Captain America and The Avengers

I don’t talk about movies on here very much but I just saw Captain America and it finally hit me that how they are trying to tie in all these comic book characters with the movie that comes out next year called “The Avengers” — I have attached a teaser below which was more impressed with the teaser at the end of the movie because Captain America itself was just another run of the mill superhero, WWII, kill-the-nazis movie which was pretty average even compared to the pretty awful movies that Hollywood has turned out recently.

With a cast that includes the following people as well as Stellan Skarsgård, Cobie Smulders and Gwyneth Paltrow this is a pretty stacked lineup. Hopefully they don’t rush through a movie in order to get something out but if they don’t, how could you not circle May 4th, 2012 on your calendar.

The Avengers: Theatrical Teaser (Spoiler Alert if you haven’t seen the end of Captain America: The First Avenger).

I Am The Captain Of My Soul.

It was not until maybe an hour ago that I completely understood the meaning of the newly released film called Invictus. Thanks to a good friend of mine, who for the sake of this post we will call Cindy Murray, for pointing out the fact that was the title of a poem that Nelson Mendela had written down on a scrap of paper while he was imprisoned.

This is a short poem by the English poet William Ernest Henley. It was written in 1875 and first published in 1888 in Henley’s Book of Verses and although it was initially untitled, the name Invictus was given to it by Arthur Quiller-Couch when he published The Oxford Book of English Verse in 1900.

In the movie, Nelson Mendela gives this hand-written poem to the captain of the Springbok although it has been claimed that he actually gave the captain with an extract from Theodore Roosevelt’s “The Man in the Arena” speech from 1910 that he gave in Paris – both of which are provided below.

Invictus:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.


The Man in the Arena:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Twitter Has Been Way Too Good To Me

As the great Lou Gehrig famously said on this day 70 years ago, “Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” I probably wouldn’t go that far but I’ll continue to ride my little lucky streak as far as it will take me.

Twitter has been really, really good to me. I started using this about two years ago but I didn’t start using it full-time until about late last year. More recently as Twitter has become mainstream, bigger companies and corporations have started running PR contests and giveaways to get more followers and just get more publicity.

I should start off by saying that I have not had any help by another person in getting these answers and/or submitting them for me. It has mostly been a good combination of TweetDeck, Firefox and Google which have allowed me to succeed so far.

Here are my winnings so far (in order I won them, starting with the earliest):

[May 12, 2009]
1. The first thing I ever won on Twitter was a $10 Gift Certificate courtesy of @BaskinRobbins which was doing its 88 cent promotion Soft Serve promotion with a contest daily or twice a day. The question that I answered correctly figured to be a sports one and was

What was the horse’s name that won the Kentucky derby in 1988?”

I would like to be able to say that I knew that off the top of my head that the winner was Winning Colors but let’s just leave it at a search engine helping me figure that one out.

[May 14, 2009]
2. Two days later, Angels and Demons movie account (@AandDMovie) ran a contest asking:

What cam number are you looking at on AltarsOfScience.com?”

I am not sure if the camera number is still the same but it shows 84 right now and I think that was what I submitted. That ended up winning me a Making of Angels and Demons book which had behind the scene stills from the set and the green room in addition to descriptions about basically every scene in the movie. I was hoping it would be signed by Director Ron Howard as they had originally said but I won’t get too greedy.

[June 4, 2009]
3.
My next two came at the hands of the @NBAStore during the Los Angeles Lakers and Orlando Magic series in the NBA Finals. The first question was:

“How about a giveaway? First 2 with correct answer win a $50 gc. How many times have the #Lakers been to the NBA Finals?”

This one I simply got lucky by looking at my computer the exact moment my TweetDeck updated with the latest tweets. I had been watching the game, playing some halo and talking to @imadjustin and @cellmonkey over XBox Live but had my laptop in front of me just in case. The answer of “30 times” I had heard earlier on in the week on SportsCenter didn’t even require a Google search and I felt good about my chances of winning a $50 Gift Certificate.

