Thursday - July 17, 2014

Do It Your Own Way I Don’t Care

Got into a bit of an argument at bowling league last night with a woman I thought we were becoming friends with. Well, more like me being a snarly bear for a moment than an actual argument. Oh sure, it’s all my fault. Of course. And I was rude, and condescending, and not aware of the sensitivity of the situation in that, because she’s often a better bowler than I am, she feels she knows far more about the sport than I do. I was supposed to be Doris Doormat and treat her with respect and courtesy and gentleness, while she could stampede me and interrupt nearly every word I tried to say. Bad me. Nope, that’s not how I ... roll.

Problem is that she keeps throwing her back out when she bowls. The whole idea behind the modern approach to the sport is to do it in a way that doesn’t hurt you, and requires as little muscle work as possible.

Anyone can hurt themselves bowling. After all, you’ve got this hefty weight in one hand pulling you off balance when you run down the approach and throw it as hard as you can while doing some strange twisty pinchy movement with your hand and wrist.

And that’s why people hurt themselves. The better way is to walk purposely but moderately, let gravity and physics dictate your swing, and have a minimal release with your hand. Let the ball do the work it wants to do, instead of what you’re trying to force it to do.

We were watching this new guy try to learn to throw the ball. What he was doing looked really strange, but it took us a minute to realize he was using a three step approach to deliver the ball. Nobody uses a three step approach to deliver a 16lb bowling ball. That method only works with those little softball size balls they use in Canada and Maine for candle pin bowling, which is almost a completely different sport.

So Ms. Back Injury ("B.I.") shows the new guy what she thinks is a four step approach. And she was totally wrong. No, that’s how I do it! and she proceeds to demonstrate ... a dead step to get moving, followed by a “push up” push away on ... a three step approach. Not a “4” but a “3+1”. And we got into it ...





Well looky there. I was exactly right.

The four step approach starts with moving your ball side foot forward while you do your push away with both hands, straight and level, until your ball arm elbow locks and your off arm rotates out for balance at the same instant your heel contacts the ground. As the ball falls in a pendulum swing you lean a bit forward and begin to slightly squat down as your off side leg steps through. The important thing here is to not “choke” you backswing at the bottom of the arc, but to let it swing up and back. With your torso leaning quite forward, the top of your backswing will now be up high or higher than your shoulder, although this is really no bigger an arc than you’d swing a pocketbook or briefcase in while walking along standing straight up.

It all comes together in the 4th step, which is a slow lunge of your offside leg with the knee over the toe and your balance under the ball of that foot, not the heel, and as the swing comes past your heel you’re lifting your torso a bit and pushing up from the lunge. Timed properly, the ball is directly under your shoulder for an extra tick or three, moving not in an arc but parallel to the floor. That’s what the 4th step does: it stretches out the forward bottom arc of the pendulum. This is where you start doing your release stuff, and the ball comes off your hand somewhere between when it goes past your heel and when your arm lifts up past your knee. A good firm snap of the finger tips to rev up the ball will cause your bowling arm to come up, with the elbow bending after the release and the hand stopping up by your head in an “answer the phone” kind of motion.

Why yes, I have studied this. I’ve watched bowlers by the hundreds. I’ve talked to coaches and really good bowlers. I’ve watched loads of videos and visited all the training sites, and I even own a couple of How To books that have lots of pictures. That’s me, trying to learn to bowl properly, while everyone else is on some stubborn personal ego trip, convinced they instinctively know what’s best, and that they can force a wooden lane and a plastic ball into submission by pure will and repetition alone. Riiight. All the way to the chiropractor.

I didn’t quite “run to mommy”, but on my way out of the place I stopped and spoke with the guy running the alley, who also does the ball drilling, and gives lessons, and has been semi-pro for probably 40 years now. And I verified that my understanding of all the approaches was correct, while he emphasized that no matter what method you use, do your push away straight out, pointed at your target, lock your elbow, and let gravity do the swing for you. 

I guess it was just too much like math to tell “B.I.” that her 4 step approach was a “3+1” in the same way that a 5 step approach is a “4+1”. Which it is, though she denies it. The extra step just gets you moving first, so that the push away act doesn’t cause you to do a stutter step or to take a baby step. That’s the only difference between a 4 and a 5. I always thought that was totally obvious. But a 3 ... yank and slam. You aren’t executing a bowling delivery, you’re pitching a 16lb softball into the ground.  Muscle it down, muscle it back, muscle it forward. Sooner or later, you’re going to hurt yourself.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

PS we won 5 out of 7, with “B.I.” as our sub, and had lots of fun. Please accept my apologies for telling you to shut up after you dismissively interrupted me 4 times in a row when I tried to tell you what turned out to be the truth. My bad.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/17/2014 at 11:56 AM   
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   Thursday - July 10, 2014

late night tea

Gosh, I hope this isn’t becoming a regular column! Once again it’s 3am. And I’m up. Ok, I admit, it started out as one of those semi-conscious trips to the bathroom, but I was wide awake by the end. So now, a cuppa tea. PG Tips Strong, with a splash of organic half & half, which is fatty on the level of about medium cream from the typical grocery. And a slight spoonful of sugar.

