This past week we bowled on the Scorpion pattern.  I had a good look in practice and strung the front 5 and then my hold went away and I ended up with a 223 game.  The next pair the guys had obviously played left of where I was trying to play and the shot didn't look good, I tried to make adjustments but I think I wasn't aggressive enough with the move and experimented with a ball change that didn't work on the fill shot for a 169.  The next game we took the long walk to the other side of the house where they typically hook a little more, just not lanes 1-2,  I made that same ball change thinking that it'd work better on the low end, but 3 light shots and 2 splits made me reconsider this,  I went back to the Buzzbomb and ended the game with a 168.   The last game, I moved in a little bit and had a better look and ended up with a 201 and a 761 series.  My spare game was a little off tonight and my timing was off in the middle 2 games, I'm just overthinking it right now.  I need to just line up, look at a target and let it fly.   But on the good side, at least my bad games aren't complete meltdowns anymore. 

Today I got two new bowling balls, a Lane #1 Buzzbomb drilled stacked and a Complete NV drilled with the #2 drilling (because of a short pin).  Both balls are OOB. 

Complete NV:

This ball appears to be really skid / flippy.  I threw about 1.5 games with it on a broken down house shot and I had to play pretty far left with some axis rotation to get the ball to store.   Keeping the ball speed down was key because if I overthrew it, it would skate right by and leave a 2-8, 2-8-10 or a washout.  I decided to bowl the Friday night no-tap with it and shot 741 even with having a little trouble getting it off of my hand cleanly.  Turns out I have an oval switch grip thumb slug that's rotated.  That might be part of the reason I've been having some release problems lately, because the one that was rotated happens to be the one I've been using the most (not anymore).  I was the number for the first 2 cuts and shot 254 and finished 4th.  The last 2 games I used a different thumb slug that was oriented correctly and threw the ball much better as a result. 

All in all, I think it'll be a good ball for me, but very condition specific.  I'll have to try to throw it at some other houses and on some tougher conditions before I write up a review for it. 

Buzzbomb:

This ball is an absolute monster, I was standing 10-12 boards further left than with any other ball in my bag.  I was having the same release problems as with the Complete NV, but I think that issue is now resolved.  This ball looks like it wants and needs oil in order to work correctly, but it gets through the front part of the lane extremely well for a dull ball.  This will be a go-to ball for longer patterns, oil (heavy patterns, carrydown).  Again, I'd like to throw it on some other surfaces and tougher patterns before I do a full review.