blue balls... and green balls and brown balls and...

bowling is hard.

you watch bowling on espn8, and those guys/gals are knocking down pins and you think to yourself - "it can't be that hard! look at this fat guy with the combover and pleated pants. he just bowled a 280!"

but i'm here to tell you that it's difficult. last night was a practice night for the college's bowling league, which begins in earnest the week after next. again, i'm on a faculty/staff team, and once again it's the only fac/staff team in the league. couple that with the fact that my fellow teammates won the league last semester, and we definitely have some big bullseyes on our backs. just like the illini. it's tough being number 1.

but as i said, last night was practice, and we rolled 2 games, in which i scored 112 and 115. i kept losing the ball off to the left, so i'd start farther to the right, and that helped for awhile. then, at the beginning of the second game, i started with a 3 and an 8. ouch. so i swapped out balls, from purple to fuschia (very manly) and that helped me somewhat salvage the second game with 2 strikes in a row and then 3 spares in a row.

tommy's wife sarah kicks ass. in her second game, everything was straight down the middle every time, starting with 6 spares in a row, then 3 strikes, then a spare in the 10th frame for an extra frame. i think she finished with a 235. wow.

the place was packed, and the student bowlers were hilarious. every bowler had a different style. some big guys used little balls, palming and cradling it with their wrist without even sticking their fingers in, and would whip it halfway out into the lane with a whole bunch of spin. the less coordinated would use different footwork every time, often bowling off the wrong leg (which looked painful). others would release early, double or triple bouncing the ball into the lane from three feet behind the line. entertaining stuff.

i can barely move my forearm this morning. i'll have to ask mista overman how he alleviates this kind of pain, since this is a problem for him also (but for very different reasons that will remain unnamed).

have a great weekend.