Hey, this is neat. I put new filters in our Whirlpool under the counter 3 stage water filter here in the kitchen sink. We get slightly soft water here, and it’s actually pretty good. No problems at all drinking it straight from the tap, and you can boil away gallons of it in the kettle with hardly any scale. So when I run that water through the filters, and the filters are quite fresh, and I boil that water in a mug in the microwave ... it just sits there. No bubbles, no roiling, no apparent boiling. Maybe some steam? I didn’t notice. Then when I add a bit of sugar, or dip in the tea bag, it’s like it effervesces. Slightly. Ssshsshssh; a quick burst of micro tiny bubbles. Wiki says this is superheating; I’m using a very clean mug with a high gloss surface, and settled water with just about no dissolved gases or impurities in it. Wiki calls them “nucleation sites”, and I guess they’re little bits in a fluid around which boiling, or a disturbance in fluid tension, occurs. Hmmph, at 3:20am I’m thinking of them as condensation nuclei, the bits of floating dirt in the upper air that water vapor forms clouds around and then eventually rain. Betcha it’s a very similar process. link.

Right, so we got squashed at bowling league tonight. M was absent, nobody knows why. So we found a sub, some guy with a really high average. And he bowled ... a really crappy game (80 under), a freakin’ fantastic game (69 over for a 289), and a lame game (40 under). Since our efforts were only modest tonight at best, and the other team was sober and rolling well, .... we got one game out of 3. 2 points out of 7. Hey, that’s how it goes sometimes.

Looks like I’m doing my almost annual routine of reinventing how to bowl. FINALLY I’m opening up my back swing, trying not to muscle the ball, AND feeling it on my fingers for once as I come up under and behind, past my left ankle thumb loose do just a little wrist roll to the left elbow straight till arm at eight now snap it up and answer the phone. And the ball is revving up quite well and hooking, but I now have to adjust my approach considerably. I have to either choose to go Down and In and go right 5 boards and move my target right, or try for Out and Back and stand much further to the left so that I can throw out over the 3 arrow, but I don’t know if I need to throw fast or not. Which means a higher or lower push away and a bigger or smaller swing. I want to stop muscling the ball completely, and I seem not to have a problem adjusting my timing to match up with the changed swing times. Which is cool. Now I just have to learn where my arm is going to throw the ball. So until then ... as usual ... my scores are going to suffer. Wish somebody had told me this “feel it off your fingers” shizz years ago ... because I’m a total oblivion, and this is what bowling feels like naturally to almost everyone else automatically. Really? I never even noticed it. The ball just seems to fall off my hand. No finger snap at all unless I force it. And I have. Which is why I was muscling the ball. Funny, it comes free with a bigger back swing and a bigger swing. But I wasn’t doing that, because FOREVER the guys who work at the place have been advising me SLOW DOWN DREW. But without detail. Seriously, WTF does that really mean? Slow my swing? Slow my feet? Take a longer time between the start of the push away and the start of my first step? YOU NEED TO ADJUST YOUR TIMING. Again, without much detail of any kind, other than to know that my swing arm should go past my offside foot on the release before that foot stops sliding, and that the offside leg needs to be bent some in a kind-of lunge, with my torso leaning forward chin out over the knee but shoulders still parallel to the foul line (for a straight approach), I don’t know from faster or slower.

What I need is to go practice. By myself. Without people around who have a preconceived notion of how I should look while bowling. So I can just try stuff and hopefully find what works. Because I KNOW what I really want. I really want to throw the big hook just like the big boys do, BUT I want to throw it not just accurately but only big enough to give me the most possible margin. There has to be a magic balance spot between rev, ball speed, ball and lane dynamics, and shot line such that it will overcome minor variations in my throw and my precision. I want to find the big groove. Maybe not the ultimate giant out-to-the-zero-board groove, but one with enough late belly in it to look like the damn ball is actually turning the corner. Skid flip. I’ve found all the other ones to the inside, and they just aren’t as much fun. Even though I’ve thrown many super scoring games with them. Less hook, less boom, less fun. I want to break pins, from the side.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/10/2014 at 02:05 AM   
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   Thursday - May 29, 2014

Death By Handicap

No, this is not one of those “special needs gone wrong” stories. It’s just another bowling post.

