On a roll

After two weeks of less than stellar bowling (too bad to even blog about), tonight I came back with a vengeance. I had a very good first game (151) - but I was just warming up. The second game was nothing short of amazing. It included two turkeys and seven total strikes. Tack on two spares and the final result was a whopping 212. It was the best game I've ever bowled, and the 212 utterly shattered my previous personal best of 160.

Apparently the bowling alley's printer isn't working, so I don't have any physical proof of this phenomenal feat. But I do have a number of very reliable eyewitnesses. Several of them even performed the Arrested Development chicken dance in honor of the turkeys. Sadly, a few of our team members were MIA this week, so they missed out on all the avian celebration.

Going solo, together

The first day of February marked the return of law school bowling. This year, we're bowling at Chippewa Lanes, on the south end of South Bend. It's the third bowling alley in as many years for us 3Ls, which I think means that we've sampled every bowling establishment that the South Bend-Mishawaka area has to offer. Although the beer selection at Chippewa is less than ideal, the facilities are nice. There are lots of lanes, so the entire law school can bowl at once with room to spare. It looks like they'll be keeping the snack bar open for the duration of the night's bowling. And South Bend's smoking ban means that I don't leave smelling of an ashtray.

I'm part of a six-member team called Solo Practitioners. Only five of us made it out to the lanes tonight because one member is on the disabled list due to a snowboarding injury. We decided to join the competitive league, which includes the vast majority of the law school's teams. This means that we go head-to-head against another team for the first seven weeks. Tonight our opponent was a team going by the name of... I Can't Believe It's Not Gutter. Some of you may remember that that was the name of the bowling team I was on my 1L year. But none of this ICBING's members are former teammates - they're all 1Ls. I know it's entirely coincidental, but it would be cool if that team name were always be reserved for a 1L team. Anyway, they had some pretty fun shirts - bright yellow with "I Can't Believe It's Not Gutter" that parodied the logo of the Fabio-hocked product, and the name of a butter substitute (e.g., margarine, canola, olive oil...) on the back.

We had a very strong showing tonight. The team hit the ground running with everyone breaking 100 in the first game. Most of the scores dropped a bit in the second round, but it was enough to earn Solo Practitioners two wins over the new ICBING. Highlights of the night included two near-turkeys, an ICBING bowler dropping the ball on the back swing, our team captain's impressive 142, and the eclectic mix of music spanning about four decades. Here are the scores (aside from my scores, I've used initials for my teammates until I know if they want their identities kept confidential):

Alex: 119, 129
M: 111, 89
A: 123, 98
B: 142, 104
S: 119, 99
A (in absentia*): 66, 52

Solo Practitioners team scores: 680, 571
ICBING team scores: 533, 497

*Because we only had five bowlers tonight and the SBA needs us to report six scores, we filled our empty spot with the lowest score from our opponent's team.

All in all, it was a great start to our last year of law school bowling.

The high-bowlin' Manatees

The ICBMs had a strong showing tonight, and for the first time the scores counted. Since we're a mixed team, we report our top two mens' scores and top two ladies' scores for the evening. The ladies put in a particularly strong showing, with scores approaching the 150 mark in the second game. Both Conscientious Objector and Private Injury achieved personal bests. Comandant Nugatory En Fuego and Private Injury both bowled turkeys tonight. Major Ho also came within a pin of a turkey. Conscientious Objector was our clutch frame-closer, and she often followed up her spares with strikes. But the amazing feat of the night - a phantom strike - was pulled off by PFC LCD. A well thrown ball knocked out nine pins, and nudged the tenth just enough out of allignment to fool the computerized scoring system into calling it a strike.

Here were toinght's scores (those we reported are highlighted):

Comandant Nugatory En Fuego: 137, 85, 133
Conscientious Objector: 92, 146, 128
Major Ho: 107, 120, 128
PFC LCD: 93, 94
Private Injury: 92, 147, 110

So it was an excellent start to the scoring portion of the law school bowling league. Hopefully we'll be able to build on this. Let's see if next week the men can step it up a bit.

