We Used To Make Steel In This Country

Today I've elected to take on a slightly more global problem, oil prices. As we push on through the Spring and into the Summer the normal climb of gas prices is taking place. Okay, no biggie, I'll just car pull more and not go far away often. Sure cool that works but the inevitable $4 gas prices are right around the corner and honesty I'm sick of it and you should be too. We can sit idly by while bitching and moaning but that gets us no where. As the title of this post says, "This is America, we used to make steel in this country!" a quote from the great American Thomas J. Heemer, we are seriously this is the greatest country and we made Steel and built a country out of it. That country is the greatest in history! And As American's we pushed on through a terrible depression where people were living in shanty houses and now some of us live in $900,000 mega complexes. America rises from the ashes and punches adversity straight in the dick. We are Americans so lets sack and either do something about these oil prices or start drilling in our own back yard so we don't have to rely on those lousy money hoarding jackasses in the middle east. We could easily sustain ourselves until we found alternate forms of energy, which have to be out there. We are the founders of the Industrial revolution and during that time of primitive technology a couple of frat bros came up with the idea for a combustion engine. So we just need some of PSU's finest to get drunk and create this era's combustion engine or else we are all gonna burn and be at the mercy of the oil industry.

Not sure if any of that made sense but it was fun to rant about, on to more serious topics....

Yup.

Joe Blanton suffering behind the shadow
It is pretty obvious that after Big Joe's first two starts that he is hurting, sporting a fabulous 10.45 ERA and only 10 1/3 innings pitched over 2 games you can tell something isn't quite right. I'm not saying by any means that Joe Joe needs to be throwing 6 innings and 1 run every game but to get batted around like this the first 2 games is startling. Through 2 games he has let up 17 hits, in under 11 innings! It would be one thing if he had the tenacity of one of the other pitchers to come back from a bad outing, but he doesn't. That's why he can be giving up nearly 2 hits an inning on average. I know it is still very very early to dive into these sorts of numbers but here we go. Through 2 games his 10.45 ERA is second worst in the league and his 1.94 WHIP is 4th worst in the league (NL). Everyone knows that Joe Blanton is not an Ace but he has been the Phillies Third/Fourth Starter the past couple of seasons but he is throwing like someone who wants a trip to the minors. And it isn't like he is throwing against powerful hitting teams either, it's the METS and NATIONALS! Are you kidding me Joe? You're giving up 17 hits in 10 and third to those poor excuses for teams? So pretty much Joe just needs to settle down and get into the groove and I'll of course give him a few more starts but beware Joe, Kyle Kendrick awaits....which is a scary scenario for everyone. Other than that the offense is still producing and last time I checked Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt, and my main bro Cole Hamels are still Phillies. Life is good. But Joe Blanton, get your shit together and pound the strike zone and get me a 6 innings a game and your ERA under 5 and I'll be happy.

Explosions In The Sky: Take Care, Take Care, Take CareAn album review will be coming shortly as the release date is about 13 days away so prepare for that review over the next week or so. Trust me you won't want to miss it.

I've been a bit all over the place today but I'm waiting for class to start so this is what you get!
Thanks for reading.

Bheemz

Sports, Art and Other Things...

Slumping. No other word could sum up what the Flyers have been doing this past month. You can blame it on a number of things, Pronger being out, complacency, maybe boredom? But it is pretty evident to me that there is a clear lack of focus. They can show glimpses of brilliance and when they are on, it is scary. But this past month they'll have leads and they just let them slip away and they don't even seem to try switch the momentum back to their favor. In there first "playoff" game against the Islanders in game 82 they again showed the brilliance that create as a unit scoring 2 goals in 47 seconds, but as fast as they had the lead they let it slip away getting outscored 4-1 before finally tying the game and then taking the lead back for good and tapping in an empty netter to get the 7-4 outcome. So heading into the playoffs against United States Hockey's olympic hero Ryan Miller, I am feeling probably more optimistic than others simply because I have faith in our defense and the fact that there is too much offensive fire power to be subdued this long. And now that the games really matter and that this team got so close last year, they'll be ready to rumble. Hopefully later this week I'll be able to dissect all the playoff match ups but there is a solid possibility I won't so I'll give you my first round picks right now.


Capitals over Rangers - 6 games
Flyers over Sabres - 5 games
Bruins over Canadiens - 7 games
Penguins over Lighting - 6 games

Vancuver over Chicago - 6 games
Kings over Sharks - 7 games
Coyotes over Red Wings - 7 games
Predators over Ducks - 7 games

Onto baseball:

My feelings on Werth leaving the Phillies and Utley being hurt. Great for the lineup, I know this sounds crazy. Werth was the only legitimate right handed threat in the lineup and Utley is arguably the best hitting second basemen this decade, I know. But if you look at it from this standpoint, Ryan Howard get's to be the man now. All of the pressure is on his bat now and he is responding brilliantly. Ryan now can't sit back and be say "hey jayson and chase have my back" nope not anymore it is up to him mainly. Also this is forcing the Phillies to manufacture runs. Something they haven't been able to do since the 08' run. The last decade when an NL team has won the world series it has been by pretty much no name offenses, with the exception of the Phillies though besides Utley, Rollins and Howard no one knew who these other guys were (Victorino, Werth, Ruiz, Feliz) they were role players very similar to what the Giants produced last year and the Marlins in 03'. The recipe for those teams great pitching clutch hitting. The Phillies proved the first game that they can produce clutch hitting from smaller names and players who didn't produce much last year (Shane/Jimmy) So that was sort of an all over the place rant but I'll figure out this blogging thing eventually. 


My plan for this blog...

I plan on talking a lot about sports, do some musical reviews along with movies and televisions shows, share my photography and art and just shoot the shit. So feel free to check in every few days because hopefully I'll be posting often. 

Thank you for your time! 

BHeemz.