Day one of this year’s draft wasn’t nearly as exciting as last year’s draft — at least, from my perspective. This isn’t an objective evaluation of the excitement, or even an evaluation as a fan. It’s just my personal feelings based on the context of this year.

Last year, the 49ers had two draft picks. Double the pleasure, double the fun. Thus, automatically, this year couldn’t be as exciting, haha. Last year, I remember being more optimistic that the Niners might make the playoffs. (To be fair, the division was really weak.) I also had a vehement hatred for Jimmy Clausen and hoped that the Niners wouldn’t draft him. I remember yelling, “NO CLAUSEN!” at the TV screen, much like I would yell during a football game.

This year, I definitely didn’t want Gabbert as the pick, but I didn’t hate him nearly as much as Clausen. The players that I would be extra excited about wouldn’t fall to the 49ers (Von Miller, Patrick Peterson). I didn’t do as much research, so I had an idea about certain players I would find acceptable that the 49ers might draft (Prince Ican’tspellhislastnamewithoutlookingitup, Cameron Jordan — a Cal guy, and Robert Quinn).

Instead, they picked Aldon Smith. I was like, “Who?” I was expecting to be either really angry or really happy about the draft. When I looked it up, some people were projecting him to go to Houston at #11, so it seems like this wasn’t a crazy reach. I couldn’t necessarily be angry. But I just didn’t have any idea who this guy was. I don’t have any strong opinions on the guy. I’ll do more research in the coming days, I suppose, but that won’t change how I felt yesterday.

How do I feel now about the pick? I still don’t really know enough about him, or enough about what other people think about him. I can’t form a good judgment. I will say that I am happy that at least they didn’t draft Gabbert. Even in a worst case scenario, another Manny Lawson is better than another Alex Smith. I also think I would’ve preferred Prince, but if this guy turns out to be a good pass rusher, I’ll be happy they went with him instead of the corner.

Glenn Greenwald on Bradley Manning’s transfer:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/04/20/manning/index.html

It’s good to hear that people can make a difference. I kind of needed to hear that after being so seduced by cynicism. It’s hard not to be cynical, though, when Obama was so against prisoner abuse.

Review of Mike Daisey:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/weigel/archive/2011/04/18/the-daisey-age.aspx

I thought this was a good review. I saw the show when it was in Berkeley and enjoyed it a lot. I recently thought about this show when I saw that a SAS cable I had to install was made by Foxconn. Perhaps I’ll blog about that and post it here. I’ll probably do it for work.

Prosper
http://www.prosper.com/

Peer to peer lending sounds cool and innovative. I think I might invest in this. I want to think more about my principles and how I can live them. (Found this via Slate.)

Social experiment: Know thy neighbor
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/04/11/3543819/social-experiment-know-thy-neighbor.html

I found this via Think, Try, Learn. I might look up the book some more because it sounds interesting. This gets back to the principles thing I mentioned after the last link. I value community as an abstract concept, but I don’t know my neighbors.

On a writing note, I don’t think this article is particularly well-written. I might end up making a comic, “Op-ed outline: 1) Set up. 2) Anecdote. 3) Oh shit I’m out of space.” This isn’t to say the article is like that, but it inspired those thoughts based on op-eds I’ve read in the past. I’m not sure why the op-ed form leads to shit writing. I mean, a blog post can be just as long or shorter, but still be better. So, it can’t the length of the format, per se. Then again, a blog has the benefit of being part of a conversation, so one post isn’t really as short as you think it is.

I fucking hate the way they decorated the new fitness center at work. A sample of phrases you’ll find in bold print: Finish strong, slow and steady, mind and body, breathe…

Whenever something idiotic is done, I like to imagine the brainstorming that went on. “Hey, I got an idea! Let’s throw up some stock photos and put random cliches in places!”

“Cool! What kind of cliches?”

“I don’t know. Anything that vaguely relates to sports or working out. We only have a few minutes left in this meeting, so I wouldn’t worry about fancy things like parallel construction or tense or parts of speech.”

It’s seriously the last part that bothers me the most. They couldn’t even bother to make the words match in any fucking way. They haphazardly threw phrases together without worrying if they went together or not. I don’t enjoy it when idiots shit all over the English language.

Blogging note:

I’ve decided to post more often. I’ll embrace quantity over quality for now. I figure getting in the groove of writing will help spark ideas for longer pieces of writing. (Warning: I may suddenly change course with this quantity/quality thing, as I have in the past.)