We got our 4th teammate last night, a young woman who went through college on a bowling scholarship. Oh yeah. She’s goood. Ok, she wasn’t rolling 290s, but her approach form is classical and fluid, and her spares game is just about perfect. With a 205 book average, we set her up as anchor right away. I did acceptably well the first two games, rolling 12 and 27 over average respectively. But then conditions broke down in the third game, and I couldn’t figure things out. I moved left, I threw right. I moved up and then back. No matter what I did, the ball would either cross over or come in really high to the pocket. Plus, suddenly I was tired and achy. Age. Anyway, after 5 opens and an abhorrent score of 59 in the 7th frame, I just said to hell with it and enlarged my approach to throw a faster ball. You never want to muscle the ball because you’ll almost always pull the shot to the left. The better way is to start out with a higher push away, which gives you a larger pendulum arm swing, which requires you to take bigger steps to keep the timing right ... all of which adds up to the ball being launched at a higher speed. And that did it; I was able to pile on a bunch of strikes to finish only a bit low with a 169.

But I’m pretty sure we lost all 3 games last night, even though we won them all hugely in terms of raw scores. Heck, we won two of them by more than 200 pins. But we were bowling a team of beginners, and half of them were bowling for average. And that’s a terrible situation, because they’re going to get a massive handicap (one of their bowlers has an 81 average now), but you won’t know what it is until after the bowling is over for the whole night. And summer league is a 90% handicap affair. So ... grrr ... at the end of the night it looked like we were giving them 213 pins per game. That’s a mighty hurdle to overcome even when you know about it in advance. Ex post facto, it’s a real kick in the nutz.

Ah well. At least we had a nice time, and our new teamie seems like a nice person. A little bit quiet and reserved, but we can cure that. Mwahahhaahaha.

Thoughts on summer league: Since it is a very short season, usually only 12 to 15 weeks, keeping the winter season practice of using your entering book average for the first 9 games rolled may not be the best idea. That’s a fifth to a quarter of the season. Too long, and not really fair. The reason it isn’t fair is because other bowlers, those without established book averages, have a dynamic average for those games. Better might be to use the book average for the first 3 games only, then weigh that in equally with what you roll the first night to give you your average for Week 2, and thereafter to base your weekly average on total pins rolled. And for newbies without a book average, they use the Vacancy score as their average for the first 3 games, which is then weighed equally with their results from Week 1 for their average for Week 2, and thereafter based on total pins rolled. That might alleviate some of these blind hammer beat downs like the one we got slammed with last night. You’d have to keep the vacancy score low though; 100 or 120 instead of the 150 or 170 used by the better leagues.

Examples:

• a) You have a 165 book average from winter season. That’s your average for Week 1. You roll a 525 series the first week, which is a 175 average. (165+175) / 2 = 170 average for Week 2. Week 2 you roll a 600 series. For Week 3 your average is (525 + 600) / (2 * 3) = 187.
• b) You’re a first year bowler. This is your first time in a league. The vacancy score for this league is a 120. 120 seems like a high score to you, but it gives you a goal to try for. Week 1 you roll a 285 series, which is a 95 average, which is 25 under. For Week 2, your handicap average is (120 + 95) / 2 = 107. Week 2 your roll a 315, so you’re 2 under. For Week 3 your average is (285 + 315) / (2*3) = 100. You roll a 291 series, so you’re 3 under. For Week 4 your average is (285 + 315 + 291) / (3*3) = 99.

Yup, that’s pretty fair. Newbies only get a small bite in weeks 1 and 2, but they’re also getting a 90% handicap which makes up for a lot of that. Using a lower vacancy score of 110 will soften that by a couple pins. 

Yeah, and we would have won at least 12 out of 20 if we’d been using the Average Sorted Match Point handicap method too. Team handicap is so 1958; it’s well past it’s use-by date. Might have to change it a bit to make the maximum handicap per pairing 50 pins instead of 30, which would allow a 145 bowler to play against a 201 bowler.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/29/2014 at 09:08 AM   
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   Monday - May 12, 2014

now it’s really over

the last bowling blog post of the winter season.

We finished off Late League tonight. There was a chance we could have moved up from 7th the 6th, but we didn’t quite make it. We did take 13 1/2 points from the 8th place team we played tonight, and that put us over where the 6th place team started tonight. But it seems they won a few points themselves, even though they pretty much got slaughtered. But in the end they came out ahead of us. Fine.

