EPISODE ONE

We begin episode one of Hard Knocks (2008) Training Camp with the Dallas Cowboys with shots of Jason Witten, Tony Romo, and Martellus Bennett leaving their homes and families. Blah, blah, blah. They have more money than you and I do combined so their houses are big and fancy. Yada yada yada… yeah, your families will miss you but not your money.

The players arrive at training camp in Oxnard, CA. Yeah, Oxnard. I know. It’s the most ridiculous name for a city. It was probably named after someone so I’m sorry if I offended the Oxnard family, but yo, seriously… that’s a ridiculous name. Anyway, there’s a pretty funny moment when Terrell Owens, or T.O. as I like to call him (original I know) arrives and a couple of the players are asking what his reporting weight is. So they ask, “2 what? 2 what?” As in two hundred and how many pounds. T.O. calmly replies, “Too sexy.” Good stuff.

Say what you want about Mr. Owens, but the guy just cracks me up. My favorite quote of his is, “I love me some me!” Classic. That being said, T.O. knows how to market himself and has a line of sporting T-shirts that he is selling on his website – TO Tees where you can buy the iLove Me Some Me T-shirt among several others. Check it out! Coming soon: a photo of me lovin’ me some me.

One impressive piece of footage included Adam Jones catching 6 punts without letting go of any of the footballs. Patrick Crayton tries and falls down while trying to catch his fifth. I’m not sure I could hold 6 footballs at one time, much less catch a punt while holding multiple footballs. That’s crazy talent that can never be used in the course of an actual football game. Kind of like my uncanny ability to dance like a white boy. Totally useless skill. It never got me any girls. FYI, Crayton was able to tie Jones with 6 punts caught without dropping a football by the end of the episode.

We also get to meet Keon Lattimore and find out he’s All-Pro Linebacker Ray Lewis’s little brother. That’s really not a big deal to me. I could care less who his brother is. The question is whether or not he can play. So far in this camp, it seems he has been less than impressive. I say he will get cut and not make the team. He would have had absolutely zero impact anyway as a back up to Marion Barber and Felix Jones. The good news is that the Cowboys are upgraded at running back compared to last year. You can definitely quote me on that.

When Felix Jones reported to camp after finally getting his contract “issue” resolved, he quickly got manhandled by a linebacker blitzing in the backfield. The show then cuts to Marion Barber to show his experience in blocking. As you’ll see in the video, Marion Barber takes on a linebacker in a blocking drill and blows him up. Second year linebacker Tyson Smith couldn’t stand up after that hit. Oh snap!

The expectations on the Cowboys are basically Super Bowl or bust. Yet, the past two seasons they have lost the very first playoff game in which they participated. That would normally be a tall order, but the Cowboys return an NFL record 13 Pro-Bowlers. While the ultimate goal is to win the Super Bowl, we learn that only two current Cowboys have Super Bowl rings. Backup quarterback Brad Johnson when he was with Tampa Bay and wide receiver Todd Lowber who was on the New York Giants practice squad last year.

The best part of the show was the rookie hazing. The veterans took bananad and added what looks like two tomatoes and attached them at the base to form a falic symbol microphone. The rookies had to say their name, school, signing bonus, and sing a song. Drew Atchison stole the show, but I don’t want to ruin it so just watch the video below and you’ll be laughing.

Overall, the first episode was very entertaining. I’m excited to see the rest of the episodes and see how they treat the emotions of those that get cut and of those that still have a chance. Stay tuned!

• A big thanks to Awful Announcing for putting together the highlights of this season of Hard Knocks.

We rarely talk about sports on Pop Critics, but when interesting news arises from that world, it must be passed on.

Especially because I love sports. I love ESPN, Pardon the Interruption, ESPNews and of course, SportsCenter.

Well, SportsCenter is about to get a revamping, and one that I think is kind of cool. Usually, when you watch SportsCenter during the day, it’s a repeat episode from a previous broadcast. They only update bits and pieces of the telecast for new or breaking news.

That’s going to change on August 11th, when ESPN starts shooting the show live during the day, from 6 AM to 3 PM EST. There will be three shifts responsible for the airings, including the talents of Linda Cohn, Josh Elliot, Robert Flores, Chris McKendry and the newly added Hannah Storm.

If you have ever telecommuted and had ESPN during the day, you probably got sick of the repeats of SportsCenter, so this is a welcomed change in my opinion.

And I have the perfect thing.

ESPN is coming out with the coolest looking, feature-packed remote control that I’ve ever seen. It’s got a friggin’ web browser in it and has wireless capabilities.

You can see a large shot of the remote below, but in the meantime, here are the features:

• Remote sets up in same room as TV equipment
• Powerful branded search-for-equipment setup
• Programmable learning remote with advanced macros and activities
• Wireless updates of new equipment codes
• Automatic backup of user-programmed remote control settings
• Rechargeable lithium-ion battery with charging cradle
• USB interface for power
• Light sensor adjusts LCD to room brightness
• WiFi, 802.11 b/g wireless access
• Vibrant, 2.2â€? QVGA color LCD display
• Click365sm wireless network provides instant updates to TV listings, sports, weather, news, and more
• Real-time access to sports news, scores, game updates, box scores, standings, ESPN.com, fantasy leagues, stats, schedules, and more
• Browse TV listings with multi-day guide; works with broadcast, cable and satellite
• Create personalized TV listing guides
• Internet browser provides links to online content, information, and search
• Versatile messaging feature lets you text your friends and family – remote-to-remote, email, and mobile phone
• Advanced Microsoft Windows® operating software

One thing that puzzles me about the thing though. They stress that you don’t need a PC to set it up, but the thing is Wireless and has a USB cable for recharging. So….pretty much you still need a computer, otherwise, why would you have a wireless network? And I guess if it comes with a plug-in to the wall USB adapter, that’s cool, but otherwise, you may still need a PC to power it up.

