Changing the world - a few years too soon

Nostalgia.

Once upon a time, I closed up my travel-heavy independent SAP consultant business, and came back home to work for a start-up with several prior coworkers. The name of the company was Everybook, and the product was a hand-held electronic book reader. Later iterations of the product had a wireless connection, and aside from a few design differences, it was pretty much like the Kindle. After frantically scrambling to acquire a few rounds of venture capital, the company finally ran out of money and declared bankruptcy. My stock options burned brightly in the fireplace for a moment and then I moved on.

So it is with mixed emotions that I read about how the Kindle is changing the world. This article, written (I believe) by a respectable journalist who is not being paid to endorse it, reads like marketing material for Everybook. The qualities he's fallen in love with are the exact qualities we unsuccessfully tried to promote. The Rocket e-Book that he playfully disparages was our main competition.

In fairness to the people who dreamed much bigger and worked much harder than I did, I should mention that I'm using the term 'we' loosely. I was employed there, but I never really bought into the big picture. I'm nostalgic about a dream that I was attached to, but didn't fully share.

So I'm tipping my hat to that collection of goofballs who cashed out 401ks and worked for no pay to chase a failed idea. Maybe that idea wasn't so foolish after all...just a few years too early.

More likely, we just sucked. But it's easier to believe that we were geniuses ahead of our time.

We need a new word

It's too obvious, but something that combines hypocrite and politician would be useful. Hypotician and polycrite just don't work.

The GOP is now predicting financial doomsday if the Obama budget passes. This is the same GOP who relentlessly and egregiously exploded the national debt during their years in power. I've criticized Obama's financial plans myself, but I've been railing against ballooning debt - and offering solutions - for years. It's also quite funny to note that Obama's planning to "halve the deficit in the next four years", which is exactly, I mean exactly what George Bush proposed upon his re-election. For all the change Obama promised, it's disgusting - though sadly unsurprising - that he's starting off by repeating a promise of the biggest failure ever to share his office.

The time for half-measures with our debt are long past. We need to balance the budget now. We need to start filling in the hole, not making promises to dig a little slower in the future.

Movie Review: Watchmen

First two words that came to mind: Fucking fantastic.

I'm going to qualify that, however. This is the opinion of someone who read the book and loved it. The movie is designed to appeal to exactly that target audience...perfectly representing the characters, scenes, mood, and dialogue of the book. And even though it's long (160 minutes) there's much that is left underdeveloped on the screen. From talking to others and reading reviews, my guess is that if you haven't read the book, the movie seems both long and overly complex.

For me, though, it was perfect. My favorite characters - predictably Rorschach and the Comedian - are exactly as represented and more real at the same time. Nite Owl's awkwardness is both more believable and amusing when portrayed on the screen. Dr. Manhattan, despite the omnipresent blue sausage dangling between his legs, captures the contradiction between emotional detachment and near-feminine fragility more accurately than I could have predicted.

I can certainly pick it apart - and I will, for completeness - but overall none of the flaws detracted from what I loved about the book. I didn't like how Adrian Veidt was cast - way too skinny to believably possess the physical prowess he's famous for. The first 30 minutes or so seemed to be more a collection of music videos than a coherent story, and I could have done without the Forrest Gump-like presidential hand-shaking and elbow-rubbing with famous people like the Village People, Lee Iococca, Henry Kissinger, etc. (I hated Forrest Gump.) Some of this comes from the book itself, but even more of it was added as a device to help the viewer keep track of the temporal shifts in the decades-long backstory. And the Silk Spectre was meh...she's supposed to be super-hot in a super-hot outfit, but really she's just sorta attractive in a weird costume. Although the soft-porn scene where she's banging Nite Owl with nothing but those thigh-high boots...nice.

The ending was slightly modified to remove the giant squid and psychic shockwave. This might be annoying to Watchmen purists, but I'm thrilled with the choice. Not that the new ending makes a lot more sense, but it's less intellectually insulting.

I can't wait to watch it again. It'll be perfect on DVD, when I can jump to the scenes with Rorschach and the Comedian, and skip every CGI rendering of azure penis.

Catching Up: Eagles

Wow, a month without blogging.

Well, that's what happens when you combine the depressing dreariness of February with a new game (EA NFL Head Coach 09). I've barely had time to fit in work around my playtime, let alone blog.

