Open wide

because your face is about to be "glazed" by the massive nerdgasm that is this post.

First: "Science"

I don't know if any of you have ever seen The Slo-Mo Guys on YouTube, but they do some cool vids with, you guessed it, a really expenseive "slow motion" camera that is capable of shooting thousands of frames per second in super high resolutions. Watch this slinky's center of gravity accelerate at 1 g, while the slinky as a whole conserves its total energy. ooooooooooh. science.

In other "science" news. I'm back at my old job at NOvA, building modules for a massive neutrino detector being constructed in Ash River, MN. I'm not entirely happy about it. But there's still enough familiar faces (and some of the new ones seem alright) to make it a fun workplace at times. And it puts money in the bank. So far the most frustrating part is being treated like a newbie by kids with half the experience there that I have. It was refreshing to hear one of them say, "You've worked here before, haven't you?"

More nerdiness inbound...

Some of you know that I'm a bit of a gamer. Well, lately (more like for the last half year) I've been playing a lot of Battlefield 3. This summer, I came across a community (know as Global Conflict, or GC for short) on the interwebs that, long story short, plays out one turn of a gigantic game of risk each saturday, with the battles over territory being fought out in 32 vs 32 matches in Battlefield 3. The players come from all over the world and after getting familiar with a few of them from voice chat on battle days and various forum posts, we managed to put together a ten-team fantasy football league...

which leads me to my first fantasy football draft recap of the season. 

The league setup is very standard: ten teams, standard scoring, standard line up (QB, 2x RB, 2x WR, TE, W/R/T, K, DST). Most of the managers are fairly knowledgeable about NFL football and drafted well. A couple of guys missed the draft and got autodrafted teams, one guy, known around GC to be a bit of a flippant jokester, drafted a team of basically all backup quarterbacks, and refreshingly, one British bloke actually knew his stuff pretty well, engaging in such lively discussions as which Denver WR is going to have the better year. Without further ado, my draft:

Round 1: RB, LeSean McCoy

I had the fifth pick. After Arian, Ray, Rodgers and Brady went, I was pleasantly left with a very easy decision. I've always been high on McCoy. This will be the third year in a row that I will have owned him in at least one league. I think his TDs will regress some, but he might see more use as a receiver like in previous years. Barring injury, which he is great at avoiding, he's a lock to be a top 5 running back, which is exactly what I want to get when drafting in the middle of the first round.

Round 2: WR, Roddy White

The surprise of the round was seeing Jimmy Graham go with the first pick. I have to admit, I made a mistake here. Unfortunately, I was drafting from my laptop which lacks the screen real estate and mouse precision that I'm used to, making flipping back and forth between the yahoo applet and my own excel sheet of rankings a bit sluggish. I also have to say "fuck you" to Yahoo for being so shitty at producing rankings and projections. I failed to notice MJD still on the board because he was so low on Yahoo's ranks and I figured he should be gone by this point. I don't think his holdout will last long enough to keep him out of any games. I know he'll be in shape. I'm not concerned about injuries or his workload. He was the rushing champ last year. Not much else is different about his situation compared to last year. Oh well. I took the 4th wideout off the board (following Megatron, Fitz, and AJ Green(?)). Roddy is consistent. Despite how much I love Julio Jones' freakish talent, Roddy's chemistry with Matty Ice isn't going anywhere, he won't face as many double teams, and he's in better shape than he was last year. I can't be too mad about this pick.

Round 3: RB, Steven Jackson

I see his floor as about 1200 total yards, 6 TDs. Despite his history of nagging injuries, he plays through them. He is that offense. I see this as a safe, unexciting pick, which I'm ok with in the 3rd round with all of the other "safe" running backs gone, the top 5 QBs gone, the better half of the "high-risk, high-reward" running backs off the board and already having an elite receiver.

Round 4: RB, Adrian Peterson

I told myself that if I already had 2 good starting RBs and Adrian was still available, I'd be taking him as early as the 3rd. His potential is just too high. As much as I try to deny it, I'm a Vikings fan. He's a beast. He says he's fine. The coaches and training staff aren't going to let him play until they're confident he's as ready as he'll be. He can sit on my bench half the season for all I care. I like this pick. 

Round 5: QB, Michael Vick

Here's to getting the 2010 Michael Vick. He was a little bit of a disappointment last year, and also showed why he's considered an injury risk. But he did show that Vickish explosiveness when he was healthy and finished the season strong. I don't think this pick could break my team, but it could certainly make it. I wasn't totally enthralled with the remaining pass-catchers and have to say that I successfully beat the impending run on QBs (Ryan, both Mannings, and Tony Romo all taken in the next round and a half).

Round 6: WR, Dez Bryant

He's a freakish athlete. He has trouble staying on the field. But gosh he's a freakish athlete. I'm bad at adjectives. He could be a top-five receiver with a full productive season. Let's hope I play him the right weeks.

Round 7: WR, Vincent Jackson

Josh Freeman and the Bucs aren't about to open up an air-it-out offensive explosion any time soon. But Vincent Jackson makes big plays. He's the best receiver on the team. Not a very exciting pick. He could bring back some of his glory days of old. I think that's more likely than him completely sucking. 

Round 8: WR, Miles Austin

I could end up getting nothing but headaches from my 2nd-4th receivers. But seriously, Austin was a 3rd round pick last year. When he's healthy and Romo is clicking, there's only a handful of receivers that drop numbers like he does. Unfortunately that hasn't happened very often lately. And his porcelain hamstrings are already acting up. 

Round 9: RB, Willis McGahee

Would you like a running back in the 9th round who got 15-20+ carries in most games last year and accumulated over 1200 total yards? You could have stopped there and I'd have been sold. But not only did he get a major upgrade at QB, but he got one that doesn't steal his carries. And there aren't any backups who are going to challenge his role as the starter and short yardage back. 

Round 10: QB, Ben Roethlisberger

I don't always draft a backup QB, but when I do, it's because I drafted Michael Vick as my starter. Vick will probably miss games this year. When I saw that the last borderline starter quality QB was still available, I knew I had to take him or take whatever fodder was on the waiver wire at some point. 

Round 11: TE, Tony Gonzalez

I love Rob Gronkowski and Jimmy Graham... in the late second/third round. I like Gates, Hernandez, Davis, and Finley. But apparently other people like them more. It sucks to be the guy that autodrafted Jason Witten's deteriorating production and lacerated spleen (best wishes to Witten though. this is just a game after all and that's a very serious injury). After those guys it's you're pretty much getting the same vanilla TE. So I'll wait. and wait. and grab the steady Hall-of-Famer. He's basically going to catch the ball and fall down on the spot at this point in his career. He's lost a couple steps and some vertical leap to be sure. But his route running and hands are still tops in the game and should be good enough for 700 yds and 6 TDs with very little frustration.

Round 12: RB, Toby Gerhart

To be honest, I had forgotten about handcuffing Peterson. When he fell in my lap here, I was pleasantly surprised. He should be somewhat productive no matter how healthy Peterson is, which is nice.

Round 13: WR, Robert Meachem

I needed another backup receiver. He seemed to be the best available. I've never loved Meachem much, but at least now he should get consistent playtime and looks. Who knows? It's not like I "paid" much to get him.

Rounds 14 and 15. NE Defense and Kicker Rob Bironas

If you don't wait 'til the last two rounds to draft your defense and kicker (assuming fairly normal league rules), you're bad at fantasy football. I don't care what you say.

Now that I've geeked out in almost every way I know how, I'm going to go watch yesterday's episode of Breaking Bad, which I downloaded illegally.