ball of lightning [dot] com

Bowled in the Christmas tournaments down in Allentown and Cherry Hill. Pretty much sucked ass in both of them. I had actually bowled in a scratch sweeper in Poughkeepsie the Sunday before Christmas, and had this hideous mental breakdown in the first game– I only shot 149 with six opens– five of them were very makable. I had similar spurts of that all week down south; ironically, a lot of low scores were games I grinded, and just couldn’t string strikes, and a lot of the bad games were ones that I should have put up big 240+ ones and would open three times like an idiot to hit a low deuce. Lot of people keep asking me what I’m planning on doing with it out of college, and I honestly don’t know. Technically, I still have one more year of eligibility left, so I could technically bowl for my grad school (Stanford, Illinois, Penn State, and Florida State all have teams) but I’m leaning towards no. I don’t want to be the kid who just shows up to one practice and goes to a tournament over a kid who worked his ass off and gets left off because I decided I wanted to go one weekend over him. It has gotten less fun each year too– my first year of competition (sophomore year, since I didn’t join the team until the end of the season freshman year) we won a tournament (ironically my first) and while we sucked after that, we still had fun during and after tournaments. Last year, I started to take more control with planning, organizing, running, etc. and we still had a pretty good time, but there was a lot of work involved. This year we have a completely new group of people for the A team (myself and Brian being the only full-time holdovers from last year, let alone two years ago) and we just haven’t gelled to the point to be successful. Which sucks, because we have a lot of individual talent, but we just can’t put it all together at tournaments. One point I note is that our team is terribly professional (i.e. not very excitable), which, I’m sure is an effective tactic to prevent against suffering mental implosions (a.k.a. myself) but it also is really hard to get a good stream of energy to the team. Of course, these guys never did team sports in high school (or even something like intramurals at the college level), so I suppose I have infinitely more experience there. I suppose when you are trained in individual sports (like bowling or golf), you are trained to keep your emotions in check, and not get too excited about anything so everyone merely is doing what they’ve always done, but it can be somewhat of a drag sometimes when everyone walks back shot after shot with a blank expression on their face, and sit in a chair quietly until their next shot.

What a shitty post and a waste of your time. Sorry.

This isn’t good. The one thing I’m good at. The one thing most people here know me for. The one thing that I’m always introduced as (”Hey, this is my roommate, the bowler!”) and I’m getting… bored of it?

Four times a week I show up at Newman and run through the motions. I don’t even care about my scores, I don’t care about striking or even making sure I don’t whiff on that 4-pin. But what’s worse, is I don’t think I care about getting better. I show up with this enthusiasm for correcting a flaw, but then I allow myself to lapse back into sucktitude. I go to team tournaments and try to keep everyone rallied, but we continue to be plagued by the inevitable collapse (and while I’m about ~+10 average differential per game for the season so far, I’m also not blameless in the pathetic finishes either). But with the corresponding poor team scores, the emotion drains, the adrenaline wanes, and I lose that edge. I need to feed off something.

Maybe I need to do more singles tournaments. Something where I’m actually dropping dough– where I have to actually care about where and how I throw the ball. Where I can call it a success if I squeak into the cash. Yeah, I’m definitely not fucking good enough to go out and win the U.S. Open. But I’d rather drop $500 at least knowing I’m up against the best, then continuing to waste away $15 a week in an eight team league where all I care about is “who has the next round of beers?” and “how am I going to get that problem set done by midnight?” After all, the only thing that’s kept me from going insane this year is that I keep scoring reasonably on shots that actually require shotmaking. I’ll find that up a notch, not down in the basement of a gymnasium in Ithaca or in a half-fitness center/half-watered down bowling alley in Torrington. But then I need money. And time. Both which can be pretty hard to come by (unless you suck dick for coke).

You know when I go to tournament practice and have more fun throwing two fingered on the wall instead of actually working on my game (or helping other people work on theirs) that I’ve lost a bit of that desire. I’m only (only?) 21. I can’t lose it now, can I?

Last night I got to cross another thing off my list of bowling accomplishments to achieve before I die. I converted the 7-10 split (around 5:14 PM at Helen Newman Lanes on lane 14, but who is counting, right?).

