Behold: a truly inspired and thoughtful video on the basics of rugby, put together by some deadly serious lady ruggers. Starts off a little slow, but stick with it and I promise you'll be laughing your ass off by the end.
I anticipate a Furies video response. Stay tuned.
Showing posts with label fun things. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fun things. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
NOLA/Mardi Gras write-up: the FUN part
I am writing up my weekend trip to New Orleans in chunks, because it was too much experience for just one blog entry! Read about the road trip, a cemetery, and the rugby tournament too.
Crawfish and Mardi Gras
A few Stingers with our second place trophy
Post-tournament, fifteen members of the Stingers headed out to a crawfish boil. Q later reported in the Stinger's Weekly Buzz that the fifteen of us consumed:
25 lbs of crawfish
8 lbs of potatoes
15 ears of corn
1 dozen crabs
1 lb of shrimp
3 baskets of crackers
2 baskets of fries
and of course...
9 pitchers of beer
After that, it was time for showers and MARDI GRAS. We failed a little bit on Saturday night (although we did receive a truly beautiful second placetrophy boot – painted silver and decorated with beads – at the tournament social!), but we made up for it on Sunday.
We spent the afternoon and evening exploring Mardi Gras New Orleans, doing line outs in the crowd to get MORE BEADS (even though our necks and shoulders were already sore from the weight of the ones we had!) and singing “Saturday’s a Rugby Day” as we strolled down Canal Street. We also enjoyed our share of NOLA cuisine, including beignets drowning in powdered sugar, hand grenades complete with little green plastic grenades, and hurricanes in souvenir glasses eighteen inches high. (Yes, I am counting beverages as cuisine.) Finally, we ended up dancing the rest of our night away at a bar called the Rugby Fruit Jungle.
All in all, a weekend that lived up to expectations.
More photos on Facebook: one and two and three
Crawfish and Mardi Gras
A few Stingers with our second place trophy
Post-tournament, fifteen members of the Stingers headed out to a crawfish boil. Q later reported in the Stinger's Weekly Buzz that the fifteen of us consumed:
25 lbs of crawfish
8 lbs of potatoes
15 ears of corn
1 dozen crabs
1 lb of shrimp
3 baskets of crackers
2 baskets of fries
and of course...
9 pitchers of beer
After that, it was time for showers and MARDI GRAS. We failed a little bit on Saturday night (although we did receive a truly beautiful second place
We spent the afternoon and evening exploring Mardi Gras New Orleans, doing line outs in the crowd to get MORE BEADS (even though our necks and shoulders were already sore from the weight of the ones we had!) and singing “Saturday’s a Rugby Day” as we strolled down Canal Street. We also enjoyed our share of NOLA cuisine, including beignets drowning in powdered sugar, hand grenades complete with little green plastic grenades, and hurricanes in souvenir glasses eighteen inches high. (Yes, I am counting beverages as cuisine.) Finally, we ended up dancing the rest of our night away at a bar called the Rugby Fruit Jungle.
All in all, a weekend that lived up to expectations.
More photos on Facebook: one and two and three
Monday, March 2, 2009
NOLA/Mardi Gras write-up: tourist time
I am writing up my weekend trip to New Orleans in chunks, because it was too much experience for just one blog entry! Read about the road trip, too.
New Orleans: The Educational Part
Our tour guided at the family tomb of Marie Laveau, Voodoo Queen
On Friday afternoon, because I have never been to New Orleans before and really wanted to get to know a little bit about the city, I went on a Cemetery and Voodoo tour with Kelley B, Kellie Cav, and Tiff. Our tour guide was a very energetic blond woman who gave us lots of fantastic background about New Orleans as we walked to St. Louis Cemetery - for example, did you know that New Orleans was Spanish for just as long as it was French? The thing is, it was French first, so when the Spaniards came in and changed the street names and insisted everyone spoke Spanish, everyone basically ignored them, and just changed the street names back to French when they left.
St. Louis cemetery was one of the several Catholic cemeteries in the city. It is full of those above-ground tombs that I'd always figured were popular in Louisiana because the ground is too marshy for underground burial. But, our tour guide explained, they were popular because they're a very efficient use of space: a family (or neighborhood association) would own a plot in the cemetery, and build a tomb on that plot that had a number of casket sized spaces - one, or two (like Marie Laveau's), or in the case of the neighborhood-owned or common tombs, more like fifteen or thirty. When you died, your body would be put into a coffin, which would go into that space in the tomb. Not so efficient so far, right? But here's the nifty part - after a minimum of a year and a day (this amount of time has something to do with Catholicism), when, say, your cousin dies and needs that space, they take out your coffin, take out your decomposed remains, shove them to the back of the tomb where they fall into a little cave in the bottom along with all the bones of your previously dead relatives. And hey presto! A new storage space for your dead cousin!
