I've been having alot of success with my Thing Lives sanded to about 600 grit and decided to buy another one. I drilled it exactly like my first one but this time I polished it right out of the box to about 2500 and I do have to say that this ball is no "turd" (Phil will like that ).

No "turd" at all... the backend is very, very strong! More than what you'd expect from a solid reactive. It's usually a pearlized ball that has the monsterous flipping backend... but the Thing Lives with polish is super strong on the backend!

I would almost say Skid/Flip!

I threw my Lives matte, polished and dull, and all 3 worked wonderfully as long as I was using it on the right amount of oil.

As for how it reacts when polished, you are right on the money when you talk about the skid-flip. The ball cleared very nice but dug in hard in the mids and flew across the backend. The only other solids that I've had that backend like that have been my Blade Solid (polished) and my V2 Sanded (Polished. The Thing Lives dug in a lot harder, however, and in more oil.

The TL was probably my favorite out of all of the DT balls that I played around with.
--------------------
I can't bowl 300, but I can bench 320 : )