anything with that pick? Probably not. But it was still a good trade. I must confess that even I, who thought Weeden would be a good pro, wouldn't have drafted him in the first round. He was a more talented Chris Weinke in pretty much every way - and that's not a guy you blow a first rounder on.

Weeden is currently at 24.9. In fact, 55ish would put someone at 16th right now this season, which is certainly starter quality. Didn't say he wouldn't be an improvement 55 means average. 16th in a league of 32 is....average. Average and "good" are not the same thing.

So basically the 125th guy is making over $8 million a year. The article quoted, though, said "top 125 free agents", not top 125 salaries. Top 125 salaries makes a lot more sense but even still....good lord.

Re: Jason Campbell: He's never been any good for more than about 5 minutes at a time. In his brief stretch with Oakland, yeah, they were 4-2 and pretty much none of that had to do with Campbell. He threw for less than 200 a game, just 6 TDs, and had a QBR of 55. In the 5 years that the QBR stat is available for, he's never been above 56 for a season.

Must say I'm a little surprised at Weeden's struggles. I didn't think he'd be great but he looked like a good pro prospect at Okey State. Thought he'd be at least pretty good but he's been pretty awful. Josh Freeman had 16 overthrows in Monday's game. That's the most overthrows in a single game by any QB in something like 20 years. It's more overthrows than any other QB in the league has this season. Wonder how much of that had to do with his concussion? Also curious to see if the NFLPA steps in and starts asking why he was playing with a concussion...

I find it rather scary that the average salary of the top *125* free agents from last year was $13.3m. That's a whole lot of money going to a whole lot of players, a lot of whom couldn't have been any good.

Why would they put @plooneytunes on the front of a jersey? That just looks weird. [/snark]

L&O actually rallied after a couple of down years. It got a lot better toward the end once they turned over the entire cast. But, yeah, Waterston really phoned in his last couple seasons and they struggled to find the right cops for awhile.

Cuz I can't let a "multiple cats looking at same thing" picture go by without sharing, mine is below. Sadly, two of these three are no longer with us (only the solid orange guy is left). This is a picture looking out our back door. The orange and white cat - Tugger (from the musical "Cats") - used to love looking out our front door. He spent hours upon hours upon hours doing just that. We have a beautiful photo my nephew took of him doing that and it's just a perfect encapsulation of what he loved doing. Anyway, pictures with all 3 of our cats together at the same time were not all that common but, as you can see in the photo, the reason for their togetherness is pretty obvious

Have started reading The Kennedy Detail by Gerald Blaine. Blaine was a Secret Service agent on...uh...the Kennedy Detail... when JFK was killed. I have heard tons of positive things about this book and have finally started reading it. About 100 pages in (of 350) so far. Blaine interviewed pretty much all of the still-living agents who were also on the detail for the book. What I've read so far has been really good. LOTS of good detail on the Secret Service, how they did things, procedures, decisions, and so on. Discussions on how things impact their wives*, stuff like that. Only drawback is that parts are written a little too much like a novel as he reconstructs conversations and events. That's more of a style thing and I think it just doesn't work for this type of book. Anyway, so far, really good. * - For example, discussing the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Blaine relates JFK turning to him and saying "you know if something happens, you're coming with me", meaning into the hidden bunker if there's a nuclear attack or whatever. Only Blaine can't share that info with his wife. And his wife and kid wouldn't be coming with him into the bunker. Think about how awful THAT would be. That's the kind of stuff you don't really think about when thinking about the Secret Service.

After months of anticipation, Rocksmith 2014 came out yesterday. Ubisoft straight up lied to me when I asked about a digital PSN version, so I went looking for the game last night. Took me 3 stores to find one that sold the version with no cable included (already have the cable, don't need two). Got home, fired up the PS3, checked PSN and...lo and behold, there's a PSN version of the game. $#$%#$%. At least I found it before I opened the copy I'd bought. Waited a couple hours for my DSL to download the game, another 30 minutes to install (wtf), and, hey, I was finally playing! So... my main gripe with the first Rocksmith was the speed of the interface and just trying to actually play a song. That's been addressed. Stuff loads a LOT faster. Big-time difference. I really only jumped in to play a handful of songs and that went well. They've changed the arrangements you can play. Gone are the "single note" or "combo" arrangements. In their place are "lead" and "rhythm". While this is more technically "correct" to what an actual guitarist would play, it does take away a bit of the fun of the songs from the first game. In that one, they sometimes transposed melody from another instrument to the guitar so you got to play all the coolest parts, no matter what. Like in "The Final Countdown", for example, you got to play the cool keyboard melody. So that's a bummer but understandable. Not understandable is the utter disaster they've made of the tuning. It's buggy as hell and really inaccurate. When you play a string, the tuning thing bounces all over the place so you can't tell if you're sharp or flat. I had it telling me I was touching a different string (I wasn't) over and over and over. This was extremely frustrating. And all that just to end up with a guitar that was out-of-tune. I ended up busting out the tuning app on my phone. At least you don't have to re-tune after every single song. So far anyway, I'm pretty pleased.

