April 19, 2009
Rolling.
You know, a ball. Towards some pins.
So this Friday marked the second consecutive Friday I have went out with people from work and bowled like crazy at the Thunder Ally Cosmic Bowling whatever the fuck thing. It has done nothing but rekindled my love of bowling. I don’t know. I’m not a sports person, and I certainly don’t care about being “the best” in this either. But it has the addictive “mostly just working against yourself” factor that draws me to golf, but is significantly less physically taxing and time-consuming than real golf. (Real golf has so much downtime, even in a cart. I think I’ll stick with video game golf, where I can just teleport to my ball again and again.) It also doesn’t hurt that I’m pretty good at it already. I mean, I’m not going to blow you away (IGN.com) or anything but I can fairly consistently bowl, say, 150? And that’s plenty for me. That’s better than most “casual” bowlers. I’m happy with that.
But yeah, so I love bowling. Still, bowling with the people from work is… kind of surreal. The first time I went, I had just this strong feeling of “Oh, so this is what ‘normal’ people do with their free time.” People were drinking, smoking, flirting. There was a fight in the parking lot. Loud rap music was blaring the entire time. People went to a strip club afterward, and were up until 7 in the morning. (I went home right after the bowling.) This was not a world I was used to! I was out of my element!
Still, everyone seemed to want me there anyway, and I had a good time bowling, even if I was just kind of quietly eavesdropping on the conversations, not really being equipped to join in with them. It happened similarly the second time. But even with that awkwardness, the fun won out. I had a great time. Since I never do anything Friday nights, I’m really thinking of making this a regular occurrence.
And with the idea I’d be bowling on a regular basis comes the idea that I should get some equipment. I always waste a game getting used to the new shoes, the new ball, and everything. Why not get some affordable bowling gear? Some shoes, a bag, and a ball. I don’t need a crazy expensive ball, because I’m one of those “straight forward” bowlers, who doesn’t put a ton of hook on it, and in fact would rather my ball DIDN’T hook very much. The balls that don’t hook are the cheap ones. Initial web pricing would put the entire ensemble at about 80ish dollars. I spend that kind of money on vidjeo games I only play twice all the damn time. It doesn’t seem unreasonable.
However, I couldn’t pull the trigger online. Getting all the drilling worked out online was much too stressful. Still, I don’t especially want to go talk to the guy at the pro shop. I always feel like such a poser going into such niche places like that… I feel like that when going into a comic shop too, for instance. But eh, I’ll get over it, and check it out next week. Hopefully I can order a ball in some crazy, eye-hurting color or something.
Or maybe I’ll change my mind again! I’m awesome like that.