I don't have a lot to say about the thrashing handed out by the Pittsburgh Steelers upon my beloved Brownies today..........but I will vent a little about the season that was.
The 2008 Cleveland Browns just set an NFL record for most consecutive quarters without an offensive touchdown with 24. That's 6 games without an offensive touchdown, in a row! But wait....it gets better. There was 1 more game earlier in the year (Sept. 14 at home to Pittsburgh) where we also didn't score a touchdown at all. So you can go ahead and make that 7 out of 16 games that we did not score an offensive touchdown this year (and I believe there was only 1 defensive touchdown in that span). No offensive touchdown in 44% of our games this year.
In 2007, the Browns were 10-6 overall including a 7-1 record at home. We finished 8th in the entire NFL in Total Points and Points Per Game with 402 and 25.1 respectively.
In 2008, the Browns will now finish 4-12 overall with a dismal 1-7 record at home. They will finish tied for 31st (out of 32 teams) in the entire NFL in Total Points and Points Per Game with 232 and 14.5 respectively (the worst teams in the NFL as of right now -part way through Week 17- are below):
29. Oakland Raiders 16.4 263
T-31. Cleveland Browns 14.5 232
T-31. St. Louis Rams 14.5 232
32. Cincinnati Bengals 12.8 204
Today, we sent out our 4th string QB (Bruce Gradowski). Yes, our 4th string. The guy who was 2nd on the depth chart behind Gradowski today was a guy who was just signed on Tuesday. We lost Brady Quinn to a broken finger, Derek Anderson to a knee injury (partially torn MCL I believe), and Ken Dorsey to a concussion and rib injury.
Take a look at our top Wide Receiver, Braylon Edwards (#17 in your programs, #1 in your hearts.....right?).
2007 Stats
Receptions 80 (21st in NFL)
Yards 1,289 (7th in NFL)
Touchdowns 16 (2nd in NFL)
2008 Stats (rankings not yet official)
Receptions 55 (46th in NFL)
Yards 873 (28th in NFL)
Touchdowns 3 (T-57th in NFL)
Some players who also had 3 receiving touchdowns this season:
Devin Hester (CHI) - a return man who is a part of very few offensive series
Jerheme Urban (ARZ) - who?
Dominic Rhodes (IND) - 2nd string RUNNING BACK
Miles Austin (DAL) - you don't even want to know how far down the depth chart he is
But don't worry, Browns fans!! Braylon did lead the NFL in one category this year. Dropped passes. 16 of them. Perhaps none bigger than that game earlier in the season against the Ravens.
After all of this, does it sound like I am giving up on my Browns? Not even close. I have bought more Browns gear this year than ever. I've faithfully watched each and every game, as painful as it has been at times.
Tomorrow, Randy Lerner (the Browns owner) is rumored to be meeting with Head Coach Romeo Crennel, and possibly the GM Phil Savage. Things are going to be shaking up in Cleveland. We could very well be heading into next year with an entirely new coaching staff and a new GM. Look, it isn't good for the Browns to rebuild year after year. However I think we have the offensive talent now, we just need some front office staff that can put together a product worth watching on the field. We need coaches that can motivate their players, come up with a solid game plan, and EXECUTE. There is no single person or event that we can point a finger at this year and say 'Aha! That's why we had such a bad year'. It was a snowball effect of bad events and bad luck that just kept adding up. We had a tough schedule this year, and it showed at times. However, what about the games against Denver and Buffalo where Brady Quinn was healthy and leading the offense? Our team looked great, perhaps just as great as last year.
2008 is already out of my mind....bring on 2009. HERE WE GO BROWNIES HERE WE GO.
Knowledge Is Power
CM
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Digital Copy
Well, the Christmas season has started to leave even faster than it came...but in its wake is a trail of new gifts and gadgets that will keep guys like me busy well into the New Year. I was lucky enough to get a Blu-Ray player for Xmas, and let me tell you - once you get Blu-Ray hooked up to a Plasma TV with HDMI....you are never going to watch a standard DVD again. In the last couple of days i've watched 'The Dark Knight', 'Invincible', part of 'A Christmas Story' and 'Wanted' all in Blu-Ray - all great movies.
