Browns Openers - what a list

We are 8 days away from the start of the NFL season! I can't wait for football to start, now that the Indians are on another losing streak (is it 10 games this time? 8 games? I lost track) and golf is winding down.

The problem, of course, is that I will have to suffer through another Week 1 Browns game. I reviewed the list of openers since the return - and hoo boy, there are some doozys in here.

We are 1-12 in openers since 1999. 12 of those 13 were at home.


1999- L to Steelers, 43-0, at Cleveland. Ty Detmer QB. Not much more needs to be said.

2000- L to Jaguars, 27-7, at Cleveland. Tim Couch QB. We did end up winning the next 2 - including 1 vs. Pit - and we were 2-1. Was it going to turn around? No....we lost 12 of the next 13.

2001- L to Seahawks, 9-6, at Cleveland. Tim Couch QB. I don't remember much of this game....of course, we got our revenge 10 years later by beating Seattle 6-3 at home!

2002 - L to Chiefs, 40-39, at Cleveland. Kelly Holcomb as QB. Forever known as the Dwayne Rudd game. How, again, did we lose this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_nFvKv9pwc

Nothing more needs to be said.

2003- L to Colts, 9-6, at Cleveland. Kelly Holcomb as QB. Peyton Manning is not injured - and it is sunny. How we hold them to 9 points and still lose......

2004- W over Ravens, 20-3, at Cleveland. Jeff Garcia as QB. It's a miracle!

2005 - L to Bengals, 27-13, at Cleveland. Trent Dilfer as QB. I don't remember much about this one.

2006 - L to Saints, 19-14, at Cleveland. Charlie Frye as QB. The Saints were coming off a 3-13 season. THe first play from scrimmage - Frye finds Braylon Edwards for a 75 yard TD!!!!

Oh wait... "holding, on the offense....."

2007 - L to Steelers, 34-7, in Cleveland. Charlie Frye as QB. What a mess, Frye is shipped out after the game and Derek Anderson (who?) is our QB for the funnest season in 18 years.

2008 - L to Cowboys, 28-10, in Cleveland. Derek Anderson as QB. This games wasn't even this close. Joe Buck and Troy Aikman in town for a national FOX game (4 pm start) - horrific.

2009 - L to Vikings, 34-20, in Cleveland. Brady Quinn as QB. You probably have seen the highlights of Peterson running through our secondary maybe 239 times now.

2010 - L to Tampa, 17-14, in Tampa. Jake Delhomme as QB. This game was in our pocket -14-3 - until Jake throws a horrendous interception late in the first half which turns the tide.
Tampa was up, 17-14, with 2 minutes to go and was at our 4 yd line trying to ice it...they run, IT's A FUMBLE...and the ball squirts out to the side of the pile by itself.
A Browns LB FALLS ON THE BALL with no one around him. There was 96 yards of daylight ahead of him...and he just falls on it.

2011 - L to Cincinnati, 27-17, in Cleveland. You may recall, we were up by 4 with 4 minutes left when we didn't break our defensive huddle, and the Bengals snapped the ball while we were in our huddle.......

What wonders will await me week 1 in 8 days?
 

Why we moved

This weekend, there was a "welcome back" beach party. This video sums up exactly why we moved from a 90% Chinese place to a more ex-pat friendly neighborhood.

The two older boys are in here somewhere - although I'm not sure exactly where.

And this video was taken 5 minutes after the MC pulled me up from the crows to sing "Dancing Queen". I am not lying. They asked if I needed to look at the screen for the lyrics. Hell no!

 

Random Pictures

1. Coming back from the US, this was a sign near our apartment. It just feeds into all the jokes....

2. When you don't have a spouse or friends to help carry styrofoam boxes, I guess you have to improvise:

 

3. No, I didn't order Cheddar cheese bread; I said Earthquake cheese bread!

 

 

 

Hello again

Hi everyone - yes, it's been a while since the last post. Life has been very busy in the past month with the move to the new place. Let's try some rapid fire updates:

1. Watched some of the Olympics, as we watched the first week at our old place and the second week at the new place. We made the kids watch the opening ceremonies - the highlight was the Mr. Bean skit with the "Chariots of Fire" scene.

The first week - we watched the slingbox feed from the US. In the evenings, we set it up and watched the NBC Sports Channel coverage (at 8 am from the US) - archery was on most mornings; the boys were fascinated.

The second week, we were able to catch the CCTV feed for the coverage. Of course, it was biased toward the Chinese athletes. There was a diving competition where they showed all 6 rounds - well, I should say, they showed selected divers of each round. In the first round, they showed 2 Chinese, a Russian, and a few others......and then after Round 1, an American was in 2nd......never saw him. He stayed in the top 5 all 6 rounds; no dives were shown.

2. Had to pay one month's rent in cash at the front desk. That was a time-consuming moment. I should have brought in a briefcase with the bills bound.

3. Our pet turtle didn't like the move; one week after our move, there were signs in the clubhouse: "Turtle found; we have it upstairs at the restaurant". Sure enough, our large turtle jumped the bowl and was found wandering the streets.

4. I'm starting to watch the Premier league more and more - Freddie and I are watching games Saturday night and highlights on Sunday. We watches the end of the Swansea-West Ham game yesterday and the start of Tottenham. He can't wait to see a Man U goal in real time.

5. There's a group at work planning to enter into the Macau marathon.... there is a half marathon option......how in the hell can I run 12 miles?

Picutures coming soon as I download them off my phone....