Fatlo.af

I’m sure there’s a lot of people who have an affinity for that cinematic classic The Sound of Music, I however, don’t. I can’t stand the bloody thing and it falls into the category of “musicals I will never watch unless subjected to torture by some foreign government”. It does have something good about it though, germans. Of course the movie focuses on the whole schoolyard pranksters that were the Nazi Party, I’m sure it was a big misunderstanding that holocaust thing, it was a joke they let go on for too long. In this long and drawn out reference, its all coming to a point now just bare with me, I’m talking about one of my favourite german bands who happen to be fairly heavily into facism. Those wacky germans, I’m sure there was someone back then who was thinking, “I want to be a little left of centre of the government”, then else someone said “not just left, way left, thats the shit right there”, thus facism was born. Anyway, the band, for those who got the point earlier on, I’m referring to Rammstein, a band noone could accuse of being a Wiggles cover group. I have recently procured a copy of their latest album and I must say that I like it lot. Maybe to the point of having its babies. The album is called “Reise, Reise” (Travel, Travel) and its gloriously angry and industrial in typical Rammstein fashion. Fantastic.

The weekend just gone was of course, as I mentioned earlier, the SA Under 25′s Youth Challenge. This year was no exception to years gone, a lot of fun, a multitude of damn fine examples of good bowlers in this state and the usual bungling of the SATBA. Nothing out of the ordinary.

A good example of this is what happened to my lovely photographer, she was just doing the rounds, taking a few shots. As you would expect in an indoor environment such as bowling is, you would normally use a flash. A regular flash lasts for less than a second and is hardly what I’d call distracting however the TBA in all its wisdom decided to issue her with a yellow card. I’m guessing the overlord of SATBA hasn’t ever been to any other sporting event in the world. Ever. Of course that last bit of information wouldn’t surprise me in the least if it was true.

<- I got a photo of the Lizbef’s team shirt too, I wasn’t too far off. Granted, it does look like Spence is cupping his breast, but I assure you he isn’t. This time.

I bowled fairly well on Saturday, I wasn’t too upset with it. I rolled out some fairly good numbers along with some fairly average ones too, but thats to be expected for me. Par for the course really. The rest of the Norwood boys performed fairly well too, all in all a good performance for the day. Doubles didn’t go quite as I would have liked, being that I didn’t win, but then again I have another year to go and you have to give others a chance some of the time. They’ll cry otherwise. Especially Ashley. I swear the model on the front of the redheads matches is based on Ashleys head.

Sunday was a different story. I was up and down, basically my bowling was decidedly average. With 2 300′s bowled in the first game of the day and a 299 (nice 4 pin Brad) bowled later in the day by my teammate it wasn’t going to put me in a good place for masters. Fortunately its a fun tournament and its not like I lost a wad of money on it so its not a huge concern. Would have been nice to bowl next weekend though. I’ll just take plenty of pictures instead.

So in summary the tournament was cool, as usual, lots of good people, good spectators, good choice of best sportsperson’s. I mean how could you go past someone who’s that multitalented, you could use Ben’s head as mop if you needed too. Fantastic.

Before I go on, I’m about to descend into bowling geek terms, there’s a strong possibility that if you don’t know much about bowling you are going to wonder what the fuck I’m talking about. Skip the next paragraph or two just to be safe. If you feel strong though, keep going.

However I would just like to delve for a minute into what we all played on over the weekend, the lane conditions. In my opinion the conditions were frightfully easy (I failed to stay up the top because of my own problems, it was nothing to do with the condition. All me baby). Just looking at the scores doesn’t really show the whole picture. To me these sorts of scores should be achievable anyway by these people but it was the manner in which they were scored that matters to me. As a rule, when the tech’s aren’t happy with the condition that the TBA wants put down because they feel its too easy, alarms tend to go off. Conditions vary from centre to centre, even the same pattern spec’s vary depending on the centre you go into. Knowing that if the tech’s laid down a competitive, harder condition there wouldn’t have been as many high scores but there would have been a better display of bowling is an interesting thought to process. My gripe isn’t the quality of the condition, don’t get me wrong. It was a good condition, I was happy with it. It was just too easy for the competition. I’m a fan of a harder, more accurate condition that means you have to rely on a pocket a mere few boards wide rather than 20 boards wide. At least a condition like that would test bowlers hoping to go onto bowling in the Brunswick Youth/Adult Cup in early December rather than creating a false impression of how their bowling is going and then struggling on a condition with normal amounts of oil on it. I know noone from SATBA will read this, but please take into consideration the strength of the competition and the advice of those who work on the lanes every single day when you decide on a condition for us to compete on, a harder condition may result in a lower average for the tournament but I can guarantee getting that top spot would be more rewarding. Thats what counts, not making the centre look good by having telephone numbers bowled all over the place to draw in a new batch of league bowlers who hope to mimic the scores.

I will close on a high though, two good guys got 300′s on Sunday, Alex Klass and Shane Tunnah. Top show boys, it was well worth it. Brad got a 299 but he was soft so it doesn’t count.

I look forward to this weekend where I can just sit back and watch them bowl. For those who will be there, I shall see you then.

After Sunday’s proceedings a few of us went on down to the Mawson Lakes Hotel for some dinner. Myself, Tavis’ family, Spence, and the lovely Official Fatloaf Photographer, Laura thought it would be a nice way to finish off the day. Spence, myself and Tavis embarked on the Mega Schnitzel Challenge they have down there, let me just take a moment to describe exactly how big this thing is. Take an A4 piece of paper and place it on a normal dinner plate. Thats it. Thats the size of the schnitzel. Plus chips on top of it. Spence was confident until he actually saw it, Tavis was cocky from the beginning but thats no different. We all hoed into it and as the end drew near it was apparent Tavis was suffering, Spence and I finished easily but Tav stopped and eventually gave in to defeat. He was defeated by a schnitzel. Much like Poland, he was defeated by a German. Of course much name calling and merriment was had at his expense. We even took photo’s.

That brings this post to a close, I’m going back to my Rammstein now.