On Wednseday, January 18th 2006, Country Club Lanes in Sacramento is hosting the “Drive The Lanes Wth Peja, Vlade And Friends at The 4th Annual Charitabowl.” This purpose of this event, which is not easily obtained from the site, is to raise funds for Peja’s Foundation. Great, good for them. Lanes are going for $3,500 big ones and general admission (you get to watch and hang out!) is $50. With the GA ticket you get “Autograph opportunities w/select players” and “Picture opportunities w/select players.” With an emphasis on “w/select players” of course. “Hey, Mom, I got Luke Schenscher’s autograph last night!”
The reason I know about this event, you see, is that I recently enjoyed me some bowling at the CC lanes. You remember bowling, right? That favorite collegiate pastime where, for a handful of student loan doll hairs, you could consume a pitcher or two of your favorite watered down lager, hurl a 16 pound ball down a lane in an attempt to knock down neatly stacked pins, and talk about that cute girl you met in Sosh class. Well, my reader (ok, I think I am up to three), times they have a changed.
I hit the lanes recently with a group of 7. Apparently lanes are rented out by the hour and not by the game. So at $29 per hour, per lane, you best get to bowlin’. Two lanes (shoes included!) for just over an hour, maybe an hour half, ran us $80! And the kicker is that each minute over the hour is charged .50 which quickly adds up when you are stuck in the check out line for ten minutes. Tack on another $5, please. I guess they have to pay for their 14 huge flat panel HD enabled televisions they had overhead.
So, Sacramento, is bowling in vogue? Are people paying these prices? Is their a better (by better I mean cheaper) place to bowl in the 916? If so, please comment with the specifics, because after my lights out 168 I’ve got the bowling fever something fierce.
The Sac Rag 
Yeah, indoor sports are getting more and more expensive everyday. Just last weekend I spent $50 for dart rental and another $125 for use of the pop-a-shot at Player’s.
Are they kidding? $30 an hour? What type of bowling clientele are they hoping to attract? People who have Kate Spade ball bags and buy their bowling shoes at Nordstrom?
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My neice’s birthday party was at Mardi Gras lanes (College Oak and Madison) yesterday. My brother paid $100 for 2 lanes for 2 hours. His rental included a couple of pitchers of soft drinks. For those of you in the know, $100 is pretty cheap for a kid’s birthday party.
It’s pretty crazy that the bowling rates are just now switching to an hourly rate. The $/game rate structure probably harken back to the days where they had manual pinsetters and the bowling alley’s costs were directly related to the number of frames bowled and not the time that the lane was occupied.
For CoolDMZ (econ. illiterate), the supply of bowling lanes is measured in units of hours, so it makes sense that the price should be measured in hours.
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Though I’ve never even tried to educate myself in the slightest about economics, when I do someday have a “niece” I hope to at least be able to teach her by “hearkening” back to the days when I did, however, learn fucking English.
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From Merriam Webster:
harken
One entry found for harken.
Main Entry: hark·en
Function: intransitive verb
1 : HEARKEN
2 : HARK BACK — usually used with back
My i before e’s are permanently screwed up as a side effect of choosing German as a foriegn language. (you pronounce ‘ei’ as ‘e’ and ‘ie’ as ‘i’ in German”)
My english is just fucking fine, and my self image isn’t tied to an internet persona causing me to get all hyper-sensitive every time someone e-clowns on my weaknesses.
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I thought dropping the f-bomb would be “funnier” than reminding you that your great econ knowledge did nothing but corroborate what I was saying, namely that the supply of homes is affected by factors other than the demand for homes, e-clown.
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Whateverrrr!
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You see, Luke Schenscher is a little known Sacramento King and I thought it’d be funny to reference getting an autograph from him after paying $50 to attend a…oh, nevermind.
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Luke Schenscher is German!?
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Adamant: I think you may have your German pronunciation mixed up, and I’m not e-clowning on your weakness, nor am I indulging in a schadenfreude moment.
Having worked for two German companies, I’m 99% certain that the “ei” sound is pronounced “i” while the “ie” sound is pronounced “e.” The name “Eisenhower” is one example of this, as is the German company “Siemens” that’s pronounced like the word describing people who work on a ship.
I know I know, just how nobody likes the grammar and spelling police, nobody likes the German pronunciation police either (they’re a little more stern, however.)
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so what about the cute girls you found in sosh class mr top of it?
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this article and the following comments is worth the $80! Classic.
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Went to bowl sunday at CC lanes in Sacramento $33.00 an hour!!!!!! Who the H E double toothpicks set that price? I walked, they can keep it! I was in Tahoe last week and paid $28.00 for a round of golf with a cart! I’m switching to golf!
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