Lord Voldemort's Holy Week.

Long time no see, guys n' gals. I'm not going to go on about how busy I am. I think I go on about that one enough. To be honest, it's probably for the best that I only post every so often. All the time now we are inundated with information and needless prattle from just about every possible source. Talk show hosts, news pundits, disaffected college students, celebrities and stay-at-home parents feel the need to tell you every possible thing they can. Even if you don't want to know it. So think of my infrequent postings as an effort to avoid overwhelming you with the inanities of my life.

I've got a few things to talk about, and since I have some time this weekend, I'll probably split my subjects of interest into a textual segment and a video.

The first thing of interest is the end of the Rugby season. We stand defeated. We have yet to win a game. This isn't one of those endearing situations like those found in quality 1990's era kid-oriented sports movies like Little Giants or The Big Green. There is no comeback for us. (Fortunately there's no Rick Moranis or Steve Guttenberg. as coach either.) The most we can hope for is to not finish last in our six team league. How can we justify losing so much? Well, it's not that we're bad. It's just that we're old. Most of the guys on the teams that are trouncing us are lads half a decade our junior. They don't have the benefit of 4+ years of drinking beer and sitting on the coach watching Spongebob Squarepants, wearing nothing but skivvies. (Justin, I apologize for putting you through that.) So these boys are a bit fitter than us. They also have yet to gape into the ugly maw that is the final, frantic year of an undergrad degree. (At that point beer intake has to double in order to cope with the pressures of graduating.) This means that they have yet to be psychologically scarred by the onset of what I like to call "The Real World." Hmmm.... Perhaps I should take out the capital letters. Surely every college grad doesn't end up on a crappy MTV reality show. Or maybe they do, and I just wasn't invited.

Anyway, so they haven't faced what I like to call, "the real world." The looming reality of having to pay bills, get a job and act like a responsible adult. A hell to which the only remedy, albeit a brief one, is to go away to grad school. This will provide relief akin to that which is achieved from scratching bug bites. A brief second of reprise and then a condition even worse than the initial one. (i.e. $30,000 in debt.) Brrr. Gives me shivers.

Where was I?

Oh yeah. The kids. So we play a different set of kids every week, limp off to have a beer and crack wise afterwards, and do the same thing a week later. We're the old man team. My buddy Luke likes to joke that we're a drinking team with a rugby problem. But he exaggerates. Really.

Also, I need to give you a Voldemort update.

This is Lord Voldemort. I've talked about him in the past.

The guy behind Lord Voldemort is my buddy Dave, who also happens to be on the "Old Man Rugby Team" with me. I want to talk about Lord Voldemort here, though. For those of you that don't know, Lord Voldemort is not his real name. I just call him that because he is the most cynical man I know. Track back to previous posts if you have more questions. Or trek onwards to avail yourselves of his most recent exploits.

I recently had the privilege of working in a group with Lord Voldemort for my most favoritest class: Research Methods. He is probably the most interesting group member I have ever worked with. Let me start by giving him some praise. He is a hard-working individual with a sharp and critical mind. He's more than willing to do his fair share of the work. He also gets good results. That being said, he is the most cantankerous person I have ever met. If there was a Lord Voldemort action figure with a pull-string, it would say two things.

"It's shit"

&

"I'm going for a fag."

(Note: Most of you probably know this, but I should point out that the Brits call cigarettes "fags.")

He says other things too. Most of the other things he says are rants. He will rant about anything. Traffic. Not being able to smoke in pubs. Students. Assignments. The color of the wall paper. Waste dumping licenses. How ugly your baby is. The British government. Oh lord, the British government. Some of his best rants are conspiracy theories. The formula for a typical Lord Voldemort rant goes something like this:

JT mentions something to Dave.

Voldemort overhears and says:

"Oh yeah, [Thing JT mentioned to Dave]. It's shit."

A rant goes on for anywhere between 3 and 15 minutes.

It dies down and Lord Voldemort eventually says, "I'm going for a fag."

Lord Voldemort exits, presumably to smoke a cigarette.

My favorite exploit of Lord Voldemort's happened on the eve of our project being due. He informed us that he would be giving us his part of the work early on the grounds that it was holy week. Holy week? He didn't seem like a very religious person, but who can tell. Then I tried to think of religious holidays in the middle of March. Easter was a big fat no. I know when that is and it's definitely not in the middle of March. Passover doesn't start till the 30th. Ramadan is in August. Then I thought maybe he's part of some smaller religion like Jainism or Zoroastrianism. But even those holidays have yet to occur. (The next Jain holiday is Mahavir Jayanti, which occurs on March 29th. The next Zoroastrian holiday is Norouz, or the Persian new year, which takes place on March 21st.

Dave finally let me in on his religion: Gambling

Specifically, horse racing. The 16th to the 19th of March is the Cheltenham horse racing festival. Apparently Lord Voldemort wouldn't be able to do any work because he would be sitting in a pub for four days watching horse races and smoking cigarettes. The cigarette smoking would have to be done outside of the pub. (I know he would be smoking outside because that's one of his favorite things to rant against.) What a holy week!

Anyway, everything else will be in a soon-to-follow video.

Chip Chip Cheerio.

Don't give in to the darkside.

-Jonathan "Wish I could post blogs as frequently as the FOX network cancels good shows" Trenary

PS: An entertaining follow-up to to my last posting HERE