I had a good time. It didn’t cost me a dime, since I was a permanent sub. Ok, I didn’t get any prize money, but hey, get real, right? And I learned to really love the average sorted match point scoring method. It is so much better than any of the standard 7 point systems, team handicap or individual handicap. If your league is looking for a way to stand out, a way to stir things up and make them fresh, then give it a try. It’s a little harder to keep score, but you learn real fast. I won 3 1/2 points tonight, because I tied M in Game 2, both of us scoring a 202.

And now all the winter leagues are over.

Summer league starts next week.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/12/2014 at 11:44 PM   
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   Tuesday - May 06, 2014

one last night to go

Friday Fun League is over. We came out in 9th place, out of 16 teams. Not bad, considering we’re a new team, and that this is a fun league. $122 in prize money after a 33 week $16/wk season. The cuts were $20 per team per place. Like I said, fun league. We’ll be back in the fall.

Greed League is over. We came out dead last, 8th place, out of 8 teams. It was pretty much impossible to compete with 3 1/3 guys in a 5 man team league. We were in last place since late September, and were never able to fight our way out, no matter what. On the other hand, we didn’t just lay down and take it. Most of the time the other guys had to bowl hard to get us, so we were rarely “managed”. Which is so patronizing. I have to run up there tonight to collect my $179 in prize money after a 31 week $22/wk season. The cuts were extraordinary; even after two of our guys volunteered to be on the prize committee ( I wrote an amazing spreadsheet that calculates prize money in about a dozen ways ), making a big effort to flatten the awards out to treat the lower teams less like cannon fodder, the first place team was still awarded more than $180 more than they had paid in dues. They turned a profit. Second place got back $30 less than their total dues. This league is NOT advertised as a money league, but they operate that way. Not my cup of PG Tips tea, but I can live with it. But our team has about zero chance of filling out our roster. So, so long guys. I won’t be back. And Greed League will putter on, clinging to life with a pathetic 7 or 8 teams, IF they find another group of guys willing to sign up. Forget it; you need at least a dozen teams to make a league work properly.

Late League has one night left to bowl. We’re locked in a duel for last place, though after last night I think our almost-last position is locked in. Conditions were really strange, people leaving ugly splits all night. Ace bowlers, 230 average guys, driving right through the pins leaving Greek Church splits, Big Fours, 6-7-10s, and worse. Me? I wouldn’t say I was totally dialed in, but I only left 5 opens all night. Not a ton of strikes, but my spare game was good. I was 100% on my 10 pins. A miracle! But the best part was that I beat my opponent every game, so I took all 4 points. This is a match point league, 3 people per team, 660 starting average cap on the teams. And I bowled just good enough to chase my competition M, the lady who pretty much runs the alley, every game and make marks when she left opens. In the end my total series was about 80 pins more than hers, as I had all 3 wins and wood. As a team, we utterly whomped them. We were up 182 pins at the end of Game 1. We won Game 2 by 203. Horry Clap! Their anchor just couldn’t connect anything in either game, and was throwing more than 100 under. They rallied in Game 3, just eking out a win for the game and beating our mid guy and our anchor. So they got 3 points for that, but that was all. We won the night 13-3, and went in last night 9 points ahead. So they can take all 16 next week and still not displace us. I have no idea what the prize money will be. This IS a money league, $25/wk for a 35 week season. 1st place pays $1600 per man, but it doesn’t stop there. 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. get lesser but still significant awards. So the last places really, really get hosed. And gosh, for some reason there are only 8 teams on this league. Must be because it starts Monday night at 9pm. Right. Me, I won’t see a penny in prize money. I think. I didn’t pay anything to bowl in this league; I was a “permanent sub”, which is sort of like a fully sponsored bowler, except that I was never given any money to put in the weekly envelope. I just showed up and bowled. This league can do that kind of thing, what the heck, since 3 of the 8 teams are alley employees, including the boss. Would I “sub” again? Probably, although the late time slot kind of played havoc a few times. I know I certainly wouldn’t be a paying member, as much as I’ve learned to love Average Sorted Match Point competition. It’s the best. Forget that Team Average handicap crap. Forget that Individual Handicap crap. ASMP gives you someone to bowl against directly. If you have a good game, you win points for your team. If you don’t win your personal match up, at least your pins add to your team’s, so you’re contributing. And it’s handicap limited too, which keeps teams from building their 660 cap like 150-240-270.

I’m not sure how ASMP would work in a non-capped league, in a 4 person team. That would be 20 points per night, and it might be possible for the team that didn’t win the game to actually win more points in that game. Would it work with pre-bowling? Hmm, something to think about over the summer.

