Excuse me sir, pardon the intrusion, but what is a Ganch?!
WARNING: THIS DOESNT PERTAIN TO MADDEN OR THE NFL, BUT IT IS A PRETTY GOOD STORY
So I’ve gotten plenty of comments on my name in the past, and found it funny that no one ever asks how I came up with it. Here’s the old wives tale in all its glory.
One seemingly normal day in the mid-west, three childhood friends are just bursting with excitement. For this was no normal day, this was the day they had been anxiously awaiting. The US release of Halo 2! Three boys went to school. Two boys got sleep the night before. One boy went to Wal*mart at midnight to pickup a pre-ordered copy of Halo 2. This is the story of one of the boys who got sleep the night before.
As I woke the morning of November 9th, 2004 I stumbled to the shower half awake, as I always did. The water seemed extra soothing this day, perhaps it was the coming of the Christmas season, or perhaps the knowledge that my best friend had stayed up all night prior to this morning in order to get us a copy of Halo 2, or perhaps it was knowing that today of all days was a half day at school. Despite the reasoning behind the water being so soothing, this was sure to be a great day.
Block scheduling, makes even half days seem long. In any other school, we would have had to visit each class for a dismal amount of time, however in my school we only go to half our classes each day. So splitting the hours in half didn’t really make a difference. Teachers would continue as planned, and the only thing that got sacrificed was our beloved lunch period. Needless to say the 4 hours seemed just as long as a normal 8 hour day. What followed the seemingly longest half day in the history of half days was the most memorable afternoon of solid online gaming I have ever been a part of.
The name of the game was Big-Team Battle and in those days the most frequently played game type was single bomb, and or classic CTF. (Capture the Flag) We played for hours, and as young boys do we got on our opponents nerves in game, and outside the game. Every time we joined a new match we read over the names of our fellow gamers, every so often stopping to make jokes about them. One name stuck out in particular, it was the name of one of my teammates. I don’t remember his exact name but it had the word Ganch in it. I hassled him for pretty much the whole game simply because he wouldn’t tell me what a ganch was. My friends and I were puzzled by the word also. My interest in the actual meaning of Ganch increased with each match we played after that.
The next day at school I made it the mission of my friends and I to research this mysterious word. My friend Rob (the math wiz) found somewhere on the internet that a Gaunch was the largest fresh water fish in existence. I didn’t believe him for one second and still don’t to this day. I’ve search many times and the only definitions I’ve found were from urbandictionary.com. Anyways ever since then we have been calling people ganches with no really explanation for anyone asking what the heck we’re talking about.
From urbandictionary.com:
1. ganch: 1. A person who talks rubbish or talks too much; 2. To talk rubbish or to talk too much
Examples: 1. “He’s a proper ganch that one”; 2. “All he does is ganch. When’s he gonna quit his ganching”
2. ganch: The stretch of skin between the anus and the testicles. See also ‘chode’ or ‘grendela’
Examples: Dan fell on the ice, did the splits, and tore his ganch.
3. Ganch: That fat part of a cat’s belly that swings back and forth when it runs.
Examples: Holy cow that ganch is hitting the floor!
So last year I lost my login info for my previous gamertag, and when it came time to renew I decided to get a new one. I asked my friends for input but none of them came up with anything good, so I chose Ganchatize Me Captain, as a play on the popular slogan for my favorite cereal. (Captain Crunch!) With Xbox live character limitations it had to be shortened to GanchatizMeCptn. So I guess I’m a trash talker by definition, but if you ever play me, you’ll find out I’m relatively soft spoken, only speaking my piece when needed.