By Gudy and Jeff Kamp
Last year, we started on this site by unveiling what is still one of our favorite pieces that we did, the Mockery of a Mock Draft. As you can see, we had a perfect record of selections. Since we enjoyed working on it so much, we decided to do another one this year. As such, we present to you our mock draft for 2007.
I've written a few times about my recent (and growing) love of podcasts. I enjoy the fact that I listen to only content about which I care. I enjoy the fact that I can listen when it fits in to my schedule instead of being beholden to some faceless programing manager's whims. There's also a strange sense of connection with those who are going to the trouble of creating the shows. There's a passion to the "soup to nuts" quality of podcasters producing, engineering, performing, editing, and advertising their product that you don't find much in mainstream media. That passion comes across in their voices and permeates the show. There's also the fact that I'm able to listen to the entirety of the production so that I hear everything that they intended for me hear. They invite, some to the point of nearly begging, for listener feedback to improve the quality of their shows and to make sure that people are enjoying them. One gets to the point - even though in many cases you don't know how they look - where you feel that you really know these people. That's why some of the recent news was so upsetting.
A few of the podcasts to which I listen are part of the Farpoint Media group. That's a fancy way of saying that a bunch of podcasters have gotten together and are supporting each other with engineering, producing and so forth. They cross-promote and help each other out on the shows as much as they can (or so it seems, at least). One of the voices that we would hear on several of the shows was a man named Joe Murphy. No one would ever say that Joe was the loudest voice on any of the shows, but there always seemed to be great thought, humor, or both behind the words that he would choose to share. He had impeccable timing in his comments. He would seem to speak up when there was a lull in the conversation and would evoke one of the biggest laughs of the show, or he would give his thoughts on the movie that was being reviewed allowing himself to be honest about why he did or didn't like it. He was interesting, funny, and intelligent, with the savvy to allow the other people involved in the production to shine without it hurting his ego. That's why the fact that I have to talk about him in the past tense is so sad.
Joe recently passed away after going through several months of getting progressively bad news. First, they had found a mass in his abdomen. Then they shared the news that it was malignant. The doctors decided to operate, but when Joe woke up from the surgery, he was told that the location of the mass made it such that they couldn't remove it in its current state. It turns out that he had leiomyosarcoma. Basically, it was radiation- and chemotherapy-resistant. On April 1st, Joe's body couldn't keep up any more. Some of his friends in the Farpoint family (because that's really how it seems when you get to know them) put together a tribute show for Joe. Be sure to check it out so that you can hear for yourself how close the community is. Also, while you're following the insane number of links that I've decided to place in this post, I would be remiss if I didn't point you to the various charities that the family and podcasters are encouraging people to support in memory of Joe.
Good-bye, Joe. I enjoyed the times that you let us in to your mind. You'll always have a special place in our hearts. You'll be missed.
I'm fairly involved in fantasy sports. I don't mean that I'm one of those people who purchases all of the magazines every fall and researches every move to death before the draft. I mean that I participate. Maybe that's a better way to put it: I'm fairly participated in fantasy sports. (Me fail English? That unpossible!) For all of the time that I put in to fantasy sports, I blame Gudy. It really is all his fault. My wife will be yelling at him soon. He's the one that first invited me in to a league. I don't even remember what sport it was, but I do know that it was the start of something soul-sucking. Especially since he invites me in to all of the different leagues. We have a hockey league, for Heaven's sake (I took 4th). Basketball has been especially frustrating for me. It's mainly because of Kermit.
Don't get me wrong; Kermit is a great guy. What little I've talked to him, he's nice with a great sense of humor and he probably really enjoys long walks on the beach. He also has participated in all of the different leagues. The difference between him and me, however, is that he wins and I lose. More specifically, I lose to him. I lost to him in fantasy hockey and in fantasy basketball. In basketball I had lead him all week long. Then I lost Gilbert Arenas to a knee injury and LaMarcus Aldridge to something called Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome. I needed to win four out of six categories to win the week and advance to the championship game. We tied 3-3 and he won the week because he had scored more points than I had. What does Arenas do better than 95% of the NBA? Score. I firmly believe that I would have won if Arenas would have been in there. The same sort of thing happened to me a couple of years ago. In fact, it was exactly the same thing. It just wasn't to Kermit that time.
In hockey we had a strange situation: Every team made the playoffs. Therefore, since I have a lot of other demands on my time, I completely didn't pay attention to my team until the playoffs came around. I was doing pretty well, too, until I ran in to Kermit. He completely decimated my team. Some of my players are still looking for their testosterone two weeks after we lost. Oh well. We'll get him next time.
I would start to consider Kermit to be my arch-nemesis when it comes to fantasy sports if it wasn't for the fact that in our recent baseball draft (a three-hour marathon of picks for which Anne will be sending Gudy a "No Thank You" note), Gudy's dad kept selecting exactly the player that I was going to take immediately after him. It was getting me quite upset. If he wasn't such a nice guy, I think I might have been mad at him. Anyway, I ended up drafting a pretty good team. I went 7-4-1 last week against Gudy's dad and hopefully, that's a sign of things to come, but only time will tell.
And I just realized something: You probably don't care about any of this. I'm done.
My wife and I have quite a few similarities, especially in our background. We're both the middle child of a three child family, and were raised in very small churches in which our families comprised the majority of the youth group. We both have horrible sweet teeth. An actual exchange from this weekend went as follows:
Anne - I think I might make bars.
Me - I just printed out Cold Stone coupons.
Anne - OK, I'll make the bars tomorrow.
Me - Sounds like a plan.
However, there are some very strong differences that we've had to work through in our marriage. She grew up in a large city while I was living on a farm in the middle of nowhere. She's incredibly cute with very questionable taste in the opposite gender. I'm the polar opposite of that assessment. One of the differences that I was reminded of recently was in how we consume our media.
I'm very particular about allowing the storyline to come to me and be unveiled as the creators intended as part of their overall story. To me, the journey is the important bit, but for Anne the destination is what's most important. She'll frequently skip to the last chapter of a book just to see how it ends. Otherwise, she won't be able to sleep very good that night. I avoid even opening my book to the wrong page for fear that I'll catch something that I'm not supposed to know just yet. I want to experience it as I go along.
This difference was very evident last night as we finished the first part of season two of Battlestar Galactica. This series of disks ends in a huge cliffhanger that leaves the viewer wanting more. Very smart of the creators except when they are dealing with people like Anne. She can't stand not knowing. She was mad at the creators for leaving it hanging where it was. She was mad at the library for not having the second half of season two on DVD yet. She was mad at me for getting her to watch another show in which she becomes emotionally invested but can't immediately see the story line reach its conclusion. I slept with one eye open that night. After a few minutes of watching her fume over not being able to peak at the next part of the story, I pointed her to Wikipedia and the fact that they have spoilers/plot synopses for every episode of Battlestar. As she was reading through the next two-part episode, I would hear gasps and utterances of "Oh, my goodness" that means she had come on one of the juicier bits of the plot. She then turned to me and said, "I can't tell you any of this, can I?". To which I responded with a smile on my face, "Nope." You see, not only does not knowing drive her mildly insane, but also the fact that she can't discuss what she just read with me causes her internal conflict. Thankfully, she understands that I want to experience it first-hand as opposed to reading someone's description on a website of what happens. I want the story to unfold before me. The fact that she respects my stance in this just shows how much she appreciates me for the similarities and differences in our personalities. The fact that I asked around at work until I found someone with the next set of disks proves that I'm not a complete moron.
