The iPod: Technological Marvel or Product of Witchcraft?

Although BowlingJoe is "state of the art" when it comes to bowling equipment, he is typically between 5-7 years behind the times when it comes to acquiring music recording and playback technology. I'll latch on to it eventually, but it just takes time.

In high school, my cutting-edge friends had the best and newest cassette decks in their vehicles while my 1971 Datsun 1200 and the 8-track setup mounted under the dashboard limped into the graveyard together. Compact Disc players were available for several years before I decided it was time to set those big beautiful vinyl albums in the closet for good.

And now that I've amassed a collection of somewhere around 600 CDs I figured it was time to leap full bore into the new century and get an iPod. I didn't exactly have to buy it though and likely wouldn't have. It came to me via a rewards and recognition program at work. And since Apple recently came out with a new 120-gigabyte classic model the timing just seemed right.

I've learned that 120 gigs is enough to hold the content of approximately 3,000 music CDs. I think I'm safe and will have plenty of room left over for pictures, podcasts, and movies should I choose to load that stuff on.

Anyone under 30 can't possibly relate to this, but it seems like nothing short of witchcraft that a device not much bigger than a credit card can potentially contain an amount of music equal to FIVE TIMES my entire collection.

Ah, but now comes the "fun" part: loading them on to the iPod via the free iTunes software I downloaded onto the P.C. Although it's fairly fast, they do take time to load individually. I figure it'll be a major project, taking weeks and weeks of picking away at it.

After around a week of going at it alphabetically, I'm proud so say that I'm a little over halfway through the "D"s at this time, having just loaded the five Dire Straits discs that I own. You can bet that the champagne corks will be popping by the time I get to Frank Zappa and Warren Zevon.

The Super Bowl Of Bowling

("Movies With" Maury Eskenazi, Jeff "The Fish" Aaron, Sandi, Karl, BowlingJoe, Ingrid)

I have a confession to make. I didn’t invent the name of this blog, “BowlingJoe”. Jeff “The Fish” Aaron did. He's a professional inventor of nicknames and hosts a pretty entertaining sports talk show on KRKO AM 1380 in Everett during weekday afternoons called, appropriately enough, “3-6 With The Fish”.

We’re not close pals by any stretch. I have a 6am – 3pm job at Boeing, go to bed early and tend to lead a quiet normal life. The Fish, when he’s not on the air, is busy promoting the station and his show, giving away prizes and asking trivia questions at venues that vary from Comcast Arena in Everett to dive bars that are likely on the verge of being closed by the Department of Health. He also hits his stride at about the point that I’m halfway through a good night’s sleep.

But I'm happy to say that we do cross paths occasionally at a concert or a promotional event that he runs when there’s still daylight outside. On Monday January 26th (which happened to be my birthday) I broke that rule of thumb as he and the station sponsored a fun bowling tournament at Lynnwood Bowl and Skate, called The Super Bowl of Bowling.

I’ve been listening to The Fish for lots of years, dating back to the days when HE had to get up early and work the morning shift at KJR 950 with the insufferable and egotistical Mitch Levy (who inexplicably is still employed there). I remember Fish as being one of the only guys in his line of work who actually treated the sport of bowling with some respect and didn’t constantly lampoon it as the rest of them did.

He’s about my age and we have some of the same memories of watching The Pro Bowlers Tour on ABC with Chris Schenkel and Nelson Burton Jr. calling the action. Those were the days when you could always count on Earl Anthony, Mark Roth, or Marshall Holman (or some combination of the three) to be on the show.

The Fish, in addition to being an occasional league bowler with a respectable 180-ish average, even bowled with (and bested as he reminds me) Hall of Famer Parker Bohn III at a radio station exhibition in Bellevue at a mall several years ago.

A few days before the event I got busy rounding up three people from our Thursday night league to complete the team. Enlisted into duty were Karl, Ingrid, and Sandi (who was fighting laryngitis and relied heavily on sign language). At stake were bragging rights, trophies and small prizes for: (1) the best team, (2) the worst team and (3) the team that finished in the middle of the 24-squad pack. I don’t need to tell anyone what trophy our players felt we had the divine right to own.

To make matters more interesting, I made an on-the-air head-to-head bet with The Fish. Best two out of three games in which I would spot him the generous sum of fifty pins per game. If I win, I get a new radio show t-shirt. A loss would require that I buy him a pitcher of cold beer. Before hanging up the phone, I expressed confidence that I would prevail, telling him and his audience that I was wearing my lucky bowling thong. I got the feeling that disgusted him (and any listeners who may have been trying to eat dinner) far more than it sent any degree of psychological fear into his consciousness.

When we arrived at the bowling center, we learned very quickly that the environment was going to be much different than at a league or a tournament. The lights went out, the music started thumping and the mirror ball was twirling, sending random blots of light on to the hardwoods. As a guy who uses the arrows to line up I knew that scoring was going to be a challenge. Not to mention my concerns about the flashing lights sending me reeling into an on-lane seizure. But it was time to go into battle, not to make excuses.

Our team got off to a slow start, adjusting to the conditions. At the end of 4 frames, my score was an unimpressive 50, but I managed to start stringing strikes to finish with a respectable 206 to Fish’s 135 game. Advantage to BowlingJoe after game one.

Strikes were few and far between for the rest of the night. I grinded out a 187 in game two but won by only 40 pins or so and lost the match, forcing us to go to game three. I thought in the back of my mind that Fish had a decent game in him before the night was done, and unfortunately I was right. He rolled a nice 172 to my 180-something game and won the bet.

As for our team, we didn’t have the best night but we somehow managed to take first place, bragging rights, and individual bowling trophies. My first bowling trophy since junior leagues many, many years ago!

Before the night was over, I presented The Fish with his winning pitcher of beer and he was good enough to toss me a consolation t-shirt. It was a great event, especially for a Monday night. We’ll be back next year to defend our Super Bowl of Bowling title, and once again I’ll make an individual bet with The Fish. Only next time, maybe I’ll try and negotiate to spot him 40 pins per game instead of 50. And maybe he'll take me up on my proposal of giving me my own weekly bowling radio segment if I win.....

Check out "3-6 With Fish" Monday through Friday from 3pm to 6pm on AM 1380 locally and on the web at http://www.krko.com/listenlive/ to listen to Jeff Aaron (The Fish), Movies With Maury, the award winning Tom "The Beeper" Lafferty, and a cast of young producers and interns of unpredictable and questionable capability. The Fish also has his own website: http://www.thefishonradio.com/