After wandering around the cemetery for an hour or two and learning lots more fun facts about New Orleans, burial grounds, and voodoo practices (those triple-X marks on the tombs of voodoo queens [and they are always queens, never kings] are a silly tourist thing. You shouldn't mess around with someone else's religion if you don't understand it, and anyways, all real voodoo practitioners are also staunchly Catholic. Our tour guide was also very opinionated), we went to visit a voodoo temple. There, we visited a room absolutely full of stuff - hangings on the wall and trinkets and statues stacked on the furniture and rolled up dollar bills and cigarettes stuffed everywhere. Then a woman (I guess... a voodoo priestess?) talked to us - or rather, at us - at great length about staying true to ourselves and not changing the outside because that will never change our insides. She seemed both insightful and a bit crazy - definitely an experience.
This was the end of our tour, and by then, having driven all night and then walked around a cemetery all afternoon, I was exhausted, so I met up with Dee and Q to head back to the hotel for a nice early bedtime of 5pm.
More photos on Facebook: one and two and three
New Orleans: The Educational Part
Our tour guided at the family tomb of Marie Laveau, Voodoo Queen
On Friday afternoon, because I have never been to New Orleans before and really wanted to get to know a little bit about the city, I went on a Cemetery and Voodoo tour with Kelley B, Kellie Cav, and Tiff. Our tour guide was a very energetic blond woman who gave us lots of fantastic background about New Orleans as we walked to St. Louis Cemetery - for example, did you know that New Orleans was Spanish for just as long as it was French? The thing is, it was French first, so when the Spaniards came in and changed the street names and insisted everyone spoke Spanish, everyone basically ignored them, and just changed the street names back to French when they left.
St. Louis cemetery was one of the several Catholic cemeteries in the city. It is full of those above-ground tombs that I'd always figured were popular in Louisiana because the ground is too marshy for underground burial. But, our tour guide explained, they were popular because they're a very efficient use of space: a family (or neighborhood association) would own a plot in the cemetery, and build a tomb on that plot that had a number of casket sized spaces - one, or two (like Marie Laveau's), or in the case of the neighborhood-owned or common tombs, more like fifteen or thirty. When you died, your body would be put into a coffin, which would go into that space in the tomb. Not so efficient so far, right? But here's the nifty part - after a minimum of a year and a day (this amount of time has something to do with Catholicism), when, say, your cousin dies and needs that space, they take out your coffin, take out your decomposed remains, shove them to the back of the tomb where they fall into a little cave in the bottom along with all the bones of your previously dead relatives. And hey presto! A new storage space for your dead cousin!
After wandering around the cemetery for an hour or two and learning lots more fun facts about New Orleans, burial grounds, and voodoo practices (those triple-X marks on the tombs of voodoo queens [and they are always queens, never kings] are a silly tourist thing. You shouldn't mess around with someone else's religion if you don't understand it, and anyways, all real voodoo practitioners are also staunchly Catholic. Our tour guide was also very opinionated), we went to visit a voodoo temple. There, we visited a room absolutely full of stuff - hangings on the wall and trinkets and statues stacked on the furniture and rolled up dollar bills and cigarettes stuffed everywhere. Then a woman (I guess... a voodoo priestess?) talked to us - or rather, at us - at great length about staying true to ourselves and not changing the outside because that will never change our insides. She seemed both insightful and a bit crazy - definitely an experience.
This was the end of our tour, and by then, having driven all night and then walked around a cemetery all afternoon, I was exhausted, so I met up with Dee and Q to head back to the hotel for a nice early bedtime of 5pm.
More photos on Facebook: one and two and three
NOLA/Mardi Gras write-up: the road trip
Oh, man. This trip, as might be expected, was absolutely EPIC AND AMAZING. So much so that, in order to be able to handle it, I had to break up it up into a few different sections - I'll post them one by one as I finish them!
Road trip
Q and Dee in their killah shades, somewhere in Alabama
1,200+ miles, 7 states, 18 hours of driving - and that's just one way. But Dee, Q, and I are all both dedicated to rugby andcheapskates adventurous, so we decided to drive from DC to New Orleans, Louisiana - overnight Thursday and Friday morning to get there, then all of Monday (day and night until it was almost day again!) to get home.
It wasn't as bad as I had expected - mostly because I sleep like a baby in moving cars. But there was also scenery, and rest stops (6 am McDonalds!), and late night discussions about all the important things in life (sex, love, and rugby), and the license plate game. Q and Dee laughed at me, but pretty soon they were just as excited as I was when they saw a state like California or Minnesota. By the time we'd gone to NOLA and back, we'd seen 31 states, plus DC, diplomat plates, and two Canadian provinces.
