May 27, 2010

Let the good times Rolllllll



So a couple months ago i was introduced to the wonders of the Gloucester DiscoBowl. I'm from a small town up in Maine, where there's literally 1 stop light...and nothing brings me back more than the inside of a candlepin bowling lane. Between the sanitation nightmare that are the bowling shoes (worn barefoot like a true Mainer) and the plethora of pregnant teenagers, it was home sweet home for me.

[Side note - The Lifetime movie about the pregnancy pact is 100% accurate. Pregnant girls were chuggin hennessy and punching each other in the stomach all night long.]

Obviously there are differences between Maine lanes and the modern marvels down here in the civilized world.
1- Awesome dinosaur bowling graphics. Get a strike and a pterodactyl comes and snags all your pins on the video scoring screen. No really, it adds a whole new element to the game. Bowlin' with Fred Flinstone, bitches.
2- Automatic ball counter - No, this isn't the same as the "invention" created by the creepy gym teacher that "fitted you" for your protective cup back in elementary school. This is a crazy little work of ingenuity that counts how many throws you've taken. Benefit? Saves you the massive pain in the ass of pushing the pin-reset button after you've tossed your 3. Drawback? No more "practice round" before and after each string. It seems that down here in the big city they've caught on to the fact that for every 1 string paid for, 3 are stolen out from under the establishment's proverbial nose, normally by way of 4+ balls being thrown at once.

One thing that's not any different - birthday parties. It's really what separates the blue bloods from the blue collars. The Pabst Blue Ribbon from the Johnny Walker Blues, if you will.  Everyone that was ever under the age of 12 knows that the really good birthdays were the ones at the 'Alley. Why? Because nobody wants to get all dressed up to go somewhere and watch someone that's NOT them receive and play with cool(-er than yours) toys for free. ...Try and get a few minutes of quality time with the little shit's new GI Joe, and all of a sudden you're the selfish one. At the bowling alley, everyone wins. If you have a quarter, then you're blowin' away bad guys from 2053 and chowing on free pizza while Jimmy is face-planting in his pile of convenience store gifts.

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