If Lincecum is worth $17.5m a year then Kershaw is worth $40m. At least it's only a 2-year contract but how do you pay a guy #1 starter money when you buried him into the bullpen during the 2012 postseason because he sucked so much? Good grief.

So the Spokane Indians, the local minor league baseball team, had a "Caption This Photo" contest on Facebook. And, yeah, Tabe had to go and win that mutha. Bring on the autographed team ball from 2012!

Do I look like a man afraid of your wimpy little threats?

He already hurt himself earlier this year and it didn't change anything. He concussed himself with a dirty hit against Green Bay and has changed nothing.

With Washington's defense, Denver might score 75. And win by 6. Speaking of whom, looks like the NFL is suspending Brandon Meriweather of the Redskins 2 games for being a repeat offender cheapshotting douchebag who hasn't figured out how to NOT use the crown of his helmet to hit people.

Hey, I've actually seen one of those (Evocateur) and own another that I haven't yet watched (Everyman's Journey).

I'm pretty sure Jeff George can still "make all the throws". You sick freak! He's gone and should remain that way! Oh, I thought I wouldn't hear his name ever again! Where are my smelling salts? I feel faint! Call me drunk again and I'll start PM'ing you the name "Jeff George" once a week for the rest of your life.

The rumors of a bag of cash being handed from Leyland to Eric Gregg are completely false, I swear.

This week's update for the US: Free Hotline Miami (PS3 & Vita) - hey look, another top-down action with 8-bit retro graphics. I guess it's also super-tough. I'll pass. Discounts Alien Bree (PS3) - All three games are on sale for $2.50 apiece or the complete trilogy for $5.75. This top-down shooter strategy started on the Amiga and was awesome there. I suspect I'll be picking this up. The Walking Dead (PS3) - Individual episodes are $1.25 or the full season for $2.99. Great deal if you didn't already get it for free but shame on you if you didn't The 400 Days add-on is also on sale. Lots of other discounts, too.

More Netflix randomness: Hammer - The true story of Matt Hamill, first deaf NCAA wrestling champion and UFC fighter. I don't know Matt's story at all so no clue how accurate this is. It's a pretty sanitized version of ANYBODY'S life though. Production quality is on the low end for a Lifetime movie. Not bad or anything, it's well-done, just obviously not a high-budget production. The actors all do a good enough job though the lead actor is definitely too old to be playing Hamill. Anyway, this is a feel-good, "You can do anything!" movie and it succeeds in that goal. The only real negative is that you can't just have this on in the background which was my intention when picking the movie. A good 75% of the dialogue is sign language with captions so you have to actually watch and not just listen. That seems obvious when you think about it, which I didn't before picking the movie To call that a negative is misleading - it's more of a "Tabe was a dumbass for picking this movie at that particular time". Anyway, entertaining enough - 6/10.

Jim Kelly put up crazy numbers in the USFL - 5200 yards his rookie year, 4600 his other full season - but he wasn't on Peyton's level as a QB, even if we give him a boost from the rules that Peyton has played under. Kelly threw way too many picks - 175 in 160 games - to belong in the same discussion as Peyton. Kelly in the postseason - 21 TDs, 28 INTs. If we take away his first two playoff games, he's at 16 TDs, 26 INTs. By any measure, in any era, that's terrible. Now, if you put Dan Marino in this era? He'd probably be putting up numbers that surpass what Drew Brees has done. His teams would still have no running game*, though, and he'd still not have a Super Bowl ring. * - The Dolphins not having a running game with Marino is really directly attributable to him. Marino's technique in all phases of the running game was awful. He was slow to get the ball to RBs, couldn't do wide handoffs well, and exposed the ball a lot. Granted, they had no superstar backs when he was there but c'mon. You've got Dan Marino throwing, you should be able to plug in an "eh" RB and get 1000 yards if your QB doesn't kill it for you.

No, they're not. You see more of these now because guys hit lower than they used to. That doesn't apply in Wayne's case, since his was non-contact, but that's the general rule, like in Cushing's case.