Nothing spectacular, threw the Black Widow at the 10 (since Snuffy is still chillin’ under my bed), came back out of the pit, flew over, and kind of sat spinning right in front of the seven pin (duckpin bowling anyone?). Just as I began to assume the setter would get there before the pin, the ten finally grazed the seven and tripped it backwards and to the left.

I’m pretty sure that’s the last legitimate split I needed too– I’ve picked up the “Greek Church” (4-6-7-8-10 or 4-6-7-9-10) before, the “Big Four” (4-6-7-10), the 4-6, both the 7-9 and 8-10, any variation of “Grandma’s Teeth” you can throw at me, and then the “infinitely easier” 6-7-10 and 4-7-10’s. So now that that’s done– I guess shooting a (sanctioned) 800 would be next on the list. Holla.

(Which reminds me, I should get my 300 ring resized so I can wear it around more often.)

PA Classic was this past weekend in Lancaster, PA. Pretty much the exact same result as last year.

Team started off pretty good– we were in 6th after 3 team games– and then faded fast after that. Finished 15th/28. Last year we were in 2nd after 2 (thanks to mine and Rich’s obscenely hot starts) before finally falling to like 18th/24 (in our defense, last year we had three BRAND new bowlers who had never seen a tourney shot– who then proceeded to finish dead last, second to last, and fourth to last overall). This tournament we pretty much returned two guys (myself and Mark) which is really like 1.5 considering I’m the only one that bowled a full season last year. So once again, no real continuity this season.

Pattern was long and wet– I was told 38 feet, but it felt a lot longer. High volume across the lane, low ratio and lots of OB right, found the ball seemed to recover from deep if I got it to break at like 12 and from down and in at around 8. Of course, “recover” meant it kind of rolled up and weakly hit the pocket, what with my three revs and all. Started off shitty– 178 or something– then threw a 194 the second game, that could have easily been a 220+ but my first shot in the tenth, I came up high and left a 3-4-6-7 which I then proceeded to get three of (it was off a four-bagger I think– at least a turkey). Third game I miraculously (the key word) shot a 277 thanks to a ball change suggested by the intelligent teammates (I’m glad they’re smarter than me this year). Fourth, fifth, and sixth games sucked– I don’t remember the scores, but I was only around 5 for the 2nd set. Sunday, started the day in 18th overall (189 average) and proceeded to throw 5 opens (and 6 strikes) on my way to a 165 in the first game. Feeling hope was lost, I completely ripped off one of my teammates lines and managed a 234 the second game (should have been a 250+ but left a rock-solid stone 8 on the first shot of the tenth coming off X’s in the 8th and 9th). [My note: When I say SHOULD HAVE been, I’m neglecting to discount my myriad of pussy-light carries I randomly got, so don’t get the impression I was out there looking like Walter Ray or something.] Finished out the day with a 190ish for a 9 game average of 191 and change which ended up being good for 12th overall (28 teams with 5-7 guys each, so out of 170ish?). Field average was around 175ish. (Last year I was at 191 and change as well, finishing 16th/139). Bakers went pathetically, I won’t even talk about that. I was nowhere close and made some stupid adjustments and just couldn’t hit a target to save my life. I made an “executive decision” and moved myself out of cleanup about halfway through.

In summation, the scores aren’t indicative of how poorly I bowled. I only averaged around 13.5-14.5 mph most of the time– I missed ~12 easily makable spares in 9 games– I came in light (or with a shitty angle) on a ton of my strikes. I left an awful lot of 6-7-10’s (I wasn’t getting away with balls that jumped) and left an equal number of washouts too. All in all, I’m not really sure if I should be ecstatic that my numbers look so good even though I bowled so terrible (only can go up?) or I should be pissed that I was so fundamentally bad and merely some combination of dumb luck and good timing allowed me to string together enough strikes to stay up towards the top of the individual standings.

My goal going into the season was top be top 25 (qualified) in the country in average differential– but that was before I decided (like a retard) to take the summer off as well as the unfortunate incident involving my knee/wrist/face and a concrete driveway. So at least this didn’t kill that. Yet. BRI in 3 weeks– bowled horrible there (well technically here) last year so we’ll see if I can keep this up. I’m not sure how we’re going to split up the A and the B team– couple guys from last year should be ready, but that puts me in an awkward position of demoting someone to captain the B team. I guess we have a couple weeks to work that out.

