Very Possibly the Nerdiest Thing You Will Ever Read

 Listen, I have an NBA game on in the background right now this so you can’t judge me too harshly for writing this. But this issue is so important I thought it merited it’s own blog post. This is one of those issues that’s been weighing heavily on people’s minds for a while now, especially with the recent elections. I know for a fact that a lot of people based their votes this last week on what the candidates stand was on this very issue.  The issue, my friends, is that of who would win in a battle between The Dark Lord Sauron and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (aka Lord Voldemort).

My friend Mark McKay posed this question to me yesterday via text message. I answered him right away that Sauron would win hands down.  He then replied that he thought Lord Voldemort would be the victor (of course he spelled it valdamort in the original text message which I feel automatically disqualifies any of his arguments).  We then proceeded to have a text argument, which took up a lot of my valuable work time, and has now spilled onto the pages of a social media site called “The Facebook.”  So I’ve decided to put this matter to bed in the most objective and fair way possible:  posting a few completely biased opinions on the matter to my personal blog. Here goes.

Story:

Sauron- His character appears in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, in which he must be defeated or the world is doomed forever. This book was written by world-renowned author J.R.R. Tolkien who was not only a respected professor of English, but is widely recognized as the father of the fantasy genre of literature. So in a way, you could say, that Sauron is Voldemort’s daddy.

Voldemort- He is the main villain in the Harry Potter series; books that were originally intended to entertain small children.  The series was written by J.K. Rowling; a woman who was essentially homeless before writing it.  She is probably best know for turning one of the heroes of her story gay at the last minute, not that that makes him any less of a hero. Just didn’t add anything to the story.

Power Source:

Sauron- His powers are derived from a single ring, which can only be destroyed in one place in the entire world, Mt. Doom.  Mt. Doom is located in the Middle of Sauron’s domain and is heavily guarded by thousands of orcs. Even when the ring isn’t in his possession, he can still channel some of its power unless it is completely destroyed. The ring can also not be used against him, because its powers are such that they eventually overcome any being that possesses it and turn them to pure evil.

Voldemort- He gets his powers from studying dark magic for many years. But, as with all witches and wizards, his powers can pretty much only be put to use when he has a wand in his hand, an object that can easily be snapped in half or lost and rendered useless.

Minions:

Sauron-His minions include nine ring wraiths who fly around terrorizing people on these evil dragon-looking things. They cannot be killed by men. He also controls a limitless amount of orcs, evil men and mercenaries.  And he managed to convince the most powerful good wizard in the world to join his cause.  Before the ring is destroyed, his minions were on the verge of taking over THE ENTIRE WORLD!

Voldemort-Has a few other wizards who follow him around called ‘Death Eaters.’  It’s never been documented whether or not any of them actually eat death. Most of the time, like Voldemort, these followers remain in hiding. In the end, the Death Eaters ALMOST succeed in taking over a SINGLE wizarding school, but are thwarted by a small group of students.

Fortifications:

Sauron-Controls his own country, Mordor, which is impenetrable by even the largest of armies. Protecting it are his minions, giant man-eating spiders, and thousands of miles of shear desolation. All of which he keeps a constant watch on with his all seeing eye.

Voldemort-

Spends 6 out of 7 books in hiding and on the run because he’s afraid of an old and supposedly gay (not that that makes him any less formidable) wizard named Dumbledore.

Deafeat:

Sauron-Was, in fact, defeated accidentally by a creature called Gollum, who bites the ring off of the finger of Frodo the hobbit and then, in a crazed stupor, falls into the Cracks of Doom. It should be noted that Frodo did make it all the way to Mt. Doom before the power of Sauron and the ring ultimately overcame him.

Voldemort- Was defeated (multiple times actually) in a head-to-head dual with 17 year old Harry Potter, who frequently complains throughout the series that he is not actually that good at magic.  Originally Voldemort lost all of his powers because of an emotion (love) and it continued to keep those powers in check for well over a decade.  Voldy should be given some credit though for splitting his soul into seven parts in an attempt to become invincible. Unfortunately for him, the objects in which he hid the parts of his soul were easily tracked down and destroyed by 3 teenagers.