But who cares. The remote looks frakking awesome, but the $300 price tag is daunting. It’s already available for pre-order over on Amazon.com and at that price tag, you get free shipping! *grin*

The first thing I did when I got up on Sunday morning, was let the dogs out and turn on the TV. Not sure if that is different than any other morning, but whatever.

It was time to see ESPNewsHD in the flesh!

I recorded the first two broadcasts of ESPNewsHD off ESPNHD since I don’t have the new channel yet, hopefully you guys did the same. If you didn’t, it also showed on ESPN2HD a few more times on Sunday.

My initial thoughts are that IT’S AWESOME. I loved the new studio, the HD picture that fits inside all the informative scrolling areas on the top, left and bottom. When an NBA game scrolled by, they had small headshots of players to go next to their stat line. Pretty nice.

Also liked that when the top line switched sports, the left area had an animation graphic that displayed that sport’s logo.

There was really only one thing that bothered me. They have sound effects when displaying a person’s name or other information that overlays the HD picture, and that little “swoosh” sound could get to be tiresome after awhile.

What did you guys think? Awesome?

I’m just hoping that the station shows up soon, because I need to see more of it!

Well in case you all forgot, we mentioned back in late December that ESPNewsHD would launch on March 30th and it’s looking like that is still going to happen. At least, it’s going to be late in March, maybe early April. Obviously that doesn’t necessarily mean providers like DirectTV, Cox, Comcast, etc., will show the station that same day, but one can certainly hope.

But to whet our appetites for this glorious day of a new, beautiful 24/7 sports news channel, we have screenshots or mockups of what the new ESPNews graphics package will look like and I’m FRAKKING excited for it! Thanks to some dude on DBSTalk for finding these on ESPN Media.

Here is the first one below, it has a top bar that displays the upcoming news categories. The left pane will display current information for the game or news item that is the latest on that top news bar. If you look, it shows the BOS-CLE game as the highlighted game, and then some information about it.

The other thing to note is that while it doesn’t fill the screen, the main picture with the news feed appears to be widescreen (16:9), meaning while it wont fill up your TV screen, you’ll still be getting a HD picture of game highlights, etc. Not too shabby.

Now, with the one below, it also looks like they’ll use it to show more than one game or event currently taking place. The NCAAF example gives us 3 final scores at one time, which is pretty slick.

And you still get the bottom bar with the latest top stories and the current time, which I love.

The one below just shows another use of the left pane, to show the Nextel Cup standings.

This last one is awesome (awww, Brett), but mainly for the snazzy little game update for the Oregon vs Tennessee fake contest. Not only do you get the score, the time, the quarter and who has possession, they also give you the down and where they are on the field with a sweet looking football field graphic.

Wowee!

And below that, you get current stats from the game.

Now, without football around for awhile, it’s going to be cool to see what they put up for baseball games. Will they use a nice diamond graphic to convey game status?

There you have it. What do you think? Are you going to be addicted to the new station once it hits? I know I am. Just recently the Brett Favre retirement press conference was on, and it lasted around 2 hours.

I had ESPNews on for the last half of it, and I can just imagine how much more fun it will be to enjoy things like that plus get a bazillion other updates and news items all in a sexy graphics package.

Can’t wait!

As you may have heard, Will Ferrell has a new movie coming out called Semi-Pro, a comedy sports movie that spoofs the old ABA teams before the days of NBA basketball.

In this little ESPN video, Bill Walton dresses up in a pretty good replica of how he used to look back in those days. The only problem is, he left whatever hoops skills he used to have in that era.

I’m actually pretty impressed with Ferrell’s form on his shots.

To me, it’s like Oprah for men. They run down the list of the hot topics in sports and give awesome, quick and quality commentary on all of it. Tony Cornheiser and Michael Wilbon are two of my favorite sports personalities out there and both of them are great at what they do.

But with that being said, it appears that Michael Wilbon suffered possible minor heart attack early Monday morning and was taken to the hospital.

Tony let the viewers know that Michael had chest pains early that morning but was doing great.

From Sports Media Watch:

Wilbon, scheduled to cover the Super Bowl this week, “complained of chest pains to his wife who took him to the hospital. Doctors found minor blockage in his heart and performed an angioplasty, which successfully removed the blockage.” Wilbon is expected to return to his Scottsdale, Arizona home tomorrow. There is no word on whether he will continue covering the Super Bowl.

You can watch the video below where Tony mentions the incident on Monday’s PTI.

Get well soon Michael!

However, we’re starting to get new tidbits on what it’s going to look like and I have to say, it might be one of the bigger things in the land of TV that I’m looking forward to in 2008.

According to EngadgetHD, the graphics package has been finalized.

This is how it breaks down:

• A scrolling scoreboard on the left side of the screen
• Tabs of specific leagues and topics across the top
• Bottom portion will be dedicated to breaking news and advertisements
• The video feed will be the same for both HD and SD
• The standard definition version will get the updated graphics, but not the scrolling scoreboard.

It seems to me that the station is going to look an awful lot like the new HD versions of CNN and Fox Business, which seems pretty slick.

The only part that is a little disappointing is the the video feed, which wont be in HD, meaning we’ll still get game highlights and recaps all in normal SD resolution. Still, with all the other crap we’ll be getting, I’ll take it.

Now it just remains to be seen if Direct TV will pick up the new station the moment it’s live, or if we’ll have to wait awhile.