(Started June 29th, 2011, Revised and Revamped March 10th, 2023) Phantastic Phillies Pitching!, "Transformers 3" reviews

Hello,

I'm not a Phillies phan at all, but I've got to give them a tip of the hat. They have those 4 amazing pitchers, one of whom was simply amazing last night. Cliff Lee pitched a two hit shutout. He has now pitched 3 consecutive shutouts and 32 consecutive scoreless innings. The streak of scoreless innings puts him in some elite company. While Cliff Lee is certainly a fantastic pitcher, thankfully he's also human. He has a very solid 9-5 record, thankfully he does lose occasionally. Philadelphia is now 50-30 on the season. They are playing so well that they lead the 3rd best team in the National League, the Braves, by 4.5 games.

Many people predict that Philadelphia-Boston might be a World Series preview. That's assuming that Philadelphia gets past San Francisco and their very tough pitching staff. Philadelphia beat Boston 5-0 as the Red Sox continue to have difficulty in interleague play. Tonight's game on ESPN will be game two in the Red Sox-Philadelphia series. 

Other baseball news before we get to the latest Frank McCourt debacle. Pittsburgh beat the Blue Jays in Toronto last night, that's Pittsburgh's first interleague road win in two years. The Pirates continue to build themselves into a team of the future. At the rate the Pirates are playing, this will be their first above .500 season in 18 years. I don't want to jinx them but is there a chance they can make the playoffs this year.

Seemingly as only the Cubs can do, they were swept in a day night double header. They were outscored by San Francisco 19-10 in the two games. Both of these games were played at Wrigley Field! For this season, the Cubs are now 17-23 at home. I know Mike Quade had some success last season after he took over for Lou Pinella. However the first full year of Mike Quade as the Cubs manager has been a disaster. With some of the malcontents on the team, the Cubs likely will continue to go downhill. The pathetic Cubs are 32-48 and 5th place in the NL Central. They trail first place Milwaukee by 12 games, as well as they trail the 3rd place Pirates by 9 games. The Cubs have only won 3 of their last 10 games. Why do the Cubs suck so much? Other than the culture of losing that's ingrained in that team of course. Now on to Fiasco Frank's latest failure. 

A bankruptcy judge has approved McCourt getting a $150 million "bankruptcy financing arrangement" (loan). The terms of the loan are terrible for the Dodgers. If the money isn't paid back it will only be more bad news for the Dodgers in the long run. McCourt continues to desperately fight to remain owner of the Dodgers. He virtually has no support left in LA. and probably even less in Major League Baseball. LA's attendance is down 375,000 people from last season. They are also $800 million in debt. Those numbers are so completely unfathomable to me. The team is playing poorly, don't be fooled by their 15-0 win over the Twins. That was an anomaly. Listening to Mike and Mike driving to work this morning, a LA radio show host has had an amazing idea. He's urging the great Vin Scully to request on the air that McCourt put the Dodgers up for sale. (Thanks as always to ESPN.com and ESPN radio.) 

As a Dodgers fan ownership by MLB, Dennis Gilbert, Mark Cuban or the Steve Garvey-Orel Hershiser group would be a good start to restore some luster to the Dodgers. Why the holdout Frank? Haven't you done enough damage already? You are only putting off the inevitable and damaging the Dodgers. Tom Hicks as Texas Rangers owner was in a similar situation last year. However he recognized the writing on the wall and turned over the team to MLB. (Frank so there's no doubt: Besides yourself no one wants you to own the Dodgers!) Tom Hicks has now been mostly forgotten by history. He will now probably be most remembered for the disastrous signing of Alex Rodriguez. You know how you'll be remembered Frank if you keep up this slash and burn strategy? As one of the worst owners of a MLB team ever.

ESPN.com named you as the second worst owner EVER yesterday. Is that what you are wanting? Well at least you will be #1 in something. Once MLB took over the Rangers, they were auctioned off to a team of investors led by the great Nolan Ryan. The Rangers went on to play in the World Series last year. That won't happen for the Dodgers, their team just has too little talent. However now is the time to prepare to go back to the World Series. It doesn't matter who the owner of the Dodgers is now, the only way LA goes the World Series is if they buy tickets. 

Today is Day 105 of the NFL Lockout, it sounds like negotiations are promising. However I wouldn't hold my breath. As long as both sides remain greedy, any agreement will be slow in coming. Although there are still 3 more days of negotiations in Minneapolis. 

