let's bowl.

two days ago, two friends of mine and i went out to a big mall a ways away (that sounds much better saying it than it looks writing it.) from our houses. it's far enough away that we had to take a bus. i didn't really know how big this mall was gonna be, but it was way bigger than i expected. unfortunately, since it was still spring break/semana santa, all the stores were closed except the restaurants and the arcade. however, we did stumble upon something phenom. a bowling alley.

we threw down money for two games and bowled for awhile. and it was awesome. i haven't bowled for real for a long time, not since i've become awesome at wii bowling. the first frame was rough, my brain wasn't expecting to be holding a 14 lb. ball but rather a ~1 lb. wii controller. but after that, i did alright. and mainly because of wii bowling, which surprised me. my average on wii is like 200, maybe 210 if i've been playing for awhile. but playing for real, i couldn't always throw the ball exactly how i wanted, cause i'm clumsy and my arms are too long and i don't have a lot of upper body strength, but every throw i knew exactly where i wanted it to go. all cause of wii. interesting that a video game system has finally been made that is beneficial to real skills. i wonder if i'd be any baseball or golf now. doubt it.

so we played two games, eric won the first one, and i played a real clutch game and won the second one. it was fun. and they have way cooler animations after you throw. the two best ones i remember were both for spare pick-ups. one involved a bowling pin dinosaur eating ferns, and in the background is this big volcano. all of a sudden the volcano explodes and a gigantic bowling ball rock completely smashes the dinosaur, and then a little bit of green goo oozes out from under the ball. even more graphic, the other one was in a dark alley, and you see three pins in trenchcoats walking menacely towards a bowling ball, and out of nowhere, i don't remember if he shoots them or kicks them or knifes them or what, but the bowling ball does something sweet and all the pins get blown back out of the picture and on the back alley wall appears a huge bloodstreak X! gruesome. we got a good laugh out of it though.

it's a bummer to me that the only "sports" i think i'm decently good at are sports that no one cares about. bowling, ping pong, foosball, frisbee golf. what? who's even heard of these, much less wants to spend time watching them? you can't really name drop ping pong and have people be impressed. these are mainly sports that skill comes in handy at family reunions, holidays, etc. so that's at least good. i might not be able to contribute to a 5 on 5 game of hoops at the gym, but when we get back to the bells house for round robin, i'm ready. bring it on greg.

-jon