MORE SENSELESS ACTS OF BLOGGERY

I am in a bowling competition with a group of people, one of whom is Ben Stiller.

It starts off as a friendly game, but gets more and more competitive. At one point I go over the foul line and a woman on the other team starts making a big deal about it – “Mark it zero!” So when it’s her turn to bowl, I get up and take a position at the foul line like a referee, letting her know full well I’m going to make sure she doesn’t cross that line. This makes her lose her concentration and roll two gutter balls. She’s furious with me but I just shrug and say: “League rules!”

At some point the game shifts so that instead of bowling balls, we have to throw CDs like Frisbees at the pins. Everyone else seems to do okay with this, but I can’t seem to hit anything with them, and I fall behind in the score.

Meanwhile, we are becoming surrounded by old people who are apparently tourists visiting the bowling alley. They take the lanes on either side of us, and now it’s getting very crowded. Ben Stiller is getting increasingly agitated and starts screaming at people to stop distracting him. Then he starts cheating, throwing several balls down the lane at once, snapping people’s asses with a bowling towel to make them miss their shot, etc.

Finally it’s the last frame and Ben is neck and neck with a guy named Jim, who just needs a strike to win. Jim rolls the ball and leaves a 3-10 split, but at the same time, one of the elderly tourists makes a wild roll that bounces into Jim’s lane and picks up the spare a second after Jim’s ball hits, so the machine records it as a strike. Jim wins. Stiller goes ballistic with rage, kicks the ball return, then takes off his bowling shoes and starts throwing them at the elderly. The police come and drag him away.

Afterwards, I talk to Jim and we both agree it shouldn’t have counted as a strike, but given the way Stiller behaved, we might as well let it stand to teach him a lesson. We also agree it’s too bad the way the game went, because Stiller actually is a really good bowler.

And then I woke up,

This ain’t ‘Nam,

This is dF

1. Go to the Taito X-Bowl in Odawara, Japan.

2. Select the 300 Bowling Challenge (it’s the lane with 300 pins set up on it).

3. Roll the ball and knock down all the pins.



CONSUMER ADVISORY: Results will not be recognized by the Professional Bowlers Association, The United States Bowling Congress or the World Tenpin Bowling Association.

PRODUCTION NOTE: It’s all in Japanese (which I don’t speak), but you get the basic idea. One thing of note: it takes that guy close to 40 minutes to set up the pins (which is why they only get something like five people a day to do it).

I know this because the 300 Bowling Challenge was featured recently on a local game show that features Japanese oddities like this.

EXTRA CREDIT: The Space Invader bowling balls at the 0:19 mark is a nice touch.

That’s how we bowl,

This is dF