OUHA – Alternative Reality at its Finest

After teasing it a few times, it's finally time to summarize my plunge into the entertaining alternative reality that is OUHA. For those of you not in the know (i.e. normal people), OUHA is an ultimate message board set up in the winter as an alternative to the usually boring OCUA forums. The player who erects this wonderful diversion is a kickass player, past league president (or Director…I forget), and has multiple degrees in English. OUHA stands for Ottawa Ultimate Humor Association. Slagging (i.e. poking fun at others) is one of the main purposes of the site.

At first, I used OUHA as a way to keep up with how my team was playing while I was out with an injury. After a few weeks, I noticed the main prognosticator for the indoor intermediate development league (IID), the amusing Rigid, kept picking my team to lose. In jest, I replied to one of his prognostications by relaying Wesley Snipes's advice: "Always bet on black". The next week he picked us to tie, which I thought was an improvement and complemented him on the size of his grapefruits to pick a tie. After coming back from my injury, I noticed that Rigid was mysteriously absent for a few weeks (computer problems as it turned out). Having thoroughly enjoyed his posts, I decided to pick up the slack and write my own series of picks for the week, and then recap a rare victory. He later came back, and pitted his lucky quarter against my shirt color theory in forming our respective picks.

All went well and eventually our teams met. Largely thanks to his skill and good decisions with the disc, his team won a close one. We met after the game, during which time I gave him a special Remembrance Day quarter with a black sticker attached to the queen's head. Thus the birth of the Rigid-Nurple Prognostication System (RPNS)! As we parted, he informed me that since his team had won, I should expect "endless slagging". Of course, I replied "Bring it on!"

During the next couple weeks, Rigid's posts became less regular, while I made sure to take a couple playful shots at him in each post. This culminated before our two teams were to meet again in a playoff exhibition game. The Friday before a Wednesday game, I wrote him a short message asking him if he'd be receptive to some sort of a deal to give my team the "black shirt advantage" (he was the captain of his team). His response was that it was "not bloodly likely" and that I was lucky he had a good sense of humor after some of my comments on the board. In my next set of predictions, I was particularly tough on Rigid, and admittedly went too far. He replied in a post saying he was going to stop posting immediately, he was stressed at work, I was a horrible person (true), etc. Not having read his reply at work, and knowing he was looking for summer teams, I wrote him an email asking him if he'd be interested in playing on a Tuesday team of mine during the summer, since the guy is a talented player who can huck with the best of them. As soon as I read his reply post that night when I got home, I felt awful, deleted the initial post, posted an apology, and sent him another apology via email. He replied to both apologies saying he accepted, but I still regret the incident a great deal. He's such a nice guy, and when we played eachother in the playoffs, he barely looked at me. I felt a little guilty when my team won and I had a decent game.

Anyway, rather than the Rigid incident, OUHA was a nice diversion during my first winter of IID. I met a couple people off the board (sadly not Mr. SOTG…err Marko ), had fun getting out-picked my other players, and learned more about the Ottawa ultimate community. Having said that, I don't think I'll return to the board next winter, and plan to leave Rigid reign over his IID domain. It's actually less the Rigid incident, and more another quick edit I was asked to make late in the season that further proved my lack of good judgment. There are definitely people in ultimate that I'd never want to offend, and I fear the second incident might have cost me a potential friend.

So there you have it, all the gory details of the seemingly innocent, alternative reality site. Be careful on your computron while posting on the Intraweb kiddies. Until next time, happy hucking!