A Mostly Underinformed Seattle Seahawks NFL Mock Draft

If you've been following this blog, then you may know (or not) that I'm a fan of spectator sports, especially baseball (see: all the April & Lydia interview posts) and football (the American kind). You may also know that I have a fair amount of knowledge about each sport, but not to the level of most sports-related bloggers out there (of which I am definitely not one. A sports-related blogger, that is). As a Seattle Seahawks fan, I rely on the expertise of sites like the wonderfully-named Field Gulls as well as those of Seattle-based and national sports media.

That said, tonight is the annual NFL draft, in which professional football teams select college players to become the newest members of their respective squads. Each year, I probably spend more time than is prudent thinking about the draft in the weeks leading up to it, so I figured I'd finally share my thoughts with all of you in this inaugural Mostly Underinformed Seahawk-Centric Mock Draft. Here we go!

Round 1 (5th pick): John Schneider, the Seahawks' general manager, has said that (I'm paraphrasing here) the team's approach will be to select the best player available and not draft for "need," meaning positions where they are currently lacking depth. This approach makes sense to me, because you'd be surprised how often positions you thought you were set at suddenly and unexpectedly become positions of need due to injuries, ineffectiveness, or contract expiration. So with that in mind, despite the fact that the team needs defensive (especially the front seven) and probably offensive line help (and assuming that Will Anderson Jr. is off the board by this time) I'm going to say... Bijan Robinson, RB, Texas. I mean, if both he and Kenneth Walker III are healthy, can you imagine? (One writer from the aforementioned Field Gulls hates this idea. But one of the Seahawks' own players apparently favors it. Who's right? Who knows! Either way, it'll probably be a moot point when the team ends up drafting Jalen Carter.)

Round 1 (20th pick): I'm going to guess that "best player available" and "need" meet up here, and that the Seahawks end up with Nolan Smith, Edge Rusher, Georgia.

Round 2 (37th pick): Eventually you do kind of have to draft for need, though, right? After all, who is playing nose tackle for the team right now? Well, I don't know if this guy is an actual nose tackle or not, but from what I've heard, he's good at stopping the run, so that works for me... Mazi Smith, DT, Michigan.

Round 2 (52nd pick): Back to best player available, which kind of fits a need as well, I'm going to say... Josh Downs, WR, North Carolina.

Round 3 (83rd pick): How about Ricky Stromberg, OL, Arkansas?

After that, I lack the knowledge about the remaining prospects to make even a wild guess, so I'm just going to stop here, except to say that I kinda hope the team will be able to grab Fresno State quarterback Jake Haener with one of their later picks. Apparently he's considered undersized, but he got a high score on a cognitive test that the 49ers' Brock Purdy also got a high score on last year, so...

A Glitch In The Matrix?

If you've been following this blog, then you may remember (or not) that I've written three previous posts titled "Evidence That We Are Living In A Simulation." In these posts, I detailed several examples of why, perhaps, we may all be characters - either player or nonplayer(!?) - in one big video game. Recently, I experienced another such example, but since there is only one of them to talk about, I changed the title of this post accordingly (I guess that doesn't really make any sense, but whatever).

Tonikaku ("anyway"), recently I finished watching a Japanese rom-com on Netflix called "The Full-Time Wife Escapist." It was a fun and charming show that I really enjoyed (the fact that the leads are actually married in real life made it even more adorable), but that's not the point here. What is the point is this: you know how when you finish an episode of a show on Netflix, it automatically starts playing the next one? Well, at the conclusion of the penultimate episode (I'm not counting the New Year's special, which, by the way, I loved for its pretty spot-on portrayal of life during Covid), I was exposed to the first few seconds of the season/series finale before I had a chance to hit the "back" button. During those few seconds, there was a shot of the female lead in her kitchen, and I distinctly heard her say (or, more accurately, read the subtitle of her saying) "I ruined the proposal." Which, you know, she kind of did. Then I backed out, planning on watching the finale the next day.

When I did, to my surprise, she did not say anything even remotely like "I ruined the proposal." I even rewatched it to make sure. That line was not uttered at the beginning of the episode, nor during the remainder of it. I am at a loss to explain how this happened. Could Netflix have changed the subtitle overnight? Or even the actual line of dialogue? Why would they do that? My best guess is that, like when my drummer and his wife heard a character on Fargo say "I'll text you later," or when they heard Reilly and Jonesy in Letterkenny saying "ferda," this is yet another example of a streaming-series-related glitch in the Matrix. If you have a better explanation, please let me know...

Yet Another Hold My Beer Status Update

Fair warning: you might be seeing a lot of these Hold My Beer status update posts (mixed in with, of course, Volume Seven and Album Four status updates) in the coming weeks and months. If you need to catch up, check out these previous posts from March 9 and March 16.

Tonikaku ("anyway"), it appears that the project is moving ahead full steam, at least for now. The application window for the grant from the Vancouver Culture, Arts & Heritage commission is open, and I and the guys from Second Player Score are hard at work trying to line up all our ducks - and boy, there are a lot of ducks to line up when you're putting together what is basically an independent film project! For the grant application, we have to come up with an itemized budget, which we kind of knew we would have to do anyway, but now we really actually have to do it, which is a good thing.

This being our first real film project, we're also working on figuring out exactly what we need in terms of cast, crew, locations, and so forth. Who knew that so much went into making a film, even a short one? Well, we did, sort of. I mean, for years I've always marveled at the closing credits of TV shows and movies, where it seems like gazillions of people are needed to produce even just a single two-hour film. And now we're experiencing it first hand!

So basically I've turned to doing what I did when I first wanted to write a novel or a screenplay, and that's to learn how to actually do the thing I want to do. To that end, I've picked up a couple of books on filmmaking and have been watching a lot of YouTube videos. Yes, I've sort of dabbled in it before, even at one point buying and watching the Robert Rodriguez film school series, but now things are getting serious.

That's it for now, but like I said, there will be many more updates to come (hopefully). And if you are in the Vancouver/Portland area and would like to be a part of the project, let me know!

Volume Seven Status Update

Good news! Much progress has been made since the last status update five weeks ago.

- The manuscript was sent in for a line edit by editor extraordinaire Kristen Hall-Geisler.

- The line edit was returned!

- The edits were incorporated.

- The back cover copy was written.

- The back cover copy was edited.

- An ISBN (International Standard Book Number, kind of like a Social Security number for books) was assigned.

- The manuscript was formatted so that it now looks like a Joel Suzuki book.

In other words, we are really close to being ready for launch! All that's left is the cover art, final proofing, some minor finishing details, and, of course, weeks of hype - including a title reveal, cover reveal, launch party announcement, and so on. So far, it's looking like a July launch date (to coincide with Joel and Felicity's birthdays and the 11th anniversary of Volume One) is in the cards. Stay tuned!