Summer League? I’m not sure. I think we’d both like to take a summer off. We haven’t had a break from bowling, year ‘round, for more than 6 years now. But, but, but I just last night figured out a new way to throw the ball! And I think it’s finally the right way! It’s what A & J told me on Greed League last fall, but it finally clicked last night. Of course, I can’t fully control it yet, so I want to bowl and bowl until I do. Summer League!! Plus you get balls for 40% discount, and 20 free games. Because I only have 74 free games on my card!

Posted by Drew458     on 05/06/2014 at 12:43 PM   
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   Tuesday - April 29, 2014

What, nothing from nobody today?

Well fine. Here’s a little bowling post. I know how you all look forward to them so much. NOT.

Well, we got smeared in Greed League. Last night of the season was tonight, and we went in having to win all 7 points just to fight our way, finally, out of last place. We didn’t win all 7. We didn’t win even 1. I bowled like a total shit sandwich, not even making a 475 series. It was terrible; I could not get my ball to do anything, or even to go where I wanted it to. I give up.

Oh well.

That does it for this league for me. Ain’t coming back. I didn’t really want to be in it this year, but gave it one more try.  Ok, no, I’m really not good enough for this group. But worse, there is simply no way that 3 1/3 guys can compete when everyone else has 5 guys on their team. Our 4th member only made it in 10 or 12 times in the 35 week season. We never stood a chance, and we were in dead last place since mid-September. Ok, we had a halfway fun time. But far too much of my money went out, for the pittance in prize money that’s coming back. So forget it. If the best I can hope for is “we’ll have a bit of fun, but there’s no way we’re ever getting out of last place” then I’m going to do that in the least expensive league I can find. Because spending even $6 more every week for 35 weeks starts adding up to some real money.

I did 3 leagues this year. I had to pay for 2 of them. In the other one I was a season long sub and bowled for free. But after all those games - 300 or more - I’m not one bit a better bowler. Stronger maybe. Smarter, maybe a tiny bit. But my best average this year is still under 190. Ok, maybe I am somewhat better. But not as better as I want to be. And my ball is worn out at this point. And I’m just tired of it. All I did since August was bowl.

I may not even join a summer league. I do need a new ball, and I’d like to learn how to throw the damn thing properly. But I feel I need a break from the whole scene for a while.

yee ha, back to the dentist again tomorrow. Whoopee .

Posted by Drew458     on 04/29/2014 at 09:44 PM   
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   Wednesday - April 23, 2014

mid-nite tea

3am again ... up for a bit, feel completely parched. Good time for a nice mug of PG Tips Rich. With a spoonful of sugar but no milk. Mmm, soothing.

We took all 7 tonight at Greed League. I think we only have 1 week left in this season. Right, so we played the almost-last-place team tonight, and fought them to the end. We can get out of last place, right here at the very very end of the season, but to do that we have to beat this team 6 games in a row. We’re halfway there now. Next week will be the clincher. I bowled Ok tonight, 207/147/200. Yeah, I hit a rough patch in Game 2, with 5 opens. Grrr. Some nights I have trouble getting the ball to go where I want, while getting enough hand on the ball to make it do anything (hook, rev, carry, etc).  After adjusting my feet, my hand, and my target I finally got back in the groove. Annoying. But we won that game too, so no biggy.

And who knows, maybe we’ll even have all our guys next week. Maybe. You can never tell with Bob, because his job sends him back and forth to Texas and South America all the time. Almost weekly. He’s missed 2/3 of the season. Again. And this will probably be the last time together for this team. Oh, we’re a good mix personality-wise. No troubles there. It’s just that, with 3 and 1/3 members, we don’t stand a chance in a 5 man team league. So we’re probably going to go our separate ways. And Greed League is so close to dying anyway, sputtering along with 8 teams and unwilling to change it’s old Big League rules to better suite a tiny membership. Besides, I did 3 leagues this year, and that’s at least 1 too many for me. I have no time for hardly anything else.

Back to bed soon. It’s very relaxing, sitting here in the silence and near dark, drawing warmth from the tea mug as it slowly cools. Gaah, I left the tea bag in too long. Ok, now it’s a bit on the acid side, but I’ll drink it anyway.

‘Tay, what’s new at 3:20am in the news??

Oh looky, the IRS is a dirty birdie again. Giving bonuses and paid time off to workers who mouthed off and/or didn’t pay their own taxes. Hey, just like their boss, right? Good old Turbo Tax Timmy Geitner?

