Nicknames and Rubgy

One of my hobbies is to create lasting and meaningful nicknames for people I know. I have managed to craft a few classics, such as Lunchmoney for a friend from medical school who looked like the type of guy that would take your lunch money at school and Pooch, for another friend that simply really didn't like being called Pooch. I believe I may have again be successful for the aforementioned Bags. Bags had the misfortune of losing his luggage while we were traveling together and the name bags suddenly seemed apt as he feverishly searched for his bags! We experimented with adding Los Banos while we were in Madrid, leading to "Bags Los Banos" which was ok, but I'm still not quite sold on it.

For some reason I started watching some of the rubgy world cup this weekend (mainly because I got the Setanta sports channel to watch English Football, and it being an international break there weren't any club games on). I'm very impressed with the sheer brutality of the sport; these guys really hammer each other. It's also a little surprising that people aren't continually being carried off the field due to severe injury. I was thinking about the Canadian/American football and all the padding/helmets worn and wonder if all that extra stuff leads to more injuries than it prevents. On a side note I saw a few pieces of the Canada v. Wales game and while our lads put in a good effort they eventually lost. One reason for this, from simple observation, was that unlike most of the teams playing that seemed to be staffed with hulking monsters Canada appeared to filled with a bunch of regular looking folks! I suspect that all of the ideal rugby "specimens" end up as Canadian/American football Lineman and Linebackers. It would be an interesting exercise to take a bunch of the most athletic (and hulking) north american football players and build them into a rugby, but for some reason I don't think that's probably going to happen.

The last thing I'll leave you with is a funny clip of a spontaneous song made up by Ben Folds at a concert in Berlin. The best part seems to be the different interpretations of the lyrics by the various people commenting on the clip. Enjoy!