Anyone else here throw some bocce ball? The family and I have been throwing some for the last couple of months, weather allowing. I got turned on to it by a friend of mine from the Marine Corps, he's currently working in Central Asia (in the vastly inferior Republic of Kyrgyzstan, whereas I worked in the vasly superior Republic of Kazakhstan a few years ago), he mentioned it when we were solving all the world's problems by instant message.

That reminded me of watching the old Italian guys play bocce when I was in Monterey studying Russian LO! these many years ago, and I thought about it a little and looked around and picked up a starter set from Academy Sports here in Texas.

Don't know bocce? Here's a very quick primer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bocce

In the same way that I see the kilt as an ur-garment, I see bocce as an ur-sport. I've seen internet articles linking it back to the Roman Empire, claiming that the legions brought bocce back from North Africa, where it was played with coconuts.

I can imagine lawn dart bocce, I can imagine all sorts of bocce. It's basically, "Hey, let's throw something out on a field, and then see how close we can come to hitting it with this stuff" (with "this stuff" being dependent on whatever it is you have to hand, coconuts, acorns, whatever).

I don't know. We have a lot of fun at it, we can go out and throw for five minutes, or for an hour. Needless to say, we don't play by the rules (Walter Sobchak asks "Am I the only one here who cares about the rules?" heh heh the Coen brothers rock) but we have fun. Rules in bocce? HA!

But, um, don't mean to ramble here, I mean to ask if anyone else plays bocce?