IRS employees who had been disciplined for tax and conduct issues were nonetheless rewarded with monetary awards or time off, according to a watchdog report released Tuesday.

The report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found that while for the most part the reward program for IRS workers complied with federal regulations, employees who had themselves failed to pay their federal taxes and had discipline problems were also rewarded.

“While not prohibited, providing awards to employees who have been disciplined for failing to pay federal taxes appears to create a conflict with the IRS’s charge of ensuring the integrity of the system of tax administration,” Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George said.

The watchdog found that in the period from October 1, 2010 to December 31, 2012 over 2,800 employees who had been disciplined for conduct problems, including issues with federal tax compliance, had received over $2.8 million in monetary awards and over 27,000 hours in time-off awards.

Golly. Hey, did you notice how the numbers there line up nearly perfectly? 2,800 workers, $2.8 million in bonuses. That means EVERYONE gets $1000 bonus, across the boards, no matter what. And these are the fuck-ups, don’t forget. And 2,800 workers, >27,000 hours bonus time-off ... just about 10 hours each. EVERYBODY gets a bonus day off with pay, no matter what.  It’s like they’re declaring a dividend. With your tax dollars. And now we need THOUSANDS more of these jokers, ARMED, to make you comply with Obamacare.

The watchdog found that the more than 1,100 employees who had issues with tax compliance received more than $1 million in monetary awards and more than 10,000 hours in time-off awards.

Yup, the numbers stay the same. Even if you work at the tax office and don’t pay your taxes, you STILL get the “guaranteed minimum” bonus of $1000 and 10 hours off with pay.

Meanwhile, the rest of America is asking, “What’s a bonus? Is that anything like a raise? I think I remember those, but I haven’t seen one in several years.”

The IRS had about 100,000 workers during the period under review.

In the 2011 budget year, more than 70,000 IRS workers got cash bonuses totaling $92 million, the report said. In the 2012 budget year, nearly 68,000 workers got cash bonuses totaling $86 million.

That’s $1278, and $1265 per “standout” worker, the “upper” 70% of their workforce. So the difference between Hero and Zero is about $266.

The IRS. So non-discriminatory that everybody gets a slice of happy pie, because pie are free!!

PS - WTF is ANY government agency doing, handing out bonuses of any kind? The friggin’ gall of these bastards knows no bounds.




Hey, gas prices shot up 10 to 15 cents a gallon last week alone! Looks like we’re getting our summer hit a couple months early. Gee, thanks for that Big Stinker Oil.

The average price for regular gasoline at U.S. pumps jumped 8.5 cents in the past two weeks to a 13-month high of $3.69 a gallon, according to the latest survey of prices. Frankly, that doesn’t sound too bad in Walla Walla where the prices are closer to $3.79 a gallon.

This increase (up 43 cents a gallon for the year) is being attributed to a rise in crude oil prices and a higher demand for motor fuel, according to Energy Information Administration data.

Plausible. However, these and other plausible (or semi-plausible) explanations are rolled out year after year just before school lets out and families hit the road for summer vacations. It’s suspicious.

No, it’s bullshit. A new bit of pipeline is open, and the oil is flowing down-country to the Gulf refineries. Where it’s turned into gasoline. And shipped off to other countries.

After reaching a 13-month average high of $3.65 a gallon for regular unleaded in Georgia, gas prices have finally stopped climbing.  At least for now. Gas prices stabilized during the weekend after continually rising over a 20-day period, the AAA said on Monday.

The national average for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $3.67 on Sunday, an increase of three cents from last week. The average in Georgia rose 7 cents to $3.65, AAA said. Prices in Georgia, Tennessee and Florida didn’t increase at all this past weekend, AAA said, and increases in gas prices last week were smaller than those occurring in previous weeks.

“During the past week, gas price increases slowed until they finally stopped over the weekend,” said Mark Jenkins, spokesman for AAA, in a press release. “It is too soon to know whether we have seen the peak price for the season, but this is a good sign that relief is on the way for motorists at the pump.”

It’s pretty common for gas prices to rise in the spring, AAA said, with peaks occurring during spring months for the past three years.

Really? Because I’ve been watching carefully for years now, and the real hit comes on the last Wednesday before the Labor Day Weekend. That’s when the boosted up summer prices come in. And stay in. To stick it to you during the part of the year when you might actually want to drive somewhere just for the fun of it. Like, vacation. So what I think I’m reading here, from the Georgia AAA, is more “lie down, shut up, take it and be happy” from our ruling class. Behave peons, and pay!

Bleh. Sod it all, I’m going back to bed.

PS - WTF?

