EPISODE THREE

We begin Episode three of Hard Knocks 2008 with the coaches evaluating the performance of the players during the San Diego preseason game.  The first team was solid and efficient so coaches are giving them a lot of praise.  However, the second team and beyond had very little praise as they were far less productive compared to the second and third string of the Chargers.  Danny Amendola’s fumble on his first punt return was mentioned.  That’s not good for the fan favorite underdog.

It’s time for more of the T.O. show!  We have shots that go back and forth between coach talking about the Cowboys have one goal of getting to and winning the Super Bowl and T.O. running shirtless (of course) up the side of a mountain all the while the voice of the coach is heard about trying to inspire the players to from being good football players to great football players.  He challenges his team to write down on paper what they need to do to go from “good to great” and then go and do those things.

Let me try: “Good to Great”

1. Drink more water and slow down on the Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper
2. Go to bed earlier and get up earlier
3. Run a mile a day
4. Help an old lady cross the street
5. Watch less television and read more
6. Listen to wife

Okay, this is just ridiculous.  There’s nothing wrong with just being good.  Leave the greatness to someone else.

Now it’s time to focus on Tony Romo’s friendship with TE Jason Witten.  Although, Witten states that he is not a part of Tony’s entourage.  Everyone agrees, including Romo, that Romo can’t sing.  You could also search for a video of him singing at a Chicago Cubs game to verify this fact.  Still, Tony maintains that his new found fame of being the Quarterback of “America’s Team” has not changed him.  Well, except for dating blondes in the music industry with hot bodies and tons of money.  Yeah, nothing’s changed.  Anyway, there is a pretty funny moment where Troy Aikman sends a text message asking Jerry Jones where his retirement installment is after finding out the Green Bay Packers offered Brett Favre $25 Mil to stay retired.

Get your popcorn ready.  We find out that Jerry Jones likes popcorn himself and offers sports writer Peter King a bucket full of popcorn.  Peter then proceeds to start stuffing his mouth.  I wish that would stop him from writing sometimes.  We are reminded a game last year when Owens grabbed popcorn from someone in the stands (probably staged prior to game) after he scored a touchdown.  But this year is a new T.O.  The younger receivers are calling Terrell Owens the Godfather of the receivers.  He is seen given some solid instruction and advice to the younger receivers just simply trying to make the team.  How would you like Mr. Owens to be teaching your child?  If it’s teaching my son how to play football, then I’m all in.

NFL reinstatement hopeful Adam Jones is a great man on man cover guy, but struggles mightily with zone coverages.  After the first preseason game against the Chargers, he said that he couldn’t call his momma because she would have griped him out for the way he played.  You can always count on momma to tell it lke it is.  He was also trying to show Dave Campo how to dance and that is worse than watching me dance… well, maybe not.  White boyz 4 life foo’.  Represent!

As the Cowboys are getting ready to scrimmage against the Denver Broncos in preparation for their second preseason game, a funny moment involving head coach Wade Phillips and T.O. occurred.  Wade Phillips was telling his players not to wear shorts like T.O. was wearing.  He then asked him where he got those shorts so that he would make sure never to shop there.  At the same time, you see that T.O. is also wearing a shirt that says “I heart Haters” and Wade says, “yeah, see, you love me.”  Get your own “I heart Haters” shirt here.

We find out Demarcus Ware and his wife have lost 3 babies so they decided to adopt.  The child is still a baby and Ware signs on to iChat for a little video conference with his wife and baby.  I’m not sure there is nothing better than seeing a giant football player singing “Knees and toes” to a little baby in a lap top screen.  As a father, you just understand no matter how ridiculous it looks.  Sing it with me now:

Head, shoulders, knees and toes,
Knees and toes.

Head, shoulders, knees and toes,
Knees and toes.

And eyes, and ears, and mouth,
And nose.

Head, shoulders, knees and toes,
Knees and toes.

It’s scrimmage time against Denver.   Apparently, excuses still come up with great players.  Romo overthrew T.O. a bit and asked him what was going on.  Romo said that he used to be able to get those and that he would take a little off if T.O. couldn’t catch up anymore.  T.O. started giving the excuse of the thin Denver air, so Romo was able to throw it farther than normal.  T.O. still claims that Romo can’t overthrow him at normal altitudes.  Gotta love the back and forth bantering.

Uh oh.  The players are getting better, but dropped balls seem to occurring more frequently this episode.  Players have to do 50 push ups for dropped passes and 25 for mental mistakes.  There are a lot of drops during this episode.  Ouch.  Two-a-days are wearing the players down.  The players legs are getting tired and some don’t feel the need to follow all the treatments to keep the muscles from getting sore.  It’s hard to unteach stubborn I guess.