In summary, I submit that all things considered, Voldemort would wet his wizarding robes if he came across Sauron in a dark alley. I’ll admit that I love the H.P. books. In fact, I may or may not be planning to go to the midnight showing of the new movie in a couple weeks and I may or may not be planning to dress up as a character from the books for the event. But saying Voldemort could defeat Sauron is like saying that I, a certified junior orange belt, could beat Bruce Lee in a fight. Although my marital arts skills are pretty good, I wouldn’t dream of attacking someone who is obviously my superior.

Again I would like to reiterate the fact that I watched pretty much an entire NBA basketball game while writing this. I like normal stuff and nerdy stuff, okay! It’s allowed! 

For any single women reading this that may have been thinking that you wanted to go out with me: I actually just downloaded this from the internet and thought it would be funny to post it…unless reading this somehow made you want to date me even more, in which case, here’s my phone number: 8013808891

Halloween

Have you ever done something just because someone told you to without knowing the reason behind it? And then a bunch of other people are baffled at why you would do the thing that you did and question you about it? And you tell them it’s because someone told you to?  And then someone sarcastically asks you ‘Karl, if so-and-so jumped off of a cliff, would you do it too?’  Except, instead of the name ‘Karl’ they use your name and instead of saying ‘so-and-so’ they say the name of the person who originally told you to do that thing?

Well you shouldn’t have to go through this ever again! I want you to be able to answer confidently next time someone asks you whether or not you would jump of a cliff after someone, either ‘No, I wouldn’t. That’s completely asinine and ridiculous. I’d be following them to their demise.’ Or ‘Yes. I absolutely would jump off that cliff, because you know what?  The reason that person jumped off of the cliff is because the canyon below is filled with soft, delicious marshmallows!’ Make sense?

So Halloween…what gives?  We pretty much know why we have all our other holidays.  For example The Fourth of July is when we celebrate the invention of gunpowder.  On Thanksgiving we celebrate John Smith and Pocahontas organizing the first ever game of American football between the Pilgrims and Indians (FYI, the pilgrims won this game on a last minute field-goal, which ended up as a blessing in disguise because this was well before the implementation of overtime, and consequently the game would have ended in a tie and the Indians probably would have never taught the pilgrims about corn or anything. Also, this game happened before the discovery of the pig, so pigskin could not be used for the ball. This was the reason that a live turkey was used as the first ever football. The pilgrims deep-fried and ate this turkey in celebration of their victory. Joe Paterno, current coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions, earned his first ever win as coach of the pilgrims that day). And Valentine’s Day was a result of an effort during the Great Depression to create jobs for florists (unfortunately, although jobs were created and flower sales were boosted, jolting the economy, it also sparked what some historians have dubbed the Really Great Depression and resulted in a rash of suicides among young single men and women all over the country. On a side note, the Really Great Depression led to an increase in production and ticket sales of Amanda Bynes movies).  But what do we know about Halloween?  Well, almost nothing.  But let me shed what light I can on the subject.

Halloween supposedly marks the end of the light half of the year and the beginning of the dark half of the year.  According to science, this is because of planetary rotation and the position of the earth in relation to the sun. But before we had science, all we had were crazy, unfounded theories.  This is how Halloween came to be. As the light half of the year turned to dark, one day was allotted for spirits to roam free (This is all true. Straight from Wikipedia). The only way to be sure you were safe from the spirits was to dress up as one of them. This is why I usually dress up as Superman. I'm man enough to admit that I wouldn’t last two minutes in a fight with that guy.  Plus he’s got those shifty eyes, what with his X-ray vision and all. Could be looking at anything.

Anyway, dressing up to ward off spirits slowly evolved into dressing up in order to scare people into giving them food or some sort of ‘treat’. If the person had nothing to give you, you could perform an act of mischief to that person’s house.  In the late 1800’s, this practice of ‘Trick-or-Treating’ resulted in the first ever toilet-papering. (To all the 3-11 year olds who are avid readers of this blog: The next time someone gives you a toothbrush or just leaves an empty bowl with a note in it on their porch, you should feel free to bust out one of their windows or something. It’s all just part of the tradition).

So that’s Halloween in a nutshell. I hope you all learned something new and helpful. And remember to be safe out there. Happy Halloween!!!