ICBM Report

The ICBMs took to the lanes last night in what everyone thought would be the first scoring night of law school bowling. But due to a mistake by those in charge, scores won't start counting until next week. Still, it was a fun night. We had eight team members present, so we bowled in two shifts of four. Here are last night's scores:

Commandant Nugatory El Fuego: 151
Bombradier Brian: 98
Major Ho: 116
Colonel Killin': 91

Lieutenant Luddite: 78
Private Snuffy: 119
Private Injury: 76
PFC LCD: 90

A few highlights: Nugatory lived up to her en fuego designation with a huge 151 - almost a personal best. The Colonel came back from a slow start to almost turkey in the final frame. The snack bar's french fries and onion rings were also very tasty.

It's unfortunate that Nugatory's 151 and Snuffy's 119 won't count beacuse of the scoring snafu, but the Manatees hope to do just as well next week.

Manatees roll on

Despite attrition in our ranks, morale was high tonight. Blacklights, 80s music, and potent potables -- what's not to like?

Not much to say in the way of highlights tonight. Nugatory did manage to bounce a ball out of the gutter once, and I demonstrated the meaning of "choke" by following up two strikes by bowling a 1. I didn't get a turkey; I simply bowled like one. Well, maybe a turkey would've done better.


"I could've bowled better than that."

Yeah, so consistency continues to be our weak suit, but hopefully that will improve over time. Supposedly this was the last night of "practice," meaning that our scores didn't count. It all starts for real next week.

ICBMs

Introducing this year's bowling team, the ICBMs. That stands for Intercontinental Ballistic Manatees. (It's a reference to a certain manatee that was inadvertently launched through the air in Professor Tidmarsh's torts exam from last year.)


Not our bowling team.

With our first strike capability we hope to rocket to the top of the standings, so long as our general lack of talent doesn't blow up in our faces. (Okay, I'll knock it off with the puns, I promise. Bet you're wishing I hadn't returned to blogging now, huh?) Tonight was just practice, so no real scores or highlights. But stay tuned, things are bound to get interesting in the upcoming weeks.


The secret weapon.

A Farewell to (Bowling) Arms

Last night was the final night of the NDLS bowling league. ICBING wrapped up the season with a good performance. Here are the scores:

One Arm: 140, 110
8 lb: 62, 88
Nugatory en Fuego: 115, 125
Wrong Lane: 160, 121
Bowling InJury: 104, 81
Breaks 50, et al.: 93, 110

Nugatory also has a report here, and InJury posted some pics here.

Some additional highlights:

InJury successfully bowled backwards for the second half of the second game, picking up several spares. Wrong Lane also scored a personal best of 160 in the first game, which included four consecutive strikes. (Apparently this is known as a four-bagger, though I personally prefer Nugatory's term for it - 'buffalo.') We're pretty sure last night's scores didn't count towards the league standings (I use that term very loosely, since I don't think anyone knew what the standings were, or even if there were any, for most of the season), and I haven't seen the final result. But rumor has it that ICBING may have placed second...

It's been a lot of fun bowling with ICBING, and all of us are a bit sad that it's over. But there's always next year. InJury has suggested that we create a team named "Gutter Hos."

Irish Bowling

It's Thursday night, and time for a special St. Patty's Day edition of ICBING bowling!

We were a bit shorthanded tonight with only 5 bowlers. (The other ConLaw section has its final on Monday.) We decided not to rotate through a phantom slot, and just kick back and enjoy. Things were very festive tonight. Most people were wearing green for the occasion, green beer flowed freely, and we were even serenaded by bagpipes. There was also a video camera floating around, though I'm not quite sure why. Non-internets rumors speculate that the bowling alley might have been filming a commercial.

Here were tonight's scores:

Wrong Lane: 115, 155
Bowling Injury: 80, 101
Breaks 50, et al.: 92, 88
One Arm Bandit: 127, 132
No Show*: 133, 118

* So named because despite being on the team roster from the beginning, No Show made his first appearance tonight

Some of the highlights:
Wrong Lane bowled a personal best of 155 which included a turkey. No Show dazzled all with his bowling prowess (where have you been all season?!). One Arm put in a very strong showing; the jury is out on whether having the use of both arms has benefitted his balance.
Since we only had five bowlers, we managed to fit in a third game that didn't count towards the standings. No Show experimented (unsuccessfully) with bowling between his legs. Bowling Injury demonstrated considerable talent at bowling backwards, racking up 19 pins in three frames and almost getting a spare.

Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated

Worry not, I am still alive. Currently, I'm on mid-semester break in Ohio. As my parents are still using dial-up, my internet access hasn't been all that great. I apologize for not posting much in the recent weeks, but my LegWri brief was eating up a lot of my time. You know how the saying goes, the Law is a jealous mistress and all that.

I had hoped to post some in-depth bowling coverage, but alas the scores are still back in South Bend. But here's a general recap of last Thursday:

Most of ICBING showed up, and our first game went pretty well. I bowled a 120, far above my average. 10 pin and Take a Knee also bowled well, raking in big numbers. Performance dropped off in the second game. Nevertheless, I triumphed over Bowling Injury, winning a new bet and restoring my good name. Bowling Injury now owes me a beer, and will be driving next week (on St. Patty's day, no less). Afterwards, several of us decided to get a jump on celebrating the end of the first half of the second semester. (It's hard to believe that we're now 25% of the way through law school!) There was drinking, dancing, and general craziness at the 'Backer. Then we stumbled home to our beds and a general state of unconscoiusness. That it was a good night was more or less confirmed by the next morning's hangover.

The LegWri brief is now finished (or perhaps more appropriately, abandonned). After putting a few finishing touches on it, I handed it in Friday afternoon. Despite the delays caused by this and Pres. Shrub's visit to ND, I made the trek back to Ohio and arrived late Friday night.

Since then, I've been relaxing, catching up with Honor, and doing a little reading. Honor had her last choir concert on Saturday night. It was a very good concert. OSU Men's Glee opened, and I enjoyed all of the performances.

On Sunday night I reconnected with an old friend from high school. Matt's just finished getting his Masters in Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), and is now back in Chillicothe to conduct his job search. He doesn't plan to get a job here, just live at home to cut costs while hunting for a job.

That's pretty much all that's been happening lately. I'll try to post a little more frequently now that the brief's behind me. But updates may still be a bit slow while I'm in Ohio and using dial-up.

Bowling Recap coming soon

I apologize to any and all readers who were looking forward to a recap of last week's bowling escapades. I'll post a full update soon.

But, at the prodding of Bowling Injury I feel compelled to mention that I lost a bet on Thursday. For the second game, Bowling Injury and I made a friendly wager - loser buys the winner a beer. Although I started to come back strong at the end, Bowling Injury bowled a better game.

Congratulations, Bowling Injury. Your free beer is well deserved.

Bowling Recap

Here's a very brief recap of last night's bowling exploits.
ICBING was running on a skeleton crew: we only had five bowlers. We rotated people into the sixth spot so that we'd have a full complement against over, more fully staffed teams.
Here's what the scores looked like:

Wrong Lane: 95, 104
Take a Knee: 130, 94
Nugatory En Fuego: 122, 100
Bowling InJury: 107, 86
Breaks 50 (and sometimes 100, her average is about 70, compared to a princess, "&", attractive nuisance): 83, 58

Ghost Person: 123, 88

It was Take a Knee's birthday, and he was showered with gifts ranging from store bought cookies to a bowling pin (the kind you wear, not the kind you knock down) to shamrock wristbands to a green plastic St. Patty's Day hat. Take a Knee also wore some very fashionable socks that had a bowling ball and pins on it - and if you folded it down, it sported the word "BOWLING."

Take a Knee also had the quote of the night, while talking to Breaks 50 (et al):
"If you don't break 50, then the terrorists win... Sleeper cells are pulling for a 48, if you know what I mean."

Although much fun was had by all, we look forward to having the full team together again for next week.

P.S. The naming committee (see last post) has been overruled, and bowlers will be known by their former names. Well, except for Breaks 50, who simply adds a few names to her already extensive list each week.

UPDATE: Pictures of the team now available here, courtesy of Bowling Injury!

New bowling names...