Oh, Puh-Leeez

Obama sends troops to Poland to pressure Putin ... he sent 150 paratroopers. A hundred. And fifty. For joint exercises with Poland and three other eastern European nations. 4 countries. 150 troops. So that’s what, about 37 troops per country? A bus full each?

Oh yeah, that’ll leave a mark.

Meanwhile, Putin probably moved 40,000 troops and 10 tank brigades to the Belarus border, because they were just sitting around doing nothing. Just in case. And maybe gave them some of those new helmets and new body armor like the troops down in Crimea have, the kind that stops our poodle-shooter bullets. Nice. 

Posted by Drew458     on 04/23/2014 at 01:55 AM   
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   Tuesday - March 11, 2014

Mr Consistent

No super scores tonight at Greed League, but I did roll 195-194-192. Very consistent. And I did win the money; two weeks totaling $14. Almost enough for half a tank of gas. Almost. Oh, and we won 5-2 against the next to last place team. The guys who slammed us 0-7 in the position round just 2 weeks ago. So that should just about halve the number of points into last place we are. Someday, maybe, maybe, we’ll fight our way all the way up to next to last. Woo frickin’ hoo.

Crivens, small league can be a pain; it seems every other damn week you’re playing the same guys.  Shee-it; we played M’s team on Monday Late Night League. We’d played them 2 weeks before that on position round in that league. AND I’d played them again on Friday Cheap League. Time after time after time.  We need more folks to bowl. So many of us go from one league to another, 2, 3, even 4 nights a week.

Not to mention the sub-whores who go around sucking up free bowling night after night, week after week. Sure, you’re needed. But you’re getting a whole lot of free bowling in. And I swear I’m bowling against you every darn night in every darn league. Yeah, I’m talking to you Doug. And Bill. And BJ. 

Posted by Drew458     on 03/11/2014 at 09:58 PM   
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   Monday - March 10, 2014

Better and Better

Today started out pretty rough. Another morning of intense tooth pain. Pop a Vicodin with my coffee and hope for the best; I had a dental appointment in the early afternoon. Got there. It was time to take the stitches out. Guess my gums didn’t like them much, they were all swollen up around them. Cutting and tugging out the several stitches managed to levitate me right up to and through the ceiling. YOW!! OW! OWW! But once they were out it was like a miracle. You know when you get a toothache when you get a caraway seed stuck between your teeth? That’s how I’ve been for 9 days now with the stitches. And now I feel just fine. They gave me a bottle of some kind of disinfectant rinse to swish a couple times a day, and away I went.

I felt so much better when I got home I had a bowl of soup and went to bed. Course, that’s partly the Vicodin talking. Those things tend to put me under. So, carefree nap time for a couple hours, and I didn’t even need an icepack on my face. Sweet.

I woke up in time to get to Late League, and I just treated it as a nice time. No pressure. Have fun. No drinking, but no stressing out either. And I bowled the best series of my life. By far. Pity the rest of my team didn’t have as good a night as I did, but we managed to split the points tonight 8 and 8, so that’s Ok too. But damn, I was on fire 2 games out of 3. I threw 10 strikes in Game 1 for a 267; every frame except frame 2, where I got the dread 6-7-10 split and made 2 but left the open. Game 2 was a bit messed up; I was too straight to the lanes and throwing a bit inside and didn’t notice it until too late. So I rolled a 182. Meh (although a year ago I’d have been perfectly happy with that score. Mostly). Game 3 I had my duckies in a row and marching in lockstep; I opened the game with 6 strikes in a row followed by the another 6-7-10 in the 7th, made 2, then finished the game with X, 8/, XX8, for a 243, 9 strikes overall. Add it all up and that’s a 692 series, just 8 pins - 1 mark - below my magical goal of a 700 series. So close, and yet so far. And I don’t regret just missing it either. I bowled great, and someday I will make that. Just not tonight.

Now it’s time to use my special mouth rinse, and go to bed. 

Posted by Drew458     on 03/10/2014 at 11:15 PM   
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   Friday - February 28, 2014

7 up the hard way

We won all 7 at Fun League tonight. Don’t ask me how. We didn’t bowl all that well. Well, not too badly. I guess the other team just did worse. That’s how it goes sometimes.

Posted by Drew458     on 02/28/2014 at 10:56 PM   
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   Wednesday - February 26, 2014

Just 2

What a difference a day makes!

Same end of the alley, same weather, very similar temperatures (low 20s), but tonight my gang at Greed League couldn’t find a strike with a GPS and a laser pointer. Yet the other team sure could. We got hammered. Not one of us threw even a 500 series all night. Ouch. 150-160 point games. Holy cow. But we were so close. Ringing 10s and 7s, spinning 9s; oh we were within a shadow’s thickness of endless strikes. But no. Instead we found Split City, leaving some of the ugliest pin combos ever.

Finally the other guys just got tired of throwing strikes, or else the strangeness started to effect them as well. We rallied a bit and managed a win, a big one by over 130 pins, in the last game. Not enough to win total wood, so we went 2-5 for the night and are still in last place by 9 points. 

Posted by Drew458     on 02/26/2014 at 05:12 AM   
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   Tuesday - February 25, 2014

twelve and a half

We took 12 1/2 points out of 16 last night at Late League. Pretty good. It was yet another position round, so we played M’s team yet again. And this is why I object to position rounds: they just force stratification on small leagues. This league only has 8 teams, and a 35 week season? Come on. So we played M’s 3 for the millionth time. Pretty much straight up; I think we had a 4 pin net handicap. With a 187 average in this league I gave M 1 pin in individual handicap, then threw a 204 in Game 1. But that wasn’t enough to beat her, as she came out with a 211, plus the 1. And both teams tied that game with a 633 raw score, so it was 1/2 point each for that. A split on the individuals made it 1 1/2 for us, 2 1/2 for them. I made a small adjustment in Game 2 and got into a groove, throwing 5 X to open the game and finishing with a 218. Hey, 31 over, right, so I’m happy. And that beat her hands down. So one point for me. I was having a good time, and for once I read the lanes properly as they broke down, so I was able to gradually move one board left in tiny increments on the right lane the whole night, but I had to move 2 1/2 boards left on the left lane. And I just threw down in Game 3, rolling a 256. Slam!! So we won Game 2, Game 3, took all the individuals for Game 3, took all the series for the night, and got wood. Go team!

And altogether, I threw a 678, which I think is the best series I’ve ever thrown. Yay me. 117 over average. Still not at the 700 line I daydream about, but that’s a goal I’m getting closer to every week.

Posted by Drew458     on 02/25/2014 at 10:41 AM   
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   Wednesday - February 19, 2014

rolling on up

By some small bit of divine intervention, we achieved syzygy tonight at Greed League: all our planets were in alignment. This is akin to getting all your ducks in a row, only with much more gravity. And with levity, the only real antidote to gravity!

We bowled the 4th place team. While they brought their A Game, somehow we brought our A+ Game. And we flat out out bowled them. Super. We took all 3 games and had wood by over 220 pins. I threw 201 - 237 - 221 for a 659; 131 over and my highest series in this league this season. Probably one of my best series ever, truth be told.

So we had a pretty decent time too, swapping car stories and hanging out. Which is what it’s supposed to be all about, not this fretting and worrying and getting all depressed nonsense. It’s a game. Entertainment. A night out with the guys. I’m going to print up a copy of this post to re-read the next time I’m having an awful night, just as a reminder.

So, with our latest 7, we might just have fought our way all the way up to being tied for last place. No, we’re probably still 4 down. We were almost 30 down a few weeks ago. And that’s the goal we’ve set: top not finish at the bottom. We’ve still got 10 weeks or so. So look out, here we come.

Posted by Drew458     on 02/19/2014 at 02:42 AM   
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   Wednesday - February 12, 2014

Ok, So I Choked

We took 5 points against the 1st place team tonight at Greed League. Which means we won 2 games out of 3, and won them by enough pins so that we had more total pins for all 3 games than our opponents, so we got “total wood” for the night. Which sounds rather gay in a 90s way. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. 2 points a game X 2 games, plus 1 point for wood. 5.

Anyway, it ought to have been 7 points for a clean sweep. I blew it, or most of it. The pressure got to me and I left the 10th frame of the 3rd game open, so instead of putting up to 60 pins on the scoreboard (or up to 40 in my case, with 9/ in the 9th, which was also a bit “chokey") I put on 17. I concentrated too hard, and what I wanted to be a strike turned into a 7-10 split, of which I made the 7 pin. I hit it hard and pretty wide so that it bounced off the back deck, but instead of staying up and bopping the 10 pin it fell into the pit. The 7-10 is a really hard spare to make.

So we lost that one by 37 or so. Bleh. I hate losing it in the clutch, but it’s so darn hard to shut my mind mostly off and let my body do what it knows how to do. With just a few reminders from the old noggin. “Lock elbow!” “Finger pressure!” “hold, hold, hold, SNAPLIFT” Too much brain and you stiffen up, pull your arm, tuck in your shoulder ... and blow the shot.

Ah well. Back to bed.

Posted by Drew458     on 02/12/2014 at 02:21 AM   
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