Amendola gets praise for his natural punt returning ability, but talks always go back to his fumble on his first return in the preseason game.  Todd Lowber is starting to get better and learning his role as a receiver and the coaches are noticing.  Martellus Bennett is finally getting praise for working harder and taking his game to the “next level”.  Keon Lattimore is still not getting many reps and struggling with the assignments when time is given to him.  He’s got talent.  We’ll just have to see if it’s NFL talent.

Tempers flare up during the practice with Denver Broncos.  Oooo, fight, fight, fight!  Ah, sissies.  No drama, just a bunch of pushing going on.  Apparently, it was supposed to be light workout with touching instead of tackling.  Cowboys safety Roy Williams was upset about that, but the Broncos seem to be taking it a little more seriously so Cowboys decide to try to “touch” back.  The scuffle is short lived and quickly broken up by teammates.

Adam Jones prepares his formal written request for reinstatement into the NFL and sends it to commissioner Roger Goodell prior to game against Denver.  We are still waiting for his decision which is supposed to come before August 30th.  The Cowboys are sluggish in their second preseason game.  They don’t appear to be in it mentally.  The Cowboys aren’t tackling; they are committing too many penalties.  Greg Ellis holds an impromptu players meeting with his fellow defensive players.  They respond.  The players get fired up and play better and stop the Broncos from driving down the field.  The second team moves the ball down the field and scores thanks mainly to Miles Austin.  Unfortunately Austin gets hurt on the ensuing kick off.

Adam Jones hasn’t played since the NFL added the rule that players can’t spike the football after a play except for touchdowns so he gets penalized for doing just that.  I hate that rule among a few others.  It’s stupid just like the excessive celebration rule.  It is what it is though and all the players are fully aware of them.  It’s considered a “Delay of Game” penalty, so I kind of understand, but it’s still stupid.  Martellus Bennett has a strong game.  He had some good blocks and great catches with several broken tackles.  Aggies might actually be good for something after all.  LOL!  Anyway, Denver wins 23-13.

The game is over and the team is headed back to Dallas.  Training camp in Oxnard, CA is over and it’s time to make final preparations for the season.  We’re getting close to the time where Dallas has to make some cuts so we’ll see how many of these players that the show is focusing on actually make the team.  it’s starting to get good, not that it wasn’t already.

Author’s note:  My quick apologies for the delay of this post in regards to when the show actually aired.  I had a weekend full of fantasy football drafts and time went by faster than I anticipated.  With that being said, if any of you enjoy fantasy games then allow me to offer you some of my challenges that are free to participate in.  Just visit my latest post – Thinkbox issues Fantasy Challenges for 2008.

But after a summer filled with superheroes, violence and action, a silly romantic comedy actually seemed like it would be refreshing.

Now mind you, the wife wanted to see this, so being the supportive guy that I am, I tagged along. Never in a million years would I have gone to see this on my own.

I swear.

Not until someone starts paying me to do movie reviews at least.

As I said before, I thought this would at least be a refreshing break from summer blockbusters, a moment to laugh at silly rich girls with too much money and time on their hands.

Sadly, I couldn’t even get that. I’m not sure what it was exactly, but this movie was missing something big time. Maybe it was heart. Maybe it was comedy. Maybe it was something the series had that the film lacked.

Or perhaps, it was all of the above.

With the theater about a third-full, with mostly women, I rarely heard anyone laughing at what I would have assumed would be hilarious inside jokes from the series. There didn’t seem to be much of that at all.

And other than the Sarah Jessica Parker character, Carrie Bradshaw, the rest of the cast seemed under-developed and just not used very well.

I was hoping for a movie that would hail back to the series, where the people around me would be having such a good time that I would get sucked in against my will, but it never reached that point. The movie was probably fun for fans of the show, but I think even they probably felt something was missing.

Mike’s Rating: 6 out of 10

In honor of George Carlin, HBO is busting out a major tribute by running a marathon tonight and tomorrow night.

The marathon will feature 11 of his comedy specials over two nights. Over his 30+ year career, he did an amazing 14 solo comedy specials for the HBO network. The lineup will begin with his first ever show, “George Carlin at USC”, and end with his last, “It’s Bad For Ya.”

Here is the schedule (all times EST):

Wednesday, June 25th

• 8pm – George Carlin at USC (1977)
• 9pm – George Carlin Again! (1978)
• 11pm – Carlin at Carnegie (1983)
• 12am – Carlin on Campus (1984)
• 1am – Playin’ with Your Head (1986)

Thursday, June 26th

• 8pm – What Am I Doing in New Jersey? (1988)
• 9pm – Doin’ It Again (1990)
• 10pm – Jammin’ in New York (1992)
• 11pm – Back in Town (1996)
• 12:05am – You Are All Diseased (1999)
• 1am – IT’S BAD FOR YA (2008)

The movie is supposed to be a highly entertaining look at the behind the scene action during those five weeks when the Supreme Court ultimately gave Florida to George W. Bush.

