Thursday - July 16, 2015

a run of 6 and some more deep space adventure

We must have had some astral syzygy last night, bringing Pluto and all her moons into alignment* , because we won all 7 points last night.

Conditions were strange once again, and it was another of those nights when your team wins by not losing as much as the other team. We managed to roll just a bit under team average for Games 1 and 3, winning each by more than 30 pins. Game 2 we took by more than 100, which was largely my doing. Don’t ask me where it came from, but I found a good line through the mess and just laid down strike after strike. I opened with one strike, then followed it by another, and another, and another ... 6 in a row. Just when I started thinking maybe I could go all the way I miffed it a bit, throwing an 9 / in the 7th, which gave me a 1 under 149 in the 5th. Then I got back on that pony in the 8th and threw another X. Alas, an 8/ in the 9th killed the 170s game dream, but at least I marked. Double X in the 10th, and then I flubbed it for a 4 left me with a “measly” 253, which might be the high game for this tiny summer league so far. I know it’s good for another foam rubber beer can cover prize at the end of the season, and ordinarily it would be good for another one of those refrigerator magnet things from USBC. Except this isn’t a sanctioned league, and also because USBC has a bad case of rectal-cranial inversion and is trying to self-destruct**.

* [ still not a official planet, geologically active Pluto is nearly a solar system of it’s own, with 5 moons, ranging in size from the larger Charon down to the 27 mile long flying ice covered potato Hydra. If it isn’t a planet, then it’s the Shark Vacuum of the solar system, sucking up all the bigger cracker crumbs and chunks of astral debris way out there at the back end of forever. Charon, Nix, Hydra, Styx and Kerberos are the names of the moons. So now I have to ask, where is the line between moon and asteroid, if 27x20 mile Hydra is a moon, but 975km Ceres is but an asteroid? And to confuse us all even more, there are several asteroids ... that have their own moons ( a dozen or so even have several )! ]

** We heard last summer that USBC had changed its annual membership to a seasonal one. It used to be that you’d sign up in the fall, and be sanctioned for the winter season and the following summer season. You’d pay your $16 dues, and they’d mail you a glossy little bowling magazine every month. And you’d get a pin, or a patch for your various annual achievements (eg 75 pins over game, 250 game, 700 series, Dutch 200, etc). Then dues went up to $20. And the magazine became digital at the official website. And the award categories were thinned out, and the awards themselves became vinyl key rings.  This sucked, but you could still amass your year’s collection on one of the handle straps of your bowling bag, like scalps on a red indian’s belt. Then they degraded the awards even more, making them crappy cardboard faced fridge magnets. This year they’ve gone over to a “lifetime” basis, which means “You threw a 275 game 6 years ago and we gave you a key ring. Suck it up, that’s all the prize you’re getting, you only get one per lifetime.” And now they’re collecting extra dues for folks who play in the summer leagues, even though there is no championship series for the winners of these leagues, as the winter season has. And they don’t even issue you a membership card. And winter mini-seasons aren’t part of the annual either, and each short season requires its own membership. Crivens! Bowlers everywhere are giving the USBC the one fingered salute, and for all I know the organization will collapse within a year or two. Somebody somewhere is sucking millions of dollars out of the kitty, and people are getting fed up. We want our annual gibs. Oh, USBC also stopped sponsoring the 300 rings ages ago. Even before the price of gold went through the roof, they were bleeding cash because so many people can throw perfect games these days. Whatever; the rings I don’t care about. The rest? Double the dues (20 annual + 10 summer + 10 winter mini-league) and give me nothing for it at all? Fuck them. Good and hard.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/16/2015 at 09:01 AM   
Filed Under: • Bowling Blogging • Space •  
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