Now, there's been a few things updated. First of all, the comics. Triple comic day. Second of all, the tag search defaults to alphabetical sort instead of by popularity. I'm sure I had a very good reason for doing it that way originally, but I forgot it so I'm doing things the sensible way now. Thirdly, NamirDeiter.net is in the midst of a major revamp. We've added a bunch of navigation features to the commentary - archive pages, storyline navigation, weekly view. You can now view the comments for a week of comics at a time. We're still getting things converted over and features added as time goes by, so expect more stuff this time next week.
Isabel and I went bowling a little while back*. It didn't look that hard to get good at bowling.
I will note that there are three phases with any activity. A thing looks difficult when you don't know much about it. You learn a little about it, and it looks easy. Then you find out about the inherent complexity and that most of the little random elements aren't so random at all, and find out that it is very difficult indeed.
I'm at the middle step when it comes to bowling. I realize that bowling is not inherently set up so that you get better at it. If you want to be a good batter, you go into a batting cage and hit a hundred balls in a row. You repeat the motions so that your body becomes used to it. If you bowl, you throw a ball, wait for the pins to get reset, wait for your ball to return, and throw a second ball. Then you wait until everyone else has had a turn and go again.
If you want to really get good at it, you'd throw a hundred balls in a row and get a better idea what works and what doesn't. So it occurs to me that a bowling alley would run a lot faster without pins than with them. Removing them would be trivial - you can measure the speed and angle the ball is coming at, and the rest is just physics.
But I realize that's not the point of bowling. Half the fun is hearing the ball hit the pins and seeing them fly. That's the whole satisfaction of it. It reminds me of why some writers stuck to manual typewriters long after electric ones were available. Or why others stuck to electric typewriters after word processors were available. Or why I'll still be using a physical keyboard once on-screen ones are the norm. If you take that away, it's hardly worth throwing the ball.
So my plan would involve becoming really good at bowling by making it not fun at all. At that point, I decided I was better off waiting for the ball return, even if it gave me time to come up with plans like this.
*: About a month; I need to write these things more often.
Favorite You Say it First story (Year 1, Division A)Votes so far: 148
Now, we're not getting as many votes in these polls as we did in other ones, but this is a much more involved question. Now, I will say that A Date In The Park is one of my favorite stories, and there's a reason why it made the cover of book 2. I can't say much more about it without it sounding like I'm bragging, but it's one of my favorites and I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so.