They've got the biggest balls of them all...

First of all, forgive me for the reference to the AC/DC song and secondly, forgive me for my unfaithfulness to this blog…it’s been almost 2 weeks that I’ve been meaning to write this…

…ever since I saw a piece on CBS Sunday Morning that both stunned and amazed me (and I love being both stunned and amazed) about this guy in Indiana who has spent the last 18 years creating the WORLD’S LARGEST BALL OF PAINT!

I was trying to put a photo of it here, but my technological incompetence is showing...but I encourage you to check it out on:

http://ballofpaint.freehosting.net/index.html

(Umm, I’m not sure about the clowns on the wall -- clowns creep me out, as I’m sure I’ll go into with more detail sometime in the future…)

Anyway, my initial thought was, “This guy is just nuts.” Then the CBS piece explained that he keeps a log. Each coat is detailed, with date, the paint color, and who painted it. With that, in my mind at least, he took the leap from crazy to bizarrely obsessive – and I appreciate obsession in all its forms.

Next, it was revealed that prior to Alexandria, Indiana being the home of the world’s largest ball of paint (aka BOP) the town’s claim to fame was that they had fished an enormous hairball out of a town sewer, which was purported to be the...

WORLD’S LARGEST BALL OF HAIR!

It was a hairball of a proportion that even my cats couldn’t match -- at least the size of a beach ball.

And that is when the BOP began to make perfect sense. And suddenly, there was nothing I wanted to do more than drive halfway across the country, grab a roller and paint that ball.

At the end of the piece, a teenage boy is shown, saying the ball has given a purpose to his life – he is working on creating the world’s largest ball of plastic wrap. Which seemed simultaneously funny and sad…

Anyway, if I have piqued your curiosity about the BOP, the aforementioned site has a plethora of info including this quote:

Mike's next goal is to get the Ball of Paint at 20,000 coats! But it wont
stop there! Mike continues to paint the ball as long as
possible.

It won’t stop there?? Is this a clue to some twisted dream of world domination?

Turns out you can buy a T-shirt or pieces chipped off the BOP from the website. Maybe this guy ain’t so crazy after all?

Evidently, I’m not the only one fascinated by the big balls…a documentary was made about the town -- “Roadside Ambition: the Amazing True Story of One Small Town With a Huge Set of Balls”

To see more about the documentary, and the town of Alexandria, Indiana: http://www.ballofpaint.com/

This is a wonderful country we live in, isn’t it?

See you in Alexandria!