I’m sort of bummed I don’t have HBO right now…having turned it off after John Adams ended.

The cast is amazing: Kevin Spacey, Denis Leary, Tom Wilkinson, John Hurt, Laura Dern, Ed Begley Jr. and more.

The outline of who is playing who is below:

Kevin Spacey portrays Ron Klain, Vice President Al Gore’s former Chief of Staff. Tom Wilkinson portrays James Baker III, who was previously Secretary of State to President George H. W. Bush. Denis Leary plays Michael Whouley, national field director during the Gore campaign. Laura Dern portrays Katherine Harris, Secretary of State of Florida. Bob Balaban portrays Ben Ginsberg, national counsel to the Bush-Cheney campaign in the 2000 election. John Hurt plays Warren Christopher, former Secretary of State to President Bill Clinton. Bruce McGill plays Republican lobbyist Mac Stipanovich. Ed Begley, Jr. portrays attorney David Boies, who represented the Gore campaign before the Supreme Court.

The trailer for the movie is below, followed by the poster.

Directed by Tom Hanks, co-produced by himself and Steven Spielberg, the 10-part miniseries won countless awards from Emmys to Golden Globes, and is considered to be among the best miniseries of all-time.

Good news for Blu-Ray fans out there, Band of Brothers is set to hit shelves sometime later this year. Up until now, the only way to see the series in high definition was to import now discontinued HD-DVDs from Japan.

I need to see this series and perhaps the Blu-Ray release will be a good time to get a player.

On a side note, according to Wikipedia, the creators of Brothers, including Hanks and Spielberg, are currently developing The Pacific, which focuses on the Pacific Theatre of Operations.

Those of you with Direct TV may have noticed recently that pay-per-view movies suddenly have some with an expiration date. For example, I purchased a few movies awhile back, like Eastern Promises, The Brave One, etc., and they had these deletion/expiration dates set about a month in the future.

I never got to see them for one reason or another (mostly procrastination) and suddenly they were gone. Now, the good part of this, from looking at my past bills, is that I didn’t get charged for them at all since I never viewed the movies.

But what if I had started one and postponed the finish of it for a few weeks? I definitely would have gotten the $4.99 charge and then the movie would have been deleted if I somehow forgot about the expiration date waited too long to finish it.

Well, all that is about to get a lot worse. And it’s probably not specific to Direct TV I would assume.

According to BroadbandReports.com, Hollywood is now demanding that these PPV movies be only available for TWENTY-FOUR hours after they are purchased.

And the Direct TV website actually has it in fine print already:

Effective April 15, 2008, DVR recordings of PPV movies will be available for 24 hours of unlimited viewing after purchase. Major movie studios have required that satellite and cable providers alike may no longer allow their customers to view these recordings for longer than 24 hours. During the 24 hour viewing period, you will continue to enjoy all of your DVR features such as pause and rewind.

So basically that means those of you who want to purchase a movie on PPV and save it to your DVR, you basically have 24-hours to finish it. I know that on occasion, I wont watch a movie all the way through the first time. I’ll start it and finish it later.

In fact, I have a few movies right now that I purchased, started but haven’t ever watched again because I know I can get to them later if I want to.

But not anymore.

HBO putting time limits on TIVO users

This story is in addition to the one above and just gives you all a sign of things to come.

The recent mini-series that debuted on HBO, John Adams, is restricted for TIVO users who recorded it to their DVR. The shows actually have a 24-hour expiration date on them.

Not only that, but they will also restrict the number of TIMES you can watch it.

Goodness.

The story on The Culture of Ownership has screenshots of the ordeal a man went through with the Making of John Adams. He recorded the show and then didn’t watch it until 28 minutes before the 24-hour expiration date.

The DVR wouldn’t even let him START the show, because he didn’t even have enough time to watch it before it expired. That’s ridiculous.

Is the writing on the wall?

All of this stuff is just the beginning of ways the studios and motion picture companies are going to start protecting their content and handcuffing the way we watch TV right now.

You all know that these big production companies HATE the idea of viewers skipping commercials. With these little forays into the world of controlling our DVRs, could that be next?

Will skipping commercials down the road suddenly go away?

This stuff has me worried.

That feeling of pride stems from what our fore-fathers did to bring freedom to this country and how much they sacrificed to make it happen. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to live in that time, but if anything can make it a bit more real, this series on HBO is doing it.

John Adams started on Sunday night and I was completely glued to the screen, totally enamored by the acting done by everyone on screen. Paul Giamatti was brilliant…just brilliant as Adams himself, and Laura Linney provided a strong supporting job as Adams’ wife, Abigail. Danny Huston (below) also gave a great performance as Samuel Adams, John’s cousin.

I loved the portrayal of their marriage. I think that many a wise and important man in history has had a wife who stood silently behind him, supporting him and giving him confidence to accomplish the things that made him great.

