Secretly pulling for the Avengers. Am I the only one?

Well it's almost summer and you know what that means....summer blockbuster movies!!!  Yay!!!  First up this year is Marvel's The Avengers.  This one has plenty of star power with the likes of Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlette Johansson amongst others.  The budget also was through the roof.  It costed a whopping $260 millon to make.  It is projected to be one of the highest grossing movies of the year.

But lurking in July is the juggernaut.  The one everyone, including me, has been waiting on.  The Dark Knight Rises.  After the success of The Dark Knight, including a riveting academy award winning performance by Heath Ledger, expectations are that DKR will smash all other movies in 2012.  I can't lie I want to see it.  I'll probably be one of those people standing in line at some unGodly hour to get good seats in the IMAX theater.  I STILL HOPE AVENGERS KICKS THE HELL OUT OF IT THOUGH. Like anything that becomes big too many all of a sudden, Nazi, know it all, Batman douche bags have come out of the woodworks.  I'm not sure where these people were when Joel Schumacher was destroying the last Batman franchise but they're here now and they are unbearable.  So seeing as how awesome the Avengers trailor was and how awful the new Batman fans are I've decided that I'm now pulling for the Avengers.  The Dark Knight Rises will undoubtedly smash the HELL out of Avengers but hey I'm just telling you where I stand.

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We've been without Rose all year

Once again.  Black nerd.  Me.  I'm it.  But let's go one step further.  I'm a Black nerd from the Midwest (Northwest Indiana).  We Hoosiers from the northwestern tip of the boot are Bulls fans.  That said, with the NBA playoffs in full swing, the Chicago Bulls have lost their superstar point guard Derrick Rose for the remainder of the playoffs.  Saturday night while facing the Philadelphia 76ers Rose jumped and when he landed  suffered a torn ACL.

Seeing as how Rose is clearly the best player and the leader of the team, the pundits and analysts have pronounced the Bulls dead.  I think not.  Let's examine things. The Bulls played 27 games without Derrick Rose this past season due to his assorted injuries.  Of those 27 games they won 18 games including a win against the Miami Heat (the favorite to win the Eastern Conference).  In fact shortly after Rose's return they faced the Heat and Rose only scored 2 points.  So I don't think it would be....prudent to count the team with the best regular season record out because of Rose's absence.  This has all the makings of a tortoise and the hare kind of story.  We all know what happened to the hare.

Hoodies for Trayvon

Even though it's starting to feel kinda like a fad, I really dig the whole wearing your hoodie in support of Trayvon thing.  We discussed Trayvon a couple posts ago and if you don't know Trayvon Martin was gunned down by an armed security guard in Florida earlier this month.  But since that time ,mostly on social media sites, many people have flooded the internet with images of them with their hoodies on in support of justice for Trayvon.  As of today George Zimmerman still hasn't been arrested.  The reason for the hoodies is that is what Trayvon was wearing that made him look so "suspicious".  I've seen people go as far as to not only take photos with their hoodie on but also add skittles and iced tea (Skittles and iced tea were what Trayvon purchased from the store shortly before he was killed).

I haven't gone as far as to take and post my own picture with a hoodie but I do share the sentiment.  Justice for Trayvon.  I wonder do I look suspicious when I wear mine.

Nerds and Twitter Don't Mix

I'm a Black Nerd.  I'm not sure how I stack up when compared to nerds of other ethnic backgrounds.  That said admittedly I'm new to Twitter.  Let's stack more on top of that.  I don't really know what all the hoopla is for regular people like myself.  We all follow a bunch of celebrities that don't know us and don't follow us with a few friends sprinkled in.  What is this craziness?  Do we REALLY care what's happening in the deepest recesses of Kim Kardashian's mind?  Do we REALLY care how Andersen Cooper feels about his new toothbrush?  I can safely say I don't.  I can also safely say you shouldn't.  If you're using Twitter to past the time between flights at the Flagstaff Airport, fine.  However I feel people that indulge too far in the life of celebrities are a sad sight.

Don't mean to be "hipster-like" and hate everything but....Twitter is a useful tool so that local celebrities, nobodies, and C-list actors/actresses get to feel like royalty.  Lonely 35 year old men will tune in to take heed to their every move and read their every thought.  I don't know that I care enough to obsess over Twitter.  No thanx.

Ok.  Check this out.  Movies I'm looking forward to.

American Reunion
The Dark Knight Rises
Three Stooges
The Avengers
M.I.B. 3

....and here's some wishful thinking on that whole Ghostbuster 3 thing.

I've mentioned before the magnitude of the word Black as it pertains to race.  So, here is a tragic story out of Florida about a 17 year old Black kid named Trayvon Martin who a was murdered.  It was reported to police by armed neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman because he was "suspicious".   Zimmerman was apparently told NOT to pursue Martin but he did anyway.  An altercation ensued and it ended with Martin being fatally shot.  The best part of this story is that Zimmerman to this day hasn't been arrested.  This incident happened three weeks ago.

I try not to play the race card in places where it doesn't fit.  I won't play it here.  I'm not saying that there isn't a place for it here (although Zimmerman did feel compelled to tell the 911 operated that Martin was a Black man).  I know all about Florida's "stand you ground" law.  But let's do some simple math on this one since I am in fact a Black nerd.

1 Black man dead
plus
1 good intentioned, still unarrested killer
plus
stand your ground law validating said killer
equals
1 Young Black Man Still DEAD with the killer unarrested.  "Where they do dat at?"

This is a message from the love of my life Jasmine.  As the boyfriend of a Black Nerd I thought I'd shed light on NSBE.  Enjoy.

National Society of Black Engineers

 The national society of black nerds...oh I meant The National Society of Black Engineers is an nonprofit organization whose mission statement is “To increase the number of black engineers who excel academically, succeed professionally, and positively impact the community.” This organization is one of the largest student run organizations in the world. My girlfriend (president of the sfsu NSBE chapter) partakes in events to encourage children and adolescents to get involved in STEM (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) related fields; an area historically known to have low minority participants.   I personally come from an area predominately made of African Americans. It refreshing to see such a large scale group of people using any tools they can to uplift and encourage a community to seek opportunities outside of the “normal” realm.