One fairly new thing that these companies are doing when they ship their DVD's and Blu-Rays is really a great idea - Digital Copy. In case you haven't heard of it, most DVD's and Blu-Rays are now shipping with an extra DVD in the case - this DVD is your 'digital copy' of the movie. Basically, for buying the movie, they are giving you a copy for your iPod - and a quick and easy way to get it there. If you buy a Blu-Ray movie, the digital copy is still a DVD.
I personally think this is an amazing idea. There have always been ways to get your DVD's on your iPods, but they are much more time consuming. With the new digital copy, it only takes a few minutes. I want to mention two specific things about digital copy.
1. Getting Digital Copy to the customer
All digital copies are sent the same way - on their own separate DVD included in the case. There is also a little card with a 'registration key' of sorts that you must enter in order to put the digital copy in your iTunes. Hence, you must have an internet connection.
Now while this works great for everyone, I think the idea is a bit flawed. Here's why - if you must have an internet connection to use this digital copy anyway, even though it is included on a disk, would it not be cheaper and easier for studios to provide a digital copy somewhere on the internet for download? Then they wouldn't have to send out a separate DVD with each and every movie, which may not even get used by the majority of customers (I would like to see statistics on usage of digital copy actually, if they exist...). There are obvious drawbacks to this. File sizes are huge (Wanted was about 1.2 GB I believe), so there is going to be long download times......but really, how many people buy or rent movies off iTunes as it is? Obviously there are people out there who are willing to download these large files.
I'm good with any way they want to provide a digital copy.......I just think it would make more sense financially for the studios to provide the digital copy as a download on the internet instead of as a supplied extra DVD.
2. Using Digital Copy on your Mac
I ran into (and solved) this problem tonight, so thought this might help some people who are trying to use Digital Copy with their Mac.
According to the instructions that come with your movie, it says to simply insert the digital copy dvd in your dvd drive and a screen will pop up. When this pops up, double click it to put the movie into your iTunes - it's that simple. Or is it?
When I tried doing this exact method on my MacBook Pro, I kept getting the same error saying 'you must be connected to the internet to use digital copy'. I was connected to the internet, so couldn't see what the problem was. A quick Google search didn't help me. After some digging, I finally found a different set of instructions right on Apple's Support Website. There, they say you must open your iTunes BEFORE putting the digital copy dvd into your dvd drive. When you then go ahead and insert the dvd, it will show up in your iTunes, and you just have to enter the registration key to begin the transfer.
Method number 2 worked flawlessly and I transferred the movie within a couple of minutes.
While I'm on the topic, I do have one more helpful piece of advice that may help anyone with a Sony BDP-S350 Blu-Ray player. There is a firmware update (v10) that is available on the Sony website. There are three ways to get the update
1. Via the internet if your Blu-Ray player is connected to the internet.
2. Sony will mail you an update disc.
3. Burn a bootable update disc yourself.
I chose option number 3 - I downloaded the ISO file from the Sony website and followed all the instructions - however I couldn't get the damn ISO to burn to a CD. I tried NERO on my Windows PC and the default CD Burner on my Mac - no luck.
Finally, I downloaded a nice little FREE program called ImgBurn. However, my first run with this program yielded an error message as well.
If you are running into this problem, I was able to make ImgBurn work, and here is how - go into TOOLS and then SETTINGS. Click on the WRITE tab. On the left hand side, you will see some options. The second from the top is WRITE TYPE and it has a drop down menu beside it. Change the setting from DAO/SAO to TAO and give that a go. I don't have the technical knowledge to know the exact difference between these Write Types, but I do know that older CD burners do not support DAO/SAO.
If you do have this Blu-Ray player and want to do the update, and would like a walkthrough, feel free to reply to this post and I would be happy to help you out.
Knowledge Is Power
CM
One fairly new thing that these companies are doing when they ship their DVD's and Blu-Rays is really a great idea - Digital Copy. In case you haven't heard of it, most DVD's and Blu-Rays are now shipping with an extra DVD in the case - this DVD is your 'digital copy' of the movie. Basically, for buying the movie, they are giving you a copy for your iPod - and a quick and easy way to get it there. If you buy a Blu-Ray movie, the digital copy is still a DVD.
I personally think this is an amazing idea. There have always been ways to get your DVD's on your iPods, but they are much more time consuming. With the new digital copy, it only takes a few minutes. I want to mention two specific things about digital copy.
1. Getting Digital Copy to the customer
All digital copies are sent the same way - on their own separate DVD included in the case. There is also a little card with a 'registration key' of sorts that you must enter in order to put the digital copy in your iTunes. Hence, you must have an internet connection.
Now while this works great for everyone, I think the idea is a bit flawed. Here's why - if you must have an internet connection to use this digital copy anyway, even though it is included on a disk, would it not be cheaper and easier for studios to provide a digital copy somewhere on the internet for download? Then they wouldn't have to send out a separate DVD with each and every movie, which may not even get used by the majority of customers (I would like to see statistics on usage of digital copy actually, if they exist...). There are obvious drawbacks to this. File sizes are huge (Wanted was about 1.2 GB I believe), so there is going to be long download times......but really, how many people buy or rent movies off iTunes as it is? Obviously there are people out there who are willing to download these large files.
I'm good with any way they want to provide a digital copy.......I just think it would make more sense financially for the studios to provide the digital copy as a download on the internet instead of as a supplied extra DVD.
2. Using Digital Copy on your Mac
I ran into (and solved) this problem tonight, so thought this might help some people who are trying to use Digital Copy with their Mac.
According to the instructions that come with your movie, it says to simply insert the digital copy dvd in your dvd drive and a screen will pop up. When this pops up, double click it to put the movie into your iTunes - it's that simple. Or is it?
When I tried doing this exact method on my MacBook Pro, I kept getting the same error saying 'you must be connected to the internet to use digital copy'. I was connected to the internet, so couldn't see what the problem was. A quick Google search didn't help me. After some digging, I finally found a different set of instructions right on Apple's Support Website. There, they say you must open your iTunes BEFORE putting the digital copy dvd into your dvd drive. When you then go ahead and insert the dvd, it will show up in your iTunes, and you just have to enter the registration key to begin the transfer.
Method number 2 worked flawlessly and I transferred the movie within a couple of minutes.
While I'm on the topic, I do have one more helpful piece of advice that may help anyone with a Sony BDP-S350 Blu-Ray player. There is a firmware update (v10) that is available on the Sony website. There are three ways to get the update
1. Via the internet if your Blu-Ray player is connected to the internet.
2. Sony will mail you an update disc.
3. Burn a bootable update disc yourself.
I chose option number 3 - I downloaded the ISO file from the Sony website and followed all the instructions - however I couldn't get the damn ISO to burn to a CD. I tried NERO on my Windows PC and the default CD Burner on my Mac - no luck.
Finally, I downloaded a nice little FREE program called ImgBurn. However, my first run with this program yielded an error message as well.
If you are running into this problem, I was able to make ImgBurn work, and here is how - go into TOOLS and then SETTINGS. Click on the WRITE tab. On the left hand side, you will see some options. The second from the top is WRITE TYPE and it has a drop down menu beside it. Change the setting from DAO/SAO to TAO and give that a go. I don't have the technical knowledge to know the exact difference between these Write Types, but I do know that older CD burners do not support DAO/SAO.
If you do have this Blu-Ray player and want to do the update, and would like a walkthrough, feel free to reply to this post and I would be happy to help you out.
Knowledge Is Power
CM
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Bloggin'
I've never actually attempted to 'blog' before - but reading my friend Kent's blog, "Kent on Current Events", inspired me to copy him come up with my own. However, my blog will not have nearly the educational value of Kent's (I believe Kent's blog covers about 15% of your daily recommended education intake. Low in saturated fats and filled with hearty goodness).
My first post will likely center on my belief that Christmas Eve should be a stat holiday.......so watch for that in a few days. Until then, Merry Christmas everyone. Bring on the eggnog and rum.
My first post will likely center on my belief that Christmas Eve should be a stat holiday.......so watch for that in a few days. Until then, Merry Christmas everyone. Bring on the eggnog and rum.
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