But I suppose it's time to start catching up, so we'll start with a subject near and dear to me.

Looks like the Eagles are getting young in a hurry. With 12 picks in the upcoming draft, and several core veterans climbing well north of 30, I agree with the general direction. But each move brings significant risk along with the potential upside of youth.

• Dawkins. A great story referenced in this article about Dawkins as a pervasive force in Philly's soul and conscience. A quick recap of the story goes like this: a guy running race in downtown Philly, wearing a #20 jersey, passes another participant who's seemingly dropped out of the competition - also wearing #20. He turns and says Dawk don't walk. Shamed, the slacker immediately picks up the pace and starts running again. It's difficult to describe the sense of respectful pride the city has in Dawkins, but hopefully that story comes close to conveying it. The fact that a team $40 million under the cap wouldn't pony up for a couple more years to re-sign this integral emotional leader, who played at a Pro Bowl level last season, left me bewildered and depressed for days (not exaggerating, ask my wife.) But listening to Giants broadcaster Bob Papa made me feel a lot better about the move. He said that the Giants had recently begun to scheme against Dawkins, trying to isolate him in coverage, where his declining speed and athleticism made him a liability. That the Eagles did a fantastic job of hiding him, but it was only going to get harder as he got another year older. As a Giants homer, he was neither surprised nor critical that the Eagles let Dawk go.
  
• Which leads us to the signing of Sean Jones, who I've liked ever since he was drafted by the Browns out of Georgia. I was playing fantasy football at the time in an IDP league (if you don't know what that means, just skip to the next sentence) and I drafted him as a rookie. Sadly for my team, he was hurt in the preseason, but he has since developed into the sort of playmaking safety I expected - third in the NFL in interceptions over the last three years. Young and athletic, able to play close the line of scrimmage or in open spaces, he's the kind of versatile piece that will not have to be hidden in the defensive scheme. This is a really good under-the-radar signing with almost no risk.
  
• Sean Considine also departed in free agency, so even with the Jones addition, this is definitely a position that will be addressed in the draft.
  
• More concerning even than Dawkins' departure is the offensive line churn. At 35 and 32, the Eagles had one of the oldest yet most productive tackle tandems in the NFL last season. I was fairly certain the Eagles would let one of these guys walk, but retain the other one in order to smooth the transition. Losing both bookends at the same time could be disastrous for the QB.
  
• Which is why they brought in Stacy Andrews from the Bengals. Supposedly he's another under-the-radar guy who drew a lot of interest from other NFL teams, but I haven't had the stomach to sit through many Cincy games over the past few years, so I don't really know. He is massive, and very athletic, so he's at least got the tools to work with and a chance to be dominating. He's pencilled in at RT for now, and I expect him to do well, but I'd have felt a lot better with a steady vet anchoring the other side of the line.
  
• Expect OL to be another position hit hard in the draft, as usual. The Birds either draft someone to play LT or they draft a guard and move either Shawn Andrews/Todd Herremans outside.
  
• Goodbye, Lito and Greg Lewis. Frankly, we got more in compensation than I though either was worth. Your contributions will be easily replaced.
  
• WR. Houshmandzadeh isn't a dominating receiver, he's just a very solid football player. Would he have upgraded the team? You bet. Would I have paid $8 million/year for a guy with his talents? No. He's not the difference-maker that the Eagles need. If the Eagles trade one of their first-round picks for Boldin, or if they pick up Holt on the cheap after the Rams release him, they will be in better shape than they would have been with TJ. Knowing the Eagles, it's more likely they do neither and instead fortify the position through the draft.
  
• They absolutely must add a FB. I hear they are talking to Leonard Weaver, who's only 26 and has experience in a West Coast offense. He would be a perfect fit, but he needs to get signed. With Heath Evans and Mike Karney gone, there aren't a lot of great FB options left after Weaver.
  
• Another RB has to be added through the draft. Depending on how the board falls, I'd like to see one added in the first round. An aging, injury-prone Westbrook needs a productive backup, and right now there isn't one on the roster.
  

So although I was pretty emotional about the Dawkins deal, and although I am hesitant to switch both tackles at the same time, it's hard to argue with a team that is getting younger and more athletic. There are still lots of questions, but the direction the Eagles are moving actually makes some sense.