July 20, 2002
Well, my boasts of Skee-Ball prowess have gotten a few other folks to stick their heads out over their cubicles here at United Blogocorp Industries (see the Comments in the previous post), but I still ain't running scared. Lane's boasts of a 320 at Coney Island, which is reasonably impressive if it's the lanes I'm thinking of (a stand-alone booth with instant prizes, as opposed to ticket colelction), but I've actually broken the once-mythic 450 on occasion (with the use of the relatively recent 100-point targets), and can hit the 40 at will).
Anyway, Justin reports on his beer-glass winning siblingly exploits (though, frankly, boasting of prizes won seems a bit...gauche; Skee-Ball's really more about the pure sport, man), though doesn't say where he Skeed. I'm afraid I can't help him with that game where you try and use your quarter to leverage the Indiana-Jones-like contraption to push some of the big pile of quarters into the abyss (um...no...I don't know the real name of this, why do you ask?), I can offer a few tidbits from my years of money-pissing-away experience.
You may or may not have noticed that the top netting of the standard alley usually has a wire strip running across it. If you ever find one with this wire missing, get a roll of quarters and settle in for a ride, babycakes. When the top netting is untorn and wire-free, it can act as a slingshot shooting the balls right into the 50. To achieve this effect, simply roll the ball at a high speed towards the corner of the alley.
On a more conventional alley, the advice I usually give to newcomers is to focus on getting 40's instead of the more riskier 50's, and to try and bank the balls off the side of the lane, giving more control. If you do end up with a pile of tickets, my advice is to ignore the bigger prizes that are still pretty worthless, and instead get as many of the smallest prize as you can. My friend Keith once won about 1000 plastic spider rings and spent the next hour handing out handfuls to all the little children. Oh, what fun we had!
On a non-Skee-Ball-related note, the surest way to win a decent-sized prize on the boardwalk is at the water balloon race (where you shoot your water pistol into a oscillating clown's mouth). Simply choose the pistol of the last winner, which will have a fresh balloon on the clown. As the balloon has not already been stretched out, it will burst a second or two sooner than the others, assuming that your aim is true. (Note: don't pull this trick against a bunch of eight- and nine-year old opponents, or else you'll go straight to hell.)
Anyway, Justin reports on his beer-glass winning siblingly exploits (though, frankly, boasting of prizes won seems a bit...gauche; Skee-Ball's really more about the pure sport, man), though doesn't say where he Skeed. I'm afraid I can't help him with that game where you try and use your quarter to leverage the Indiana-Jones-like contraption to push some of the big pile of quarters into the abyss (um...no...I don't know the real name of this, why do you ask?), I can offer a few tidbits from my years of money-pissing-away experience.
You may or may not have noticed that the top netting of the standard alley usually has a wire strip running across it. If you ever find one with this wire missing, get a roll of quarters and settle in for a ride, babycakes. When the top netting is untorn and wire-free, it can act as a slingshot shooting the balls right into the 50. To achieve this effect, simply roll the ball at a high speed towards the corner of the alley.
On a more conventional alley, the advice I usually give to newcomers is to focus on getting 40's instead of the more riskier 50's, and to try and bank the balls off the side of the lane, giving more control. If you do end up with a pile of tickets, my advice is to ignore the bigger prizes that are still pretty worthless, and instead get as many of the smallest prize as you can. My friend Keith once won about 1000 plastic spider rings and spent the next hour handing out handfuls to all the little children. Oh, what fun we had!
On a non-Skee-Ball-related note, the surest way to win a decent-sized prize on the boardwalk is at the water balloon race (where you shoot your water pistol into a oscillating clown's mouth). Simply choose the pistol of the last winner, which will have a fresh balloon on the clown. As the balloon has not already been stretched out, it will burst a second or two sooner than the others, assuming that your aim is true. (Note: don't pull this trick against a bunch of eight- and nine-year old opponents, or else you'll go straight to hell.)
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