I have been eggs-communicated

Since Sister Callahan has basically threatened to whack my hands with a ruler like a nun, I guess I better post.

Well, to update what's been going on, the move isn't going to happen. I found out at the end of last week. I ended up tumbling into a depression that I combined with alcohol to get really drunk last weekend.

I think last Saturday I drank maybe 3/4 of a bottle of Seagram's 7 while fixing 7 and 7's, which I consumed during episodes of "Six Feet Under." I fell asleep at about 4 a.m., and awoke just before 8 a.m. with a weird desire to go to Mass.

The problem I had was that I don't know where any Catholic churches are in Tulsa, I don't have a phone book nor Internet access. But I still dressed up and started driving around town looking for a service.

Let me just say that whenever "The Sopranos" is on, I always have a feeling that I should be a better Catholic. I guess since I used that analogy for my situation this makes sense.

Anyway, I passed maybe 15 Baptist, five Lutheran, three Methodist churches and one synagogue. I drove all over Tulsa and ended up two blocks from my apartment at an all-you-can-eat breakfast. I didn't eat all that much because I started feeling a bit dehydrated and maybe a bit hung over, so I bought a big bottle of water, went home and drank it, then slept till just before 4 p.m. when I had to be at work.

My friend Austin said I should include that experience in some future story I write, but I'm dubious. He thinks there's something poetic about looking for the Holy Spirit and instead finding scrambled eggs and French toast.

But for now I'll just try to be content where I'm at. The money here's better than anything else I could get right now, and if there's anything positive about my situation I guess it's that I at least live right next to a great place to get breakfast for $5.99.

War stories

OK, probably most of you have heard what happened last week, and I've spent a mostly sleepless weekend trying to figure things out. I've come to one conclusion:

This means war.

But because of certain policies it is not yet wise to post about whom I am declaring war on. A snippet from "The Art of War:" "... hide yourself, making yourself inscrutable to opponents."

You can get fired for bloggin about work, but what about blogging about blogging about work?

Anyway, pretend Tony Soprano is my war correspondant. This will be in terms of the North Jersey mafia. Organized crime and journalism -- it's about the same.

Yes, and to help me go to the mattresses, I've got a copy of Sun Tzu's tome.

"A military operation involves deception. Even though you are competent, appear incompetent. Though effective, appear ineffective."

From here on out, I will seem to be the most incompetent, ineffective Wiseguy on the Arkansas River.

It begins.

Running backs, robots and rolling the dice

I wasn't going to post this; I thought it too long and boring. But Kim says otherwise. So if after reading this you want a refund on the last ten minutes of your life, go here.

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It's funny: Erin asked me where I was when she was 12, and her husband, Ben, blogged about his first year of college. Well, when Erin was 12 I was in the process of flunking out of OU during my first year.

Most who know me know of my three loves: OU football, science fiction and Vegas.

They have no idea how bad it used to be.

I worshipped Sooner Football. The OU media guide was my bible, and Memorial Stadium was my cathedral. I even joked to people that I wanted to be married and buried on Owen Field (I actually wasn't joking).

So it definitely wasn't a good idea moving into the honors dorm, which you can see by the map below, is on the opposite corner of the stadium from the Lindey and Asp intersection.




"But OU only plays on Saturdays," you might say. "How could that interfere with classes?"

Open practices.

For the first two weeks of school I could go watch all the OU football I wanted, live and in person -- and for free. Never mind that I did have chemistry in the afternoons. And after practice was over, instead of hitting the books I'd spend the evening listening to sports radio to hear about the practices I'd just watched in person. When I did open the books I'd draw up plays I hoped OU would run. Heck, I'd even drawn up a spread wishbone option offense with intricate passing plays (I ended up calling it the Boomerang offense, because instead of the backfield lining up in a wishbone formation, it was a boomerang).

But my college experience the first year wasn't all about football. I also found "Star Trek." Plenty of roadtrips to Tulsa and Dallas to find Trek stuff in comic book stores and attend conventions. Worst of all during my freshman year my greatest fear was I would die before getting to see "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country."

So yeah, college for me was a time of expanding my mind (in terms of football), as well as road trips (or treks). But like many others, it was also a time for experimentation.

I wish I could say I did things considered cooler, such as learning to use a beer bong, or even a bong not intended for use with beer. But no, my experimentation involved role-playing games.

Dungeons and Dragons I had played since I was 9. But at college I was exposed to Robotech (which is where my mug comes from), Rifts (a post-apocalyptic game), and best of all, Champions.

While the other game systems had templates you'd use to create your characters, Champions started with a blank slate. It had a points system to create certain kinds of powers, but it was up to you to come up with what it actually looked like.

Some of the characters I came up with were the Fluid Martial Artist, the Chicken Fighter, and the Baseball Player.

But by far the best was The Slob. He had telekenetic powers thanks to his remote control (perpetuates his laziness), he took less damage from physical blows thanks to his spongy physique, and he had his burritos.

Yes, influenced by the fact that in 1992 the only 24-hour fast food place in Norman was Taco Bell, my character used Tex-Mex to activate his powers. A bean and cheese burrito would create a blast of gas from the posterior, giving a superleap ability. A red-hot burrito gave fire breath from the front or a fireball shot out the backside. And a green chili burrito could create a toxic cloud that had a duration that depended on how long the character belched.

The character had disadvantages. He could never stay hidden unless you could hide his stench. And there was a five percent chance every day he would have a coronary.

Still, I had spent a lot of time coming up with this character, and had a lot of fun doing it, and I thought he'd be a lot of fun to play. Unfortunately, the game master killed him after 10 minutes.

That may have been the highlight of my first year at OU.

This Space for rent

I give up. I thought I had come up with the perfect solution for the reimagining of my novel. Ben's latest suggestion of Space Carnies seemed like a fair idea, but I haven't liked going to fairs in a while. And given that Ben has decided he doesn't want to be an attorney any more, I guess Space Lawyers are out, too.

Then it hit me. Why not write about my new career: Space Nurses! I did a quick Google to see how original the idea is, and unfortunately the first thing to come up was a Canadian online porn cartoon. You can click here if you really want to see.

The only other thing I saw was the cover below, and between that and the X-rated Web 'toon, I don't know which is worse.



Back to the drawing board.

Anyway, it's 1:30 in the morning at I'm all alone at work because I'm supposed to be doing homework. Instead I have "My Cousin Vinnie" on the TV and I'm blogging. I blame Erin. Her blog is like crack, it's so addictive. I try to stay away but I have to get my fix.