For the last 12 years, my arsenal has been dominated by Storm. That's not all I've thrown, and there have been times (like about a year and a half ago, when I briefly went with Track before migrating back to Storm) when I've thrown several different companies.

I switched to Storm for good around the time the original X-Factor came out, and for good reason. I still consider that ball to be the best ball ever made by any company, with second place being a fairly big step behind.

Prior to that, I'd gone back and forth between Storm and AMF. During all this time, I had a total of three Lane #1 balls: A Cherry C/2 Pearl that I used completely up and then gave away, and a Gold Nugget and an Enriched Uranium that I hated.

Then, earlier this year I found a Nugget cheap that had a different drill pattern and surface prep than the one I had before, and tried it out. I was very successful with it. Then, a member here, SprayNPray, suggested I get a Tsunami H20. I did, and liked it as much or better.

The cinch for this deal came last week. I went to the Alabama State Bowling Tournament and couldn't get anything to work other than my two Lane #1 balls. The rest of my team did OK but I was the only one to put up big numbers at any point.

I've tried to figure out why this is happening, and best I can tell, it's happening based on a change in my game. During my heyday with Storm, I threw with a wrist brace, with virtually no tilt to speak of, and was a speed-dominant player. These days, there is no wrist brace, my revs are way up and I can modify my release a lot easier. I have much more tilt.

I've gone from not matching up with Lane #1 at all, to matching up with it better than most anything in my collection.

So in the last couple of weeks, I've procured a used Dirty Bomb and a new Evolution. I'm going to bowl extensively with them over the next month and if I like them as much as I hope I do, I'm probably going to shift my preferences full-time.

Which means I'll have to find something to do with about 20 Storm balls. (g) Actually, I still like many of them -- Storm's a great, great company -- but if my game doesn't match their core/cover combos anymore, a change must be made.

Jess