More photos on Facebook: one and two and three
Road trip
Q and Dee in their killah shades, somewhere in Alabama
1,200+ miles, 7 states, 18 hours of driving - and that's just one way. But Dee, Q, and I are all both dedicated to rugby and
It wasn't as bad as I had expected - mostly because I sleep like a baby in moving cars. But there was also scenery, and rest stops (6 am McDonalds!), and late night discussions about all the important things in life (sex, love, and rugby), and the license plate game. Q and Dee laughed at me, but pretty soon they were just as excited as I was when they saw a state like California or Minnesota. By the time we'd gone to NOLA and back, we'd seen 31 states, plus DC, diplomat plates, and two Canadian provinces.
More photos on Facebook: one and two and three
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Quotes from a snow practice
"You know, I really wish we had some good grass."
To a toddler:
"Aw, are you a hooker? Yes you are!"
"No, I'm not sure if it's okay or not... I'll let you know when I can feel it."
To a toddler:
"Aw, are you a hooker? Yes you are!"
"No, I'm not sure if it's okay or not... I'll let you know when I can feel it."
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
So I'm checking out the high school girls rugby photos at DropKickPhotos (because I think it's just awesome to see young girls playing rugby! COME TO AU!) and I think this is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS.
So much for standing water on the field!!
So much for standing water on the field!!
Friday, June 29, 2007
The exquisiteness of a well-wheeled scrum
Sunday, March 4, 2007
You know you're a rugger when...
I can't remember where I took these from, but they do sound awful familiar... :P
- You have gone home on a Saturday after a game, passed out, and then woken up and kept drinking.
- You can want to fucking kill someone from the other team during a game and then get shitfaced with them afterwards.
- When people walk slowly, you have to resist the urge to tackle them from behind.
- You frequently get the songs from the drink-ups stuck in your head
- You don't actually know the real names of your teammates, only their nicknames
- You know that Jesus can’t play rugby cause his dad would fix the game
- The number of gay people on your team outnumbers the number of straight people
- You have gotten the “what the fuck is that group of annoying girls doing” look in denny’s after a big game
- You steal beer after a drink-up so that you can keep drinking
- You learn about what happened Saturday night at brunch Sunday morning with your teammates
- You are trying to facebook people that you met after a game but can't because you can't remember if you ever actually learned their real name
- You know shooting the boot doesn’t have anything to do with a gun
- On the weekends you pee in the bushes more often than in the bathroom
- You’ve dreamt about sleeping with one your referees and commented on how good he looks in his short little rugby shorts
- Your excuse for everything is "I Play Rugby"
- You have gone home on a Saturday after a game, passed out, and then woken up and kept drinking.
- You can want to fucking kill someone from the other team during a game and then get shitfaced with them afterwards.
- When people walk slowly, you have to resist the urge to tackle them from behind.
- You frequently get the songs from the drink-ups stuck in your head
- You don't actually know the real names of your teammates, only their nicknames
- You know that Jesus can’t play rugby cause his dad would fix the game
- The number of gay people on your team outnumbers the number of straight people
- You have gotten the “what the fuck is that group of annoying girls doing” look in denny’s after a big game
- You steal beer after a drink-up so that you can keep drinking
- You learn about what happened Saturday night at brunch Sunday morning with your teammates
- You are trying to facebook people that you met after a game but can't because you can't remember if you ever actually learned their real name
- You know shooting the boot doesn’t have anything to do with a gun
- On the weekends you pee in the bushes more often than in the bathroom
- You’ve dreamt about sleeping with one your referees and commented on how good he looks in his short little rugby shorts
- Your excuse for everything is "I Play Rugby"
Monday, March 27, 2006
Thou shalt not hesitate in the breakdown
The Ten Commandments of Rugby, preceded by a photo of George W. punching someone in the face.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
So who wants to buy me presents?
If anyone wants to buy me rugby stuff... My favorites are "Run like a girl - throw like a girl - tackle like a girl" "Try me! Women's Rugby" "My girlfriend rucks better than yours" "I hurt it playing rugby" this one, "My mom could tackle your mom!" "My daughter is a hooker" This one, "Ruck it" Let's Hit the Maul, Real Women Drive Rucks, and Congratulations! It's a rugby injury! cards.
And some more - this one and Rossie the Rugger and Lipstick Forward (ha! I hope you get this).
And some more - this one and Rossie the Rugger and Lipstick Forward (ha! I hope you get this).
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