 I watched the movie "Catfish" the other day. It's about a relationship that developed between two groups of people via facebook.com. One group of people lived in New York and the other group of people lived in Michigan. The movie is the journey of these people meeting in reality after getting to know each other online. One group of people weren't what they said they were. As we slowly discover the truth, it's a peek into why people lie. It's a very sad story. I would say you should check it out, it's an okay movie. The thing I take away is how people use the internet to escape who they are. That's obviously not a good thing and is very unhealthy. I love modern technology, but it seems to divide people more than bring people together. 

I also watched the pilot of "Fringe". I'm sort of a sci fi geek and I had planned watching this show when it debuted. For some reason I didn't though. After spending a couple of hours with this show, it's not terrible. The episodes seem to have a sameness to them and the episodes tend to run on too long. They run out of story before the show ends. I like the three main characters, however I'm not sure what to think about Walter. 

I'll probably eventually watch all the episodes. I still need to watch the rest of "Battlestar Galactica" as well. Thanks to the fine folks at TNT and Comcast On Demand, most if not all of the first season of "Men Of A Certain Age" is now available. This show is truly charming and delightful. Although the characters tend to be a few years older than me, I relate with many of the things they are going through. I relate with Joe's holding on to a marriage that everyone else can see is clearly over. I relate with Owen's desire to get into better shape and fully realize his potential as a man. I understand Terry's frustrations with jobs and struggling to find his place in the world. I know you are wondering how can that show be delightful? It's due to great storytelling and a great sense-of-humor. The characters are very likable and I started pulling for them. 

We see Joe struggle with what to do after he hit a possum with his truck. We feel his anxiety in trying to determine what's the right thing to do. With "Men of A Certain Age's" great sense-of-humor I laughed at his enlisting his bookie to help find out what happened to the possum. I've watched a lot of season two, it's good to see how these characters change from the pilot. The changes feel very truthful. 

Early reviews are in for the "Transformers 3" movie. EW gives it a B grade, while Salt Lake Tribune movie reviewer Sean Means gave it 1 star. Means' review is ruthless in documenting all the ways and why this movie is so bad. Having not seen the movie, my prediction is my grade would fall closer to Means' grade than the grade of EW. The other thing that scares me about the movie is the 2.5 hour running time, highlighted by what Means calls a "bruising" 45 minute finale. The only thing worse than a bad movie is a long bad movie. I wish people would boycott this kind of crap movie. When story becomes secondary, quality goes downhill. (Full disclosure, I'm sure I'll have to take my kids to see this movie.) Also Megan Fox is 100 times better looking than the Megan wanna be in this sequel. 

Let's go back to the 80's for a brief moment. One of the best movies of the 80's was "Top Gun". (I'm not sure how well it would hold up now.) Now this is a show that has a lot of action in it. However there's a foundation of story that has a nice mix of humor, heart and action. There's a realness about the characters. I was amazed by all the great fighter pilot scenes. Those same scenes from the bland "Green Lantern" owe a debt to "Top Gun". Also those scenes were the best part of "Green Lantern". Movies like "Transformers 3" have a lot of action, but it seems it's meant to hide the complete lack of story. Not all modern action movies are as bad as the brain dead "Transformers" trilogy. For instance, surprisingly I quite enjoyed "Fast Five". There was a very good story and the action fit in with the story. 

 Great songs of the day: From "Top Gun" the amazing Kenny Loggins song "Danger Zone:

 Another great song from "Top Gun", Berlin's "Take My Breath Away":

 I hadn't seen this video until today. In a decade full of crazy videos this has to be one of the craziest. This video is absolutely bizarre. Oingo Boingo "Nothing Bad Ever Happens To Me":

 If you've read this blog more than once, you know that I'm a nerd. I have to admit that back in the day I loved Lionel Richie. Here's one of my favorite songs of his. "Say You, Say Me":

Phil Collins "Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)":

 Yes, I know I'm old and probably overly sentimental, but this song is such a powerful song. One of the best 80s songs. Irene Cara "Flashdance (What A Feeling)":

 Possibly the most under appreciated band of the late 70s/early 80's, The Knack "My Sharona":

"Heartbeat":

"Your Number or Your Name":

Along with the song above Oingo Boingo is another vastly underrated band of the 80's. "Only A Lad":

"Not My Slave":

"No Spill Blood":

"Weird Science":

themusicaddict