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.