A lawyer first, Adams was trying to defend some British soldiers who were involved in the Boston Massacre. In trying to write his final argument, Mrs. Adams read his script with a critical eye, helping him narrow his focus on what was important to say about his clients, not himself.

But the first hour of the series itself was powerfully moving. It was also shocking in some scenes, like the tar-and-feathering of a British man blocking the import of tea other than his own. It was brutal as they stripped him naked, poured hot tar over his body and covered him in feathers.

I think many people believe that our fight was provoked solely by England, and while their laws and disregard for our desire for freedom led to the Revolution, we helped make it happen in places that tend to be glanced over.

The case Adams was defending is another example. Five Americans were killed by British muskets, but only after they were provoked into defending themselves. Yet we wanted nothing more than to hang them and use it as a motive for rebelling.

The second part was also shown last night and focused almost entirely on the forming of the Declaration of Independence, which was breathtaking I thought. The process by which the 13 colonies came together to finally agree to proclaim our independence from Great Britain was fascinating and difficult.

Tom Wilkinson as Benjamin Franklin was superb, but the real impressive role was David Morse as George Washington, who looks almost like he just walked off the dollar bill itself.

What I like about the first two episodes is that you don’t see everything that is happening in the war, you only see it all through John and Abigail’s eyes. So while I would have LOVED to see what was happening in Concord and Lexington, it was in a way better to see it as they did.

Especially when you get to Philadelphia and the first meetings of Congress. They couldn’t sense what was happening in Boston, and from their vantage point, an urgent declaration of independence wasn’t necessary…yet.

I loved the realism and authenticity that came through each scene. This didn’t feel like some cheesy reenactment of a period in our history. The sets, the dialog and scenes felt as if they could have actually happened.

The only downside I find is that I wish there were dates displayed for each scene, because in the first two hours you jumped around 5 years and it would have been nice to know what point in time you were watching.

If you love history and have a chance to watch this, I suggest you try to find the repeats of Sunday’s two-part premiere. This is a great mini-series, one that pulls you right into the situation and you will feel that period of our history like never before. It’s almost a show that NEEDS to be seen by people.

Rating: 9.5/10

It’s called John Adams and is based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name by David McCollough, which has become one of the best-selling biographies in American history. It stars Paul Giamatti, Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson, Sarah Polley and others. The series has Tom Hanks as an executive producer.

It’s a 7-part series and chronicles the amazing life of one of our founding fathers, how he impacted United States history and tells us the story of his marriage, which some people consider one of the more moving American love stories.

Not bad. So far I’ve heard pretty stellar things about John Adams and we may even have to activate our HBO service this weekend to check it out. When I was growing up in high school, the American Revolution was always my favorite subject and still is to this day. That period in our history was so amazing to me, what we accomplished and how it made us who we are today.

It starts at 8PM/7C Sunday night.

Wow, being one of my favorite summer shows, the idea of Entourage returning in the fall is pretty awful.

Thank you once again Writer’s Strike for throwing the universe out of order and causing my TV watching to get all screwy. Instead of a June premiere for Entourage, we’ll have to wait until September.

Bummer.

Kristin over at E Online has the scoop on the new season, with word that the writer’s for the show are back to work on an order of 12 episodes from HBO, with the caveat of potentially more if they are asked. Apparently season 3 had a good 20 episodes, but last year there was only 12. It’s just up to HBO and whether or not they want to order more.

According to Doug Ellin, the creator of the show, Entourage will skip the idea for including the writer’s strike in it’s plot this coming season. That is probably a good thing, because reliving it even in the fictional Hollywood series would be a bit much.

The other news is that the character Dom from last year, which joined Vince’s gang and then was banished after stealing a collector’s Shrek doll, will be back.

Ellin says they have enough story to last another four years, including this one, so that could make 8 total seasons of the show.

If it does last that long, I hope they find the magic from year 1 and 2, because season 4 was a little flat.

Read Kristin’s entire interview over on E Online.

Those geniuses are Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, the two members of the “band”, Flight of the Conchords. They call themselves the fourth most popular musical folk comedy band in New Zealand.

If you don’t get the humor in that, you may not get any of it, but for me, it’s just one of the many hysterical things that these two low key, musical comedians say on a regular basis.

The documentary is about the band’s trip to Austin, Texas, in 2006 for the South by SouthWest music festival, which is generally regarded as one of the most respected venues for contemporary music in the world.

The band brings along with them the Gibson Group film crew to help put the thing together, but it’s entirely written by Bret and Jemaine. I’m not sure how they do it, but even in random interviews on the street, they are funny.

The documentary is around 44 minutes long, and there might be a slight blip in the middle where it forwards you to the end, but if you have time to watch it, you wont regret it. Especially if you are already fans of these two.