[June 14, 2009]
4. This was the second trivia question during the series and I am pretty sure I was in the same scenario of having my laptop ready while watching the game with a couple of friends. The question this time around was:

“Alright #giveaway time. A $100 online gift cert to NBAStore.com up for grabs. 6 #Lakers players have won the FINALS MVP award. Name them.”

The answer being: Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy and Shaquille O’Neal. I was certain on 5 out of the 6 and would have definitely missed James Worthy had the question not said name 6 MVPs. Luckily there are plenty of Lakers fan out there (not me) that have websites devoted to who won the award and when in quite a convenient list format.

There was a slight confusion when the winner was announced as @sahyder1 and publicly awarded him the $100 GC. I was certain I had submitted my answer before him and @NBAStore was pretty cool about admitting their mistake and gave me a code as well via Direct Message.

[June 22, 2009]
5. This one I will gladly take because I am such a fan of the Science Channel and anything related to outer space. @ScienceChannel gave away 50 Spaceman stress relievers. I had originally missed their message but saw a RT from @mrothb and I was fortunate enough to get one as well. So thanks Matt!

First 50 RT’s get a spaceman! Ever wonder what planet is your perfect match? Video fun for #SpaceWeek http://ow.ly/fy1o

[July 3, 2009]
6. Last but definitely not least would be me winning a pair of Yankee tickets from WFAN 660 (@
wfan660) and Craig Carton (@cc660). Carton had previously tweeted that the question was going to be Derek Jeter related, so naturally I had his career statistics page opened up on the great Baseball-Reference website. However, the question threw me off:

What movie did derek jeter appear in with roger clemens in 2003 and what tv show was he on once in 2001? Good luck.

Luckily for the Internet Movie Database (aka IMDB) which seems to have an answer for any and everything that ever hit the big screen theater or just the little screen television… even professional athletes making guest appearances or hosting tv shows.

The movie as my brother pointed to me as well was Anger Management something that was clearly listed for 2003 on IMDB but the tv show was tricky. I wasn’t sure if SNL would count but I really couldn’t find anything else that would qualify. Almost admitting to myself that I was not going to win this one, I sent him the answer of Anger Management and Saturday Night Live. In less than a minute, I had a response back saying

congrats u r the winner i will be in touch on monday

Now the waiting game continues until Monday but that’s a game I’ll gladly play.



Trailer: New Documentary “Facing Ali”

Wow, this certainly came out of nowhere! A fantastic new trailer for a documentary about greatest boxer of all-time Muhammad Ali called Facing Ali has debuted on Apple today. I had heard about some documentary but hadn’t heard of this at all until tonight and it looks simply looks amazing. I think Ali’s life story is a the most remarkable sports story out there and this documentary looks like it will be an unforgettable look at one of the greatest athletes ever.

Three-time World Heavyweight Champion Muhammad Ali defeated almost every top fighter of the golden age of boxing and symbolized the sport for generations of fans. Now, ten of his acclaimed rivals pay tribute to perhaps the world’s most beloved and inspiring athlete in Pete McCormack’s Facing Ali.

This documentary includes appearances by George Foreman, Larry Holmes, Earnie Shavers, George Chuvalo, Sir Henry Cooper, and Joe Frazier, among many others. Lionsgate is distributing Facing Ali with SpikeTV, but hasn’t set a theatrical release date for this yet.

It claims to change the way you see Muhammad Ali forever. I am not sure it will do that for me since I have followed and watched a lot of his old fights but it can certainly open the eyes of a lot of the younger Americans here about why he is considered the greatest of all-time.

I originally saw the clip on FIRST SHOWING.NET, so make sure the check out the entire article over there.

Charles Barkley As Wolverine?

As if the X-Men Origins film wasn’t getting enough promotion for the movie as it was, now they came out with this brilliant advertisement. Whoever thought of this one, definitely deserves a raise or a couple of claws or something.

I had been looking for this video online ever since I watched it on TNT during one of the basketball playoff games and finally found it tonight. Also, there is an entire Inside The NBA clip that I have attached after the break.

Wolverine Ad:

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