The Monster of Florence, Madden 10, and thoughts on the Bucs

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The Monster of Florence is a book I had been waiting for since I had learned
of it's writing. When I learned that the authors had been put in jail for the very crime that they were writing about...I knew I had to read the book. Especially when one of the authors is one of my favorite thriller writers. I came into this book expecting something akin to the true crime mafia books that my mother reads occasionally (being Sicilian, I suppose its difficult to get away from that sort of thing). I got that, and so much more.

Synopsis
In 1968, two people were murdered while making love in their car. This began a decades long murder spree committed by someone who has come to be known as the Monster of Florence. Italy had never before seen a serial killer and so the investigation of these atrocitys has become almost like a national pastime for some Italians. Among these are Mario Spezi and Douglas Preston, the authors of this book. There is incompetence among the Italian investigators, stupidity among the judges, and a general lack of anything even slightly resembling a fact finding mission. Mario and Douglas lay out in excellent form the facts and history of the case, as well as putting forth their suspect for just whom the monster might be.

Review
I'm honestly not a big fan of true crime books. I'm not a big fan of nonfiction in general. This book however interested me because it was directly related to one of the authors I read on a regular basis. The evidence is presented well, and conclusions are rightly met. I'm not entirely sure as to the authors bias in this book however. There is definitely an element of revenge toward the Italian legal system in this book. Preston is trying to make them look like fools for their handling of this and other cases (and he aptly succeeds). I liked this book, I liked the pacing, and I looked forward to each new chapter. In general though, even though this was a good book, it doesn't make me want to go out and read more nonfiction. It does however, make me want to keep up with and find the eventual outcome of the monster of florence case. 3/5 (good story, I'm not just not a fan of nonfiction. The world outside my 4 walls sucks enough without having to read about the parts that suck just a little bit more).




I'm not prepared to give a full, in depth review of Madden 10 (and truly I probably never will be. Im more of an RPG guy). I must say though that from having played the last few iterations of the Madden franchise...I am very pleased with this latest version. Previous Madden games were filled with little things to do in order to make your team better and to progress them. I'm not sure I am altogether in favor of their removal in this latest game, but I must say that it definitely takes the game back to it's roots of being a football game, as opposed to some sort of football hybrid/RPG thing. I do miss some of the advancement elements. I'd like to be able to easily see how my players are progressing through the seasons. I know that my players get better in their first few years and decline in their...declining years...but without memorizing the stats, it's just too difficult to see where those changes are.

The pro-tak technology is a plus...I like how all aspects of it's implementation have added to the overall feel of the game. I like the Extra Point bonus show. And I especially like how the defensive line play is much more intuitive than it has been in the past. A few things I don't like? holding calls. No one plays as an offensive lineman. Holding is a great thing to have in the game...but I got called on holding 4 straight extra point trys in a row (i mean...one extra point try, 4 holding calls in a row). thats freakin ridiculous. It was a 50 yard extra point. Having holding is great, but reducing the number of times you see it per game would be awesome. Also, they went crazy with interceptions. Seems its much more easier to make them and much more difficult to throw them.

In general though, I like how the focus has moved back to the actual game of football as opposed to the minutiae of running a franchise. However, I would like to keep in mind that there IS a place in a game such as Madden for that kind of thing. Sometimes I WOULD like to create an expansion franchise and go through the entire rigamarole of getting funding, creating a team and seeing where I can get them...bidding for free agents...talking to their agents...etc. Running the game more as a football simulator/RPG than a football game. Either way...I'm happy with how this game turned out.




The Bucs have only played one preseason game and already I'm getting excited. The defense, long the mainstay of the Bucs teams has taken a hit in recent years with aging veterans (who have mostly been turned loose) and the loss of key coaching staff members. The assumed focus this year would be on our offense (and indeed, thats how free agency seemed to go, and our first round draft pick being a new quarterback). So when the first preseason game was played, it came as a shock of just how good our first team defense played. We scored 2 interceptions early and a sack against the Titans first team offense. This is good news. Sabby Piscatelli...who MUST play well this upcoming season made some nice tackles and was responsible for one of those interceptions. Our drafted defensive tackle and end both played decently well as well. The offense...was not quite as stellar as it should have been (welcome to life as a Bucs fan). It took a bit before we got the running game going...in fact our first team running backs didnt get much going at all...our running game ended up relying on our third string back. In the preseason though...backs don't get much action. It's so easy to hurt a running back that many teams dont even play their feature backs in the preseason. The quarterbacks though...aye yiah yiah. Only one of them had over a 50 percent completion rate. And that just barely over 50 percent (the NFL average is about 60 percent). Byron throws ropes that might just be too hard for our receivers to grab a hold of. Luke looks...ready to move on. Josh Freeman looks like a rookie, making rookie mistakes (which hes allowed to do at this stage of the game...better start making some better decisions though). Josh Johnson honestly looked like our best option during that game. He ran for a 43 yard td, passed for over 50% with no ints. Unfortunately...hes probably the guy we are going to let go :(

Lets see how things go next week when we get one of our top 2 receivers back. That should make a difference at QB at least.

Up next to read? Perhaps T.S. Spivet. School is starting in a week though, and I have a...workfilled (not difficult, but definitely a lot to do) schedule this semester. Also, I'm going to get myself a kindle for my birthday, and it feels wrong to purchase books when I would rather have them on kindle in the coming months.