This is where a different geek-side (Geekseid?) shows. This is where I go all sports geek.

This weekend is the NFL draft. And I hate to admit how much I care. I’ve been known to watch at least part of the first round on teevee, and I always track progress throughout the draft weekend.

I care who my teams (49ers, raiders, pittsburgh) take, I care who my friends teams take (miami, philly). I care who gets taken by rival teams (seattle, st louis).

I care who gets taken first, who falls in the rankings. I care about the last minute trades to jockey for position.

My team, the 49ers, have made a lot of bone-head draft moves in the last few years. Jim Drukenmiller chosen over Jake the Snake Plummer stands out as a particularly stupid one, but I look at our number one and two drafts – Mike Rumph, Kwame Harris, Israel Ifeanyi, J.J. Stokes, Reggie McGrew, Justin Smiley – and I don’t see a lotta spectatular talent. Our last year’s top pick, the highly paid Alex Smith, has yet to prove out and actually do a damned thing and to my mind he’s got expensive failure written all over him.

So the draft is, to me, both exciting and scary. I watch my team draft the way to watch a train wreck.

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Then there’s Hockey. The sharks are up 3-1 vs Nashville in the first round of the stanley cup playoffs. They played a hard, thrilling game thursday, a physical game that they won, but didn’t dominate. They play in Nashville tomorrow (Sunday), and can put this to bed; or they can choke, and be back in San Jose next week. My boss has tickets to that next round, so I think he’s hoping for a choke, but I’d like to see this series over. This sharks team has the players to think Stanley Cup, but they have to play a lotta good hockey between now and then to have that happen.

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I’m thinking about taking the top off my jeep. But you know what that means, every year. It means more rain. So, you know, maybe not quite yet.