So far (since porch-gate) I have averaged 185ish on the wall known as Helen Newman (and to a lesser extent Sky Top Lanes). However, I am at like 210 on sport compliant shots.

What is wrong with this picture? If you said “something in your brain” you are probably right.

For the first time since we won the Blue Hen Open, Cornell Bowling gets a mention in some form of media not called the Cornell Daily Sun. Brooklyn TV talking to our new incoming freshman.

WFSB Breaking News:

TORRINGTON, Conn. — Police responded to a Torrington bowling alley that was struck by a car Wednesday afternoon.

The car drove through a wall at Sky Top Lanes on East Main Street, according to police.

Police said one person was injured in the incident. The identity of the injured and extent of injuries have yet to be released.

Seriously? What? I mean, I just don’t understa–

Wow.

I technically won my first ever bowling triple crown this semester. High average, high game, and high series. I’ve won high average in more than a few leagues before, but I usually end up losing one or two of the others– mainly because I don’t really have a penchant for throwing up the big games. This semester I managed to throw six out of my 36 games at a 245+ clip. (My average should have been even higher, if not for the random 166’s I’d throw, like the last week). The competition wasn’t insane, and my main challenger for high average didn’t show the last week, but I’ll take what I can get…

Like I said, it wasn’t completely unexpected, but I’m pretty happy– I ended up being in the top 50 average differential-wise in the country from the X-Mas tournaments on too, and without the blemishes (blemish being an understatement) at Penn State and here, I likely would have made a little more noise on the regional/national scene than I actually did. I’ve decided we’ll spend the summer working on technique under the tutelage of one Dirk Ridley (when I’m not hangin’ in Geneva, NY), and hopefully come back refreshed next year for one last shot at sectionals and All-American. For once I think it’s my physical game holding me back, not the mental part, which has traditionally been the case.

I also feel it probably should be mentioned (not to be lost in the mourning over the loss of the Contour), that following the accident last Wednesday night– I refused an immediate trip to the hospital, and walked to Helen Newman Lanes (where I was going anyway, when my car got taken out) for the Cornell Men’s Intramural Championships.

The CCAMS (meteo) team (Lightning Strikes) earned a bye into the semifinals, and won our two games to finish the season undefeated (we didn’t even lose a point, let alone a week). We won the last game by a mere two pins, after I chained my strike in the 9th with a strike on the first ball in the 10th. I pured my second shot and left a solid seven, which I thought cost us the championship, but I got just enough fill that we pulled it out. With the victory, I added a second Cornell intramural crown to my collection of bowling tournaments that I have won [but don’t have cash prizes to sustain me.]

Who says meteorologists are complete fuckups?

Going along with the “people at Cornell are fucked up theme,” I had this exchange Tuesday night with someone from an opposing intramural team. (Yeeeeeah, I bowl pretty much every day. Gotta rep the CCAMS (meteorology club) team.) Now, to provide background, I had never met this guy before, however, he had this neurotic approach to bowling (including taking thirty seconds just to aim) as well as meticulate scorekeeping. Oh, and he was an AEP major. Also, it is important to note that I had not spoken to him outside of “nice shot” or “thanks” the entire evening.

(I’m keeping score at the table when John Mayer comes on the jukebox. Ew. Vagina Face.)
Weird Guy: Wanna hear something funny?
Me: Uh… Ok?
Weird Guy: You know how John Mayer likes to get off?
Weird Guy: …
Weird Guy: …
Weird Guy: He urinates on girls.
(I turn to make some vague semblance of an “Are you fucking kidding me?” face– and not in the “Are you fucking kidding me? John Mayer likes to piss on girls too?! face, I mean the “Did you seriously just fucking whisper that in my ear?” face.)
Weird Guy: It’s true, my friend totally hooked up with him.
Weird Guy: …
Weird Guy: He has a bent dick too.
Me: (Trying to end conversation as quickly as possible.) That’s… uh… great.
Weird Guy: What you don’t believe me?! John! Tell him what I told you about John Mayer!
(An Asian, who I can only assume is John, buries his head in his hands.)