7/07/2002 - Entry #11
Well, that was much better than I expected. The first bowling game of the league was yesterday, and it went surprisingly well. First of all, we turned up and were told that we had to divide ourselves into pairs. This was obviously some kind of sinister plan to topple the mighty "I Can't Believe It's Not Gutter". Divide and conquer. Did they think we were stupid enough to fall for the oldest trick in the book? You've got to get up bright and early to catch me out, Mr. AMF. Unfortunately, despite our fierce opposition to their evil rules, and faced with expuslion from the league if we refused to co-operate, we reluctantly turned our winning formula into two smaller teams (there were only 4 of us there this week). Ollie and I would be team the first, known as "Utterly Gutterly". Steve and Stu would be team the second, known as ASDA's cheap knock-off alternative, "You'd Gutter Believe It". When Tony and Dave join next week, they'll be something equally droll and ribald, no doubt. Collectively, of course, we'll be known as the unshakeable, unbreakable, I Can't Believe It's Not Gutter. You may have won this battle, AMF, but you won't win the war!
Oh, results, right. Yeah, I went into the whole thing thinking I was incredibly lucky to be on Ollie's team. If I haven't mentioned yet, Ollie's a really good bowler. He's the Treasurer of the Sheffield University Bowling Team, so he obviously goes a couple of times every week, and is getting better all the time. He's the best player of all of us, and he was on my team. Top drawer. Maybe he'd be good enough to pull me through the rankings? Surely we at least couldn't get last place with Ollie on the team, right? Right guys? Guys? But as things turned out, I played an absolute blinder. I mean, by my standards anyway. I told you my usual scores yesterday or the day before, whenever it was. Getting over 100 is fairly good for me, and my personal best was 120. That's not even close to "Good" at bowling, but what can you do? Anyway, so imagine my surprise and astonishment when I beat my best ever score twice in three games, and came close to three. I know! I felt the same way. Believe me, your aghast expression explains it all. The way the league works is that each team is made up of two people. Those two people play three games each, and add together their 6 final scores to make 1 big team total for the week. Whichever team in the league gets the best overall total that week, gets 20 points. The team with the second best score that week gets 19. Third team get 18, etc etc. So I stepped up to the lane for my first ball, dreading the embarrassment and shame that awaited me, all eyes on me, hating the pressure.....strike! W-..I mean...Ho-.....Where did that come from? Clearly this is an anomaly on my record, and must be treated as such. Don't worry lads, won't happen again. You can go back to feeling safe in the knowledge that I'm SHIT at bowling. Oh, it's my turn again? Okay, you'll see, it'll be awful......strike! Okay this is silly now. What on earth is going on? I get a Double with my first two balls? I'm meant to be absolutely atrocious at bowling! Somehow, though, I kept that up through the whole game. I ended up with a score of 129, which as I mentioned was a personal best. Second game was slightly worse, due to a really horrible miss following a spare (Great Britain, nil points), but I still ended up with 115, which is just shy of my previous best. Third game was an absolute corker, and I finished with a majestic 148. I'm pretty sure NOBODY saw that one coming. From all the way down-fucking-town, outside of the left boot, launches it, noggins, far stick, make a motherfucking MOCKERY! In your face Miyamoto! And any other catchy adage shenanigans you can think of. Far as I'm concerned, I did damn well. Of the four of us, I came in second place, with Ollie winning, so Utterly Gutterly are all set to just storm, to literally storm the league. Oh yes. You trifled with our plans, AMF, and you'll pay the price. You'll be laughing on the other side of your fat, bespectacled face, special-bowling-shoe-lending boy! Oh, oh, you'll be eating those words, smelly and vaguely unattractive ginger scoresheet woman! Oh yes you will. You're on the fucking list, bitch!
Anyway, so that's my story. What else was I gonna talk about? Oh yeah, the Snapshot thing. I think I need a replacement section for that. It just seems like a stupid idea, in hindsight. See, initially, it was intended to be an expansion on those crappy "Current mood:" things you see floating around on people's diaries, and especially on Livejournal. It was half a mockery and half an indulgence of it. But it just doesn't seem to work. I can never be bothered to update it, and it's a dumb section anyway. So I'm throwing it open to my frankly enormous audience of 6 or 7 people to decide what the replacement should be. If, of course, you think it should be changed at all (or just updated more often). I'm vaguely thinking of putting up a little mini picture of whatever I'm working on lately, so that A) you can see what I'm up to when I'm not updating or whatever, B) there's some kind of evidence from the front page that I do actually work from time to time, and C) I don't have to change the "Snapshot" title. But if someone has a good idea, feel free to suggest it.
I was going to write a review of the André Popp album in my Gallery of Essentials, but I haven't got round to it yet. I might try and do that before I go to bed, and upload it tomorrow. Sorry, Ed. I tried my very-nearly-something-resembling-best, but not quite. I'll upload a couple of mp3s tomorrow though, so you can listen to his mastery while you read the review. Can't say fairer than that. I'm cutting my own throat with a deal like that.
Please sign the Guestbook. For the love of God, sign it now.