Apparently, the old nicknames weren't good enough, probably because they didn't rise to the proper level of law geekiness. A self-appointed naming committee set out to rectify this oversight, however, and I've been asked to post their results:

Alex: Tresspass to real property
Emily: Strict Liability
Chris M.: Contributory negligence
Chris N.: Res Ipsa
Brooke: Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
Jaime: Attractive nuisance
Christine: Proximate cause
Stephen: Assumption of the risk
Blake: Assault
Kelsi: Battery

Yes, we're big dorks. But I'm only the messenger this time around.

ICBING update

Thursday night - time for a bowling update.

After last week's stellar performance, there was bound to be a slight slump. ICBING still did pretty well, though. The team decided to change a few things tonight. First was the roster. Our roster changes on a weekly basis. Tonight we actuallly bowled 8 bowlers for both games, and dropped the two lowest scores. Next, names. Instead of putting our real names into the computer, we entered our nicknames. More on the effect of this below in the highlight reel. Finally, Wrong Lane and Breaks 50 (aka "I want to change my name every week or more often but Alex doesn't seem to like the idea") decided to experiment with the effect of beer on their bowling skills. The jury's still out on that - I think further testing will be required.

And now for the score recap:

Wrong Lane: 83, 115
Take a Knee: 109, 153
9 pin (aka 10 pin, aka Turkey - see below): 106, 124
En Fuego (fka On Fire): 119, 96
8lb (fka 7lb): 57, 112
The Edge (fka Pinky): 166, 131
Breaks 50 (aka so many other names...): 121, 69
Newbie: 94, 98

Highlight reel:

The big story of the night was some name switching for 9 pin. The name had become something of a curse, resulting in 4 straight open frames (of nine pins, naturally) to start off the game. To break the curse, the team decided to change the name to 10 pin, which immediately resulted in a spare. Bolstered by this effect, the team rechristened him Turkey. Unfortunately, this didn't pan out quite as expected.

Take a Knee and Breaks 50 had another friendly wager for a week's worth of bragging rights. Take a Knee had to beat Breaks 50's score (for the evening - both games combined) by thirty pins. Breaks 50 jumped out to a commanding lead, bowling a personal best of 121 and led Take a Knee by 12 pins going into the second game. But Take a Knee came back strong. A turkey in the tenth frame clinched it, giving Take a Knee another week of heckling rights.

Wrong Lane didn't bowl in the wrong lane tonight, but the other team did during his turn (effectively bowling for him); maybe the SBA will stop sending emails that lead to such confusion.

Life in the Fast Lane

Well, it's Thursday night, which means it's time for another Bowling Update!

Lane assignments changed tonight so that we could face a different team (standings are calculated on a win/loss/tie system). Our team name (I Can't Believe It's Not Gutter!)got a bit butchered, appearing as "r can't believe it's not g" and "r can't believe it's not gutte." I pointed this out to the staff and hopefully it will be corrected for next week.

Tonight's performance was a marked improvement from last week. For starters, everyone broke 100 in the night's first game. Even better, we found out that they set handicaps based on last week, so our score should look all the more impressive. A brief rundown of tonight's performances:

r can't believe it's not g(utte)
Wrong Lane: 114, 134
Take a Knee: 113, 129
9-pin: 144, 109
On Fire: 158, 147
One-arm bandit: 104
Breaks 50 (f/k/a Secret Agent): 106, 97
Bowling Injury: 97

And now some color commentary:

Wrong Lane put in an impressive showing, breaking the all-important 100 barrier in both games. A spare-spare-strike combo in the last two frames of the second game landed a personal best of 134. Wrong Lane continued to live up to the name tonight, once again bowling on the... wrong lane.

Take a Knee put up solid numbers tonight, again breaking 100 in both games. Though not up to the same average score from last week, Take a Knee won a bet by beating Break 50's second score by more than 30 points.

9-pin had considerable success in the first game, causing our team to rethink the nickname. There were some errant gutterballs in the second game, but 9-pin continues to be a strong leader on the team. 9-pin has bowled four consecutive 100+ games.

On Fire more than lived up to the name by posting ICBING's top score for both games and by being one of the team's most enthusiastic cheerleaders. On Fire was closing frames left and right with strikes and spares. In addition, On Fire bowled three consecutive strikes during the first game to get the elusive and much sought after turkey.

One-arm bandit bowled the first game, and rounded out the impressive team showing of six 100+ scores. While pleased with the team's considerably better performance, One-arm bandit probably wishes it had come a week sooner when there was a bet with the opposing team.

One of the great Cinderella stories of season is Breaks 50. The team may have to consider a different name for this bowler (again) after tonight's showing. But we might keep it for irony's sake if this hot streak continues. Hopefully the 40+ point improvement from last week will ease the pain of losing a bet to Take a Knee (see above). Nevertheless, Breaks 50 gave Take a Knee a moment's pause by throwing a strike to open the tenth frame.

Bowling Injury took over for One-arm bandit and served as "relief bowler" for the second game. After last week's double gutterball incident, some may have been concerned. But that concern would have been unfounded, as Bowling Injury hit the gates running with two spares. Although unable to maintain such an impressive pace, there were no repeats of the double gutterball and Bowling Injury came oh-so-close to the 100 mark.

Thursday Bowl-blogging

The NDLS Bowling League officially kicked off tonight (as in, the scores actually counted).
I Can't Believe It's Not Gutter had a lot of fun, but we're going to have to kick things up a few notches to keep up with the other teams. Tonight's scoring (under aliases, to protect the bowling challenged):

Wrong Lane: 99, 105
Take a Knee: 136, 139
9-pin: 123, 114
On Fire: 121
7-pounder: 49
Pinky: 121, 96
7/One-arm bandit: 65
Secret Agent: 59
Bowling Injury: 0 (one frame, double gutter ball)

We're also working on the logo for our team t-shirt. I'll post a picture once the design is finalized, but until then I'll just say "flying manatee."

Oh, and there was a bowler in the lane next to us who did two things of note tonight:
1) threw the ball backwards - as in towards those waiting to bowl, away from the pins
2) threw the highest "lob ball" I've ever seen - I think it was airborne for half the length of the lane
All I can say is Wow.

A long overdue post

My apologies for the long absence. Apparently there are a few of you out there who actually missed reading my entries, especially while sitting in class.

The first week back is now out of the way, and I've finally secured all my books, know what last semester's grades are, and generally adjusted to a new schedule. ConLaw's been less exciting than I originally expected until today, when two of my fellow classmates engaged in an interesting debate over the role of SCOTUS. One debator even cut off our prof a few times, prompting her to chide him that in a courtroom he'd be expected to show greater deference to authority.

Property's been more interesting than I anticipated. In addition to reading cases about foxes, whales, ducks, and lobsters, today we had a rousing discussion on acquiring parking spaces and errant baseballs. Professor Garnett also has a sarcastic streak that I find amusing (which reminds me a little of Honor).

Second helpings of CivPro and Contracts are about what I expected so far. Legal writing is still annoying in that it still meets at 8 in the morning, but the case we will be working on seems pretty interesting so far (though I may soon come to loathe Emma and her idiopathic scoliosis, much as I cannot help but shudder whenever I hear the name Jani Weston). And Depositions is pretty much the same as last semester (it is the exact same class, only with a few new profs and all new students), except I know a lot more about what's going on.

I'll also be assisting the TrialAd course this semester, acting as one of the 1L "jury commissioners." I had a lunch meeting with Professor Seckinger and company today, and it sounds like it'll be an interesting time.

But the big news around the law school is the start of the Law School Bowling League. This is a pretty big thing here at NDLS, and I'd say the vast majority of people I know are participating. We'll go bowling almost every Thursday this semester, and they'll keep track of how the various teams do. Some teams have picked out clever names like "Splitigation," "Motion to Strike," "Holy Rollers," and "Six Drunks and a Ringer." So far my team's name is the rather uninspired "The Bowlers." Really? Is that the best we can do? I say we can come up with something more amusing. Sure, many of the good law/bowling puns may be taken, but no one said it had to fit that mold. We don't have to go super-law-geek and name ourselves "12b6" or "Proximate Cause." We could go only somewhat geeky with something like "Palsgraf's Pins." Or just something else entirely - based at least on my bowling prowess, I suggest "Mostly Harmless."