Bowling, is a Comfort Sport !

[cheeni]

Have you ever stopped to notice that bowling is a comfort sport? Seriously, it's designed with the bumbling amateur in mind. Explain otherwise how it's the favorite sport of Fred Flintstone, Homer Simpson and yours truly. Duh! And how can I forget "The Dude", or his dudeness or el duderino, you know, if you are not into the whole brevity thing!

The dude (or dudette) who has the spare evening, and knows he sucks at every other goddamn sport known to human kind will make his way to the bowling alley. Of course, the inexperienced will fail to recognise this fundamental design idea and seek to perfect their game. Hah!

The experienced bowler is removed from the game. Ideally there's a bottle of beer or two making its way through your gullet when you amble up to your first ball. The objective is to maximise the time spent on the floor, no sense rushing things here, especially when you pay by the game. Now, don't be a spoil sport and begin making a contest out of it. Remember, it's all about the beer and the good times.

Pick a seriously heavy ball, and float the ball toward the pins. If you don't seriously screw up, the ball will land dead center almost at your feet and roll down slowly knocking the pins in its wake. If you need to use both your hands, don't be bashful about it, all serious professionals know it helps the game.

Enjoy the sporting good times - *burp*

P.S. The correct answer is - "The dude abides"

Comments

Decision moment

[sriniram.livejournal.com]

I had a decision moment when making this post. I thought the Homer image was quite clearly what I wanted to say, but then the subtlety of The Dude won out. Besides, Homer isn't looking very funny here :-(

What's sauce for the goose ...

[karbak.livejournal.com]

It's a comfort sport till you get a few strikes in a row of course. Then, it becomes a precision sport requiring rare micro-motor manipulation skills. How I wish Krishna and I had been quicker with the camera that long-ago night at Forward Lanes when you were, er, displaying both unusual muscular structure and lack of said micro-motor skills :-).

Perhaps you remember this ..

[karbak.livejournal.com]

[sunson.livejournal.com]

Did you take that photo? If yes, were you reading about heroin somewhere?

[sriniram.livejournal.com]

'That' photo? Which photo are you talking about?

[sriniram.livejournal.com]

The photo featuring "The Dude" is a scene from the movie "The Big Lebowski" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118715/). Yes, "the dude" is often on a diet of pot and white russians.

The photo of a bowling alley with a blurred figure in the center is taken with a Fuji FinePix 2650(?) at a bowling alley in Pittsburgh. The 2650 makes it impossible to take a picture without camera shake if you turn off the flash; actually a problem in all low end Finepix models.

[sunson.livejournal.com]

Yep, I'm talking about the "The Dude" photograph.

[sriniram.livejournal.com]

What's with the heroin reference?

[sunson.livejournal.com]

The "green" warmth.

heck, why am I so obsessed with substances once again? ;/

[charlesj.livejournal.com]

I always thought the "green" reference was strictly specific to Marijuana.

[sunson.livejournal.com]

All I remember is reading about someone's experience on erowid :)

... quoting from this heroin experience:

"All of a sudden, everything changes from bright sparkling white to green. I have never experienced anything that profound or inarguably real and irreversible in my life. It was like the color scheme of the entire universe shifted in under five seconds. It was like the background color that I wasn't even consciously aware of, the underlying colors of everything, just up and changed and there was no going back."

it sounded so cool to me... and then I did my LJ luserpic :D (not that I ever did heroin).

[karbak.livejournal.com]

No flash == less light => longer exposure => more chance of shake. Nothing peculiar to the Finepix.

[sriniram.livejournal.com]

Actually not. The problem is the exposure time is not user controllable, so the standard exposure is a really safe long exposure. Because it does not adjust for ambient light, I've seen the FinePix misbehave even under perfect light conditions.

[karbak.livejournal.com]

Actually not. The problem is the exposure time is not user controllable, so the standard exposure is a really safe long exposure. Because it does not adjust for ambient light, I've seen the FinePix misbehave even under perfect light conditions.

Umm, not quite. Exposure time may not be a directly adjustable parameter, but like any other camera made in the last few years, the Finepix uses exposure compensation alongwith 64 zone TTL monitoring to determine exposure. In manual mode (yes, it has one), you can adjust the EV value in steps of 0.3. See :

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2002_reviews/fuji_2650.html

If you look at the photo carefully, you'll notice that most of the problem is motion blur and not shake.

About 'The Dude'

[(Anonymous)]

Hey, its great to come across only the third Indian I know who has ever heard of and is a fan of 'The Dude'. My friend introduced me to 'The Big Lebowski' last year, and I have been completely taken over by him. Me and my friend thought we were the only fans of hin out here- well the world isn't so small after all. :)

Avinash.

e mail : avinashgk at gmail dot com

Re: About 'The Dude'

[sriniram.livejournal.com]

Heh! It's an all time favorite! Glad you enjoy it too!

[mannu.livejournal.com]

Ideally there's a bottle of beer or two making its way through your gullet when you amble up to your first ball.

Yeah, that's very motivating.