Microsoft Silverlight update

Microsoft just updated its Silverlight browser plug-in to version 3.0, which adds some new features, my favorite being its ability to leverage your computer’s graphics chip for smoother video playback. You can download it from their Silverlight website. They have a demo of their streaming video up that is just breathtaking if your connection is good enough. Seriously, check it out.

Silverlight, as you may remember, was the technology NBC chose for their streaming Olympic videos last year. I just watched a sweet Dwyane Wade-to-Kobe Bryant alley-oop on their site, and it looks just like it did last year, which is pretty good. But can you imagine how sweet it will be if they can get the 2012 stream from London looking half as good as that cartoon? That’d be so cool. I will never feel like waiting for one of NBC’s “Live” broadcasts to hit my TV again.

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Orange Julius

All right, class, what kind of things do we look for in an NBA draftee? A player who's proven, or one with oodles of upside? A guy coming off a spectacular college career, or one coming off the bench for his Serbian club team? A player who's shown constant improvement, or one who mysteriously fared worse as a senior than a junior? No, Kiki, put your hand down, it's the first answer to each of these questions, not the second. Yesterday the Nuggets picked 20th in the first round, selecting Julius Hodge, shooting guard/small forward, out of North Carolina State. College fans will immediately recognize his name, as Hodge was the ACC Player of the Year as a junior. Unfortunately, he just finished his senior year, which was marked mostly by a dip in his scoring numbers (he developed a sudden inability to hit free throws or threes) and a punch to the groin by Wake Forest guard Chris Paul. Hodge is mostly a mid-range and slashing-type scorer, kind of like the more-than-sufficient s...

Who cares?

So we finally got done with the NBA playoffs after nearly two months of stretched-out play, and tomorrow's the draft. I really couldn't care less. I'm so burned out on the sport. Sadly, there's nothing else going on worth mentioning, so we might as well get into it. (Yes, baseball, Pugs, but I haven't really started following that this year yet, sorry.) Would the NFL hold its draft five days after the Super Bowl? Of course not, and not just because the league doesn't want to distract from the highlight of its annual calendar, the Pro Bowl. Of course, the NBA's situation is a little different. College play ended two and a half months ago, and the teams want to get draftees ready for the all-important summer league play (because the kind of guys that need the summer league always end up players). Not that when college basketball is over is relevant, anyway-the league is overrun by a bunch of high school players "just months removed from their prom" (...

And now that it’s gone, it’s like it wasn’t there at all

I never thought this blog would last longer than Jay Cutler's career with the Denver Broncos. He was a talented young prospect so good that the Broncos, a powerhouse organization only one game removed from the Super Bowl the season before, traded up to get him—or, in other words, a player whose upside was so huge, the team sacrificed its present to get his future. And now? He's gone . How did it come to this? * * * Often I'll play devil's advocate with a move like this; you know, I'll try and explain how it makes sense from the other side of the table. Today, during the most disastrous Broncos offseason in memory—and the draft hasn't even happened yet, so settle in—I just don't have it in me. I don't think move is really defensible from a football standpoint. But what the heck: as the article above says, the Broncos are sending Cutler and a fifth-round draft pick this month to the Chicago Bears for quarterback Kyle